None of their affair, or mine, eh?"
He saw her clear eyes in the radiant face smiling up at him, pellucid skin, all of her emanating youth and health together with the magnetic, unconscious sensuality perpetually surrounding her that had, against all medical expectation, increased in power. Astonishing, he thought, filled with wonder at her resilience. I only wish I knew her secret and why some people thrive on adversities that would break most others.
Abruptly the doctor part of him fell away. I can't blame that ronin, or Malcolm, or anyone being mad for her, I want her too. "Curious about your cross," he said throatily, not a little ashamed. "But then life's a collection of curiosities, isn't it. 'night, my dear, sleep well."
The first cramp clawed her out of a crooked sleep that was sated with prison hulks and sloe-eyed, raving demons, the women bloated with child, the men horned and grasping her away from Tess Struan who stood guard over Malcolm like a malevolent ghoul. A second cramp followed quickly and brought her awake to reality and what was happening.
Relief that it had begun obliterated the previous hours of trepidation for it had seemed an eternity before she had slept. Now it was just past 4 A.m. The last time she looked at her clock it was almost 2:30. Another cramp, rougher than before, went through her and concentrated her on the sequence.
Trembling fingers uncorked the second bottle. Again she gagged on the putrid taste and almost brought the liquid up but managed to keep it down with a spoon of honey, all the while her stomach churning with revulsion.
She lay back gasping. Fire seemed to spread from her stomach. In moments sweat poured out of her. Then the sweating passed leaving her limp, soaked and hardly breathing.
Waiting. As before, nothing. Just a bilious, sweet sick disquiet that had, after hours of anxiety, drifted into troubled sleep. Her dismay crested. "Blessed Mother, let it work, let it work," she murmured through her tears.
More waiting. Still nothing. The minutes passed.
Then, unlike before, a startlingly different cramp almost doubled her up. Another. Just bearable. More, still bearable. She remembered the second half of the infusion and she sat up and began to sip it. The taste was bad but not as bad as the liquid in the bottles. "Thank God I don't have to take more of that," she muttered and sipped again. Another sip. After each sip a taste of chocolate...
More cramps, stronger now. An increasing rhythm to them. Don't worry, everything's happening, she thought, just as Andr`e forecast. Her stomach muscles were beginning to feel stretched and angry. More sips and more cramps and then the last drop was down. Honey jar almost empty--last of the chocolate but now even its sweetness could not mask the bilious aftertaste. A draft from under the boudoir door swayed the flame of the lamp on the side table, making the wall shadows change and dance. Stoically she lay back and watched them, her hands holding her belly against the shafts of pain, the muscles tightening and loosening, becoming more tight, knotting under her fingers.
"Watch the shadows, think good thoughts," she whispered. "What do you see?"
Ships and sails and the roofs of Paris and brambles and look, there's the guillotine, no, not the guillotine but a bower covered with climbing roses, why it's our country cottage near Versailles where we would go in the spring and summer growing up, my brother and I, darling Maman dead so long ago, Father gone only God knows where, Aunt and Uncle loving us but no substitute for darlin-- "Oh Mon Dieu!" she gasped as the first of the violent spasms slashed her, then cried out at the next, frantically crammed part of the sheet into her mouth to stop the shrieks that burst out of her and would have brought all the Legation pounding on her bolted door.
Then the chills began. Ice picks into her guts. And more violence, twenty times worse than the worst monthly cramps. Her body heaved against the strain, limbs twitching in time with the waves of torment that ripped from her loins and into her head.
"I'm going to die... I'm going to die," she moaned, her teeth grinding on the sheet, muffling the screams that followed with more spasms and chills and more, on and on and on and then stopping. Quite suddenly.
At first she thought she had truly died but soon her senses focused and she saw that the room had ceased spinning, the flame of the lamp was low but still burning and she heard the tick of the clock. The hands of the clock pointed to 5:42.
She struggled up in the bed, feeling awful. A glance in her hand mirror frightened her. Ashen features, hair lank with sweat, lips discolored by the medicine. She rinsed her mouth with some of the green tea and spat into the chamber pot and pushed it back under the bed again. Grimly she fought out of her soiled nightdress, used a damp towel to clean her face and neck as best she could, combed her hair and lay back exhausted but feeling better for the toil. It was only then that she noticed the red smear on her nightdress, thrown carelessly onto the threadbare carpet.
A quick examination confirmed that blood was seeping. She arranged a clean towel between her legs and, in the dawn, lay back once more, almost sinking into the mattress with fatigue. Warmth spread through her tired limbs. The flow increased.
Sunday, 9th November: "Illustrious Chen said to tell you anything that might affect the tai-pan, Elder Sister,"
Ah Soh began uneasily. "The night before last Golden Pubics started her monthly and sh--"
"Ah, that's why she took to her bed and would not see my son," Ah Tok said. They were in her room at the end of the corridor, safe from prying ears. "He was like a teething child all day, worse this morning, it's time we went home."
"Yes. But listen further: she says it's her monthly but I know her dates like my own. It seems not possible. Normally she is like any young civilized virgin, regular, though..." Ah Soh toyed nervously with her smock, "though now that I remember it her last one was sparse, almost as if she missed it."
The older woman belched and used a toothpick. "To miss, or to be little, or irregular with all the anxiety over my son's wounds and the vile, murdering barbarians surrounding us here is ordinary news, not unusual." On the table between them were various bowls with the remains of her lunch: sweet sour soup, stir-fried mixed fresh vegetables, a ginger basted fish with soy, pork slivers in black bean sauce, garlic prawns, and rice. "It's ordinary, Younger Sister."
"What is un-ordinary is that yesterday morning when I went to bring her tea, and hot water to bathe, I had to bang several times to awaken her and she would not let me into her room, just shrieked rudely, "Go away!" through the door in that vulgar voice of hers, and then..." Ah Soh dropped her voice dramatically, "... just minutes later, Big Pointed Nose, that other sort of foreign devil our foreign devils call Frogs, he knocked softly like this." She rapped three times, then a fourth. "She let him in at once!"
Ah Tok blinked. "At once? Him? The Frog? She let him in but not you? You saw him?"
"Yes, but he did not see me."
"Ayeeyah! That was clever. Go on, Younger Sister!" Ah Tok said, now hanging on every word. "Go on."
"He stayed a few minutes, then came out carrying things wrapped in a brown piece of silk. Like a thief in the darkest night. But he did not see me spying on him." Ah Soh paused again, loving--like all Chinese--to be the purveyor of gossip and secrets. "... Or even when I followed him."
"By all gods great and small, you did?" Ah Tok poured two glasses of the Madeira wine they savored. "Long life, Younger Sister, may your Jade Gate never trouble you. Go on, go on!"
"He went down to the shore and got into a rowing boat and rowed out to sea. After a while I saw him drop whatever it was over the side into the sea."
"No!"
"Yes. Then he rowed back. But he didn't see me, never."
"What could it have been?"
Ah Soh leaned closer. "When Missee let me in I looked around carefully. Her bed and nightdress were soaked with sweat, and she looked as though she had had a Happy Valley fever.
Her personal towels were soaked, heavier than usual. She told me to clean everything, to bring hot water and not to let anyone in--even the tai-pan. As soon as I had done what was necessary she flopped back in bed and went to sleep."
"That's not strange, but Pointed Nose is!"
Ah Tok nodded sagely. "This is like donkey dung, shiny on the outside but still all dung.
Clearly he disposed of something for her."
Ah Soh hesitated. "Your Honored Son, is there a chance he has lain with her?"
Ah Tok cackled. "I am sure he has tried but Golden Pubics will not let his Celestial Stem relish the breaching of her Gate, though she flaunts it every chance she gets.
I've heard him moaning her name in his sleep, poor man. Disgusting, if she was a civilized person we could arrange the price and that would end it."
Ah Soh watched Ah Tok thoughtfully pluck a piece of the decimated fish head with her chopsticks, suck the bone clean and spit it into her bowl. The younger woman would gladly have partaken of the leftovers, their cook not as good as Ah Tok's. "How's your cook these days?" she asked innocently.
"Improving. The dog comes from my village so he had promise. I'm training him, of course." Ah Tok grimaced. "Baffling, Younger Sister. How is the Empress today?"
"Irritable as usual. The flow continues, stronger than normal. Medicine Man Giant came to see her this morning but she would not see him, told me to send him away. There's someth--"
"Has my son seen her yet?"
"She will see him this afternoon."
"Good, today his tongue's like an asp to his old Mother over her. Pointed Nose and Pubics in a secret plot? Smelly, smelly indeed.
Keep your eyes and ears open, Younger Sister."
"There's something else." Ah Soh's eyes rolled with excitement. She reached into her pocket and put the cork on the table. The lower part was stained purple to black. "I found this under the bed when I was reaching for the chamber pot."