Chapter Nine
Yihui lay on a fiery cloud of softness. The cushions were suffocating, the blanket too light and yet too heavy at once. Where was she?
She turned her head and saw a man watching her.
“Baba?” she croaked, thinking it was her father. He had looked at her that way the morning he’d sold her to the Wong patriarch. But this was not the floor of her brother’s bedroom, neither was she on the straw pallet that made up her bed.
“Yihui? Would you like some water?”
She frowned, not understanding his words.
Nevertheless, the man came forward and gently lifted up her head.
Cool water touched her parched lips, and she drank greedily.
He was patient, keeping her head supported while she swallowed.
And then, when the cup was empty, he gently set her back down on the finest pillow she had ever used.
This was definitely not her father nor was it her home. It took her some time to remember. In truth, the temptation to slip back into oblivion pulled at her, but she fought it. To sleep was to miss opportunities.
Her grandmother had taught her that. Indeed, her grandmother had taught her everything of value, including how to appear subservient while doing what was needed to create the life she wanted.
At her father’s home, that had meant quietly memorizing everything about making medicines.
She’d learned his recipes and her grandmother’s potions.
And now she used that knowledge to survive.
But to do that, she had to fight the haze in her mind.
Her memories came back slowly. They’d broken her feet the night before she was to be given to the white ruler.
That had been smart of them. She would have escaped the moment the ship docked otherwise.
But with broken feet, she had no choice but to submit.
She was dressed, carried, and presented to the English king only to have him reject her.
She’d been given to a lesser man. He was the one who sat beside her now.
And while she looked at him, she remembered the way he had burst into her room.
His fists had seemed like hammers, slamming Weed and Pervert out of the way.
And then when she thought Lao Gu would finally kill her, this white man had defended her with such force that an opportunity had appeared before her.
He was definitely not a “lesser man.”
Still, she understood that he was not the king.
He didn’t look like someone Heaven favored.
His face was rugged, not smooth, with angles that were not refined.
The length of his earlobes was stingy, though the distance between nose and upper lip suggested favor in his middle years.
As for his hands, his fingers were blunt.
Indeed, he appeared to have broken two of them sometime in his youth.
And yet she found him appealing nonetheless.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
Damn him for speaking slowly. If he had rushed his words, she wouldn’t be able to catch his foreign sounds. But he spoke clearly and gently, forcing her to work as she ferreted out his meaning.
He asked after her health. It was not a question she wanted to answer.
She already knew she was dying.
She could feel it in her fever, in the burning pain of her feet, and the swollen heaviness of her legs. But she could be wrong, she reasoned. It was possible she was just ill from a fever that had little to do with broken bones.
That was a false hope, but one she clung to even as she slowly maneuvered herself upright.
He helped her, his hands large on her back.
Such strength he had. Not in muscles, but in qi.
Her captors had been physically strong, but their inner soul was weak.
Not this man. His energy flowed like a golden river beneath her back. It pulsed with the life of a good man.
She dipped into it as much as she could, leaning back against his strength as he adjusted her pillows.
She could not steal his energy. That was the work of a vampire, and she was not such a creature.
Instead, she let it flow across her skin and in time, her own qi responded, giving her the wherewithal to finally look at her injury.
She pulled back the covers and peered at her feet.
It was bad.
Her feet were swollen to the size of melons and though there were no red streaks coming up from the infection, she knew they were there, just beneath the skin. She must have made a sound of distress because he squeezed her hand.
“Stay strong. You must fight for your life.”
What did this rich foreigner know of fighting for anything?
She winced. That was the pain talking, even in her head. She was being surly. She’d spent her childhood learning about medicines for the sick, carrying tea packets to the ill, and offering hope to the dying. Now she was the one who needed medicine, and she was terrified.
She looked into the white man’s eyes and tried to tell him what to do. She knew there was only one chance for her, and the sooner she took the medicine the better. But how would she explain it to him?
“I—” Her throat was very dry. “I—”
He gave her water, and she drank more. It was clean water, much fresher than anything she’d had on board.
“Thank you.”
He nodded. “Can I get you some food? Broth?” He mimed drinking soup.
She shook her head. “Need medicine.”
He nodded as his gaze ticked toward her feet. It was a slight flick of his eyes, but it told her that he knew the source of her illness.
“No one will hurt you here,” he said.
Her lips curved in gratitude. Safety was something rare in her life. She felt it now as it shivered into her body through his chi.
“Need medicine,” she repeated.
He shook his head. “You shouldn’t take too much laudanum.”
She frowned. Was he speaking of opium? “No opium. Medicine. Need…” She didn’t know the English word. “Plant? Small plant.”
His eyes widened. “What plant?”
She didn’t know how to explain, which meant she would have to get it herself. Gritting her teeth, she swung her feet out. She would find it and make the tea herself. It was her only chance.
“Woah!” he cried out, obviously alarmed. “You can’t walk!”
It was this or die horribly. She set her weight down on her right heel and nearly howled. The pain was excruciating, and he grabbed her as she swayed, gently laying her back on the bed.
“You can’t,” he repeated. “You must rest.”
But she’d die without the plant. “Need medicine,” she repeated.
He frowned, his gaze quickly scanning the messy room.
“Can you draw it?” he asked, miming writing with his hand.
Then, once he was sure she wasn’t going to fall over, he crossed to a writing desk and pulled out paper and ink.
He brought it over to her on a lap desk, setting it carefully across her body.
But what was she supposed to use? The hardened feather seemed very strange to her.
“Do you understand?” he asked. He dipped the quill in the ink and scratched it across the page.
Ah, of course. But when she reached for it, her hand was too unsteady, the weight of the quill too light, and the ink blobbed and botched. Her face heated with fever and embarrassment. How was she going to draw what she needed?
She set the quill down in disgust. “I go.”
“You cannot walk.”
“I go!”
“Where?”
An excellent question. She did not know this place where she was held, and she knew even less of London.
If she walked around, she would likely be able to find it soon enough, but she couldn’t manage it on her feet.
Meanwhile, his gaze traveled from her to something across the room.
His brows abruptly narrowed, and he got up.
Curious, she watched him cross to a messy bookshelf. He grabbed something rolled up in fabric and brought it over. And then he set it before her.
“Maybe this will help,” he said as he untied the fabric.
Brushes appeared before her, set neatly in soft cotton. These she knew how to handle. She picked one up. It settled nicely in her hand, and she was unexpectedly grateful for something familiar in so strange a place. The ink was difficult to manage, but she figured it out soon enough.
But what was she to draw?
She started with a building. She didn’t want to draw an outhouse, but that was always a good place. Pigpen? There had to be places like that here, except the window out the other bedroom had shown her trees, cobblestone, and stately houses.
“Is that an apothecary shop?” he asked.
She had no idea what that word meant.
She drew pigs, but she was very bad at that. Then people. Little better.
“A stable? Is that supposed to be stable?”
Oh! Of course. Horses. That would have dark, dank corners.
She hoped. Now how was she to draw mold?
Her grandmother had taught her that when all else failed, a tea made from the mold that grew on the sides of buildings could save a life.
Her father had disdained such wisdom, of course.
He would not lower himself to go to such places.
But the women knew, and they taught each other through the generations.
And now, Yihui prayed it would work for her.
She darkened a corner of the building she’d drawn.
“Is that mud?”
She knew that word and shook her head. She looked around and pointed at some colored paints on the same shelf as the brushes had been. He got them for her, and she carefully brushed dark green into the shadows.
“Medicine,” she said.
“That’s not medicine,” he said, clearly appalled. “That’s…that’s dirt and…”
Yes, she knew what else was there. She’d been the one to gather it for her grandmother. They’d used it on the women who were sick after childbirth. It wasn’t pleasant and it tasted terrible, but it worked.
She took the thinnest brush she could find and carefully drew the stages of growth for the mold from its earliest moments to its mature appearance.
He would know that she had studied it under magnifying glasses to see that there were many different types of mold.
Assuming, of course, that such things grew here as they did in China.
He stared at her, his mouth hanging open in shock. “You cannot know… You don’t mean…”
She didn’t need to know English to understand that he was refusing to go. That it was too demeaning a task for one such as him. Which meant it would have to be her.
She set aside paper and brush then made to stand again.
“No! No! You can’t walk. I’ll…I’ll get it.” He sounded appalled by the very words. “But what are you going to do with it?”
She mimed putting it in tea and drinking it. He shuddered in reaction.
“That’s not medicine,” he said firmly.
Any other time she would have pandered to his arrogance.
No man liked to be shown as ignorant, especially not wealthy men, but she hadn’t the strength to argue.
The drawing had sapped her energy and she could feel her fever growing.
She slammed her hand down on the paper, the sharp sound making him jump.
“I die,” she said. Then she pointed to the paper. “Medicine.” And her only hope.
“That can’t be healthy. It can’t—”
“Chinese medicine.” She glared at him. “Women’s medicine.”
He stared at her. Her skin was damp, her feet throbbed, and her breath was coming fast, but she refused to waver. She needed that medicine.
Slowly, his gaze dropped to the paper. “You’re a strange people,” he said. Then he grunted. “I’ll have to go to a public stable. Nerney would rather die that have mold anywhere near his tack.”
She didn’t understand his words. All she could do was repeat what she’d already said. “Medicine. Tea.”
“Yes, yes. I’ll get it.” He ran a distracted hand through his hair.
“Quick. Please.”
“Medicine. Tea. Yes, I’ll go now.”
He bowed politely to her before leaving. Such a sweet gesture to bow to her. In that simple movement, he gave her respect. Better yet, he listened to what she wanted even though he didn’t understand why.
She leaned back and closed her eyes, replaying in her mind everything she knew of this man.
She saw his fist connecting with Lao Gu’s jaw.
She heard again his kind voice when he sat beside her on the donkey cart.
Then she lingered on the memory of him carrying her up the stairs to the yellow bedroom.
He had such casual strength as he carried her.
It matched his chi which flowed with such light.
Was he the man who owned her now? If she lived, would she then surrender to this golden man and live her life in service to him?
The idea was tempting. Many would accept such a fate with gratitude. She let the idea of his hands on her body settle into her thoughts. That could be very nice. In fact, in her fevered state, the idea took root.
And yet, she knew that it was a dream. She would not surrender to him, no matter how he delighted her.
When opportunity presented, she would run.
She had skills and would use them to create her future.
Surely the English people needed someone who knew medicine.
They would pay her well for her teas and no man would interfere in her life.
Her future—if she had one—would be free of all men, including him.
“I vow it,” she said as she bound her chi to her words.