"'I know,'" she said. The flat, maternal steadiness of Madam Lin, which was the steadiness of a woman who had been raising a hero and had lost him and had found something else to organize herself around. "'I've been taking the herbs Suyin has been providing. I know what I'm doing.'"
He looked at her.
Her chin came up.
"'I'm not fragile,'" she said. "'And it's yours. Don't look at me like a patient.'"
He looked at both of them.
Chen Yun and Wei Lingyue had arrived behind him, three steps back—they had stopped when the six women came out of the cave, the social geometry of the moment producing a natural pause—and were observing the proceedings with the specific quality of two women who have just been introduced, without introduction, to the full scope of the arrangement they have joined.
