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She had finished wiping down the stools, boxes, and other ihtened up, a small frown between her brows

"Do you remember the woman you saw yesterday? The one with the retarded little boy?"

"Not sohtly as possible "Why? Here, can you deal with this?" I gestured at the folding table I used, which was stubbornly declining to fold up properly, its joints having swollen with the da it, then struck the offending joint sharply with the side of her hand It gave way and collapsed obediently at once, recognizing superior force

"There" She rubbed the side of her hand absently, still frowning "You wereher to try not to have any more children The little boy--was it an inheritable condition, then?"

"You enital syphilis"

She looked up, blanching

"Syphilis? You’re sure?"

I nodded, rolling up a length of boiled linen for bandaging It was still very dans of the late stages--yet--but it’s quite unmistakable in a child"

The u to her skirts He’d had the characteristic "saddle nose," with its pushed-in bridge, as well as a jaw so malformed that I wasn’t surprised at his poor nutrition; he could barely chew I couldn’t tell how e and how much to deafness; he appeared to have both, but I hadn’t tested their extent--there being exactly nothing I could do to reive hiht help with the malnutrition, but there was little else to be done for him, poor mite

"I don’t see it so often here as I did in Paris or Edinburgh, where there were a lot of prostitutes," I told Bree, tossing the ball of bandages into the canvas bag she held open "Now and then, though Why? You don’t think Roger has syphilis, do you?"

She looked at me, openmouthed Her look of shock was obliterated by an instant flood of angry red

"I do not!" she said "Mother!"

"Well, I didn’t really think so," I said h--and you were asking"

She snorted heavily

"I was asking about contraception," she said, through her teeth "Or at least I meant to, before you started in with the Physician’s Guide to Venereal Disease"

"Oh, that" I eyed her thoughtfully, taking in the driedis reasonably effective Not absolute, by any means, but fairly effective Less so, after the first six months"--Jemmy was now six months old--"but still effective"

"M so like Jah "And exactly what else is effective?"

I hadn’t really discussed contraception--eighteenth-century style--with her It hadn’t seee, and then it really wasn’t necessary, she being already pregnant So she thought it was now?

I frowned, slowly putting rolls of bandage and bundles of herbs intois soe, soaked with anything froh if you have it, tansy oil or oil of cedar is supposed to work the best I have heard of wo half a lemon, but that’s obviously not a suitable alternative here"

She uttered a short laugh

"No, I wouldn’t think so I don’t think the tansy oil works all that well, either--that’s what Marsali was using when she got pregnant with Joan"

"Oh, she was using it? I thought perhaps she’d just not bothered once--and once is enough"

I felt, rather than saw her stiffen, and bit h--we just didn’t knohich once She hunched her shoulders, though, then let thehtless re it--but she h, does it?"

I slung the bag of surgical linens and dried herbs over my shoulder and picked up the medical chest by the leather strap Ja that alorks is celibacy," I said "I suppose that isn’t a satisfactory option in the present case?"

She shook her head, her eyes fixed broodingly on a cluster of youngstones across the creek

"That’s what I was afraid of," she said, and bent to pick up the folding table and a pair of stools