by Jeannie Lin
‘Jinmei, show Lady Ling to her apartments.’ Li Tao cast a dismissive glance in Suyin’s direction before turning to leave.
Insufferable. She flushed hot with anger as he disappeared down a corridor. He had treated her with the same indifference throughout the journey. She had been taken from her home under force of arms, yet he cast her aside as if she was of no importance at all. It was—it was worse than being interrogated and threatened. At least then she’d know what his plans were.
The head woman touched her arm gently. ‘Come with Auntie Jinmei.’
The guards marched behind them as she led Suyin through the spacious hall.
‘Guifei is more beautiful than they say,’ Auntie cooed, using the revered title the August Emperor had bestowed upon Suyin. ‘We are honoured and overjoyed for this visit.’
A pleasant visit indeed. Escorted by fifty armed men.
Auntie padded along in her slippers and led Suyin past the parlour to the interior rooms. The chambers stood silent and spacious with furnishings laid out in neat angles. Everything was meticulously dusted and nondescript, as unrevealing as the master of the house.
She followed Auntie outdoors through a central courtyard with a carefully arranged garden. The gardener brushed his wiry fingers over a hedge before cutting with his shears. His eyes neither focused on his hands or the sharp blades in front of him as he worked. When he addressed the lanky youth by the fish pond, his gaze remained vacant, stopping just short of fixing on his target.
The youth caught her eye as she passed. He looked to be sixteen, grasping at the edge of manhood. A clump of damp grass hung dripping from one hand while he watched her. His left arm hung rigidly against his side, the fingers of his hand withered and gnarled like a pigeon’s claw. She tore her gaze away with sudden embarrassment.
Auntie beckoned her along. ‘Master Li would want Ling Guifei to have the most luxurious of accommodations. We hope the lady will be pleased.’
The image of the blind gardener and his crippled assistant lingered. In the palace, even the lowliest of servants were chosen for physical beauty to perpetuate the illusion of perfection.
In the eastern section of the house, Auntie led Suyin up a staircase. Her assigned guard stayed outside the double doors as they entered the apartments.
‘Good light. Positive energy from all directions.’ Auntie walked in first, opening door after door. ‘In the mornings Ling Guifei can watch the sun rise over the cliffs.’
The woman reminded her of the elder servants who had served in the palace for so long they nearly held rank. Their speech and manner might be subservient, but they possessed all the cunning in the world after the secrets their eyes had seen. In the palace, Suyin had learned never to underestimate the servants. She had formed alliances wherever she could.
Auntie took her through the sheer curtain on to the balcony. From there she could see the ridge of the grey cliffs in the distance. The clean, crisp air of the forest surrounded them. Gripping the wooden rail, Suyin peered at the yard below.
Li Tao had imprisoned her on the second floor. A vast gorge opened up beyond the edge of the stone tiles. The granite walls plunged sharply to disappear into oblivion. Even if she were brave enough to make the climb from the balcony, there was nowhere to run.
She had been through all of the possibilities. The warlord could be holding her hostage, which was unlikely as she no longer had any allies in the empire. His capture of her could be purely an act of defiance against imperial authority. More likely he thought she held some vital secret. There had been a time when she had had many secrets at her fingertips.
Suyin called out as Auntie started to sink behind the curtain, ‘How long have you served the Governor?’
‘Fifteen years, my lady.’
From the beginning, then. Suyin leaned once more over the rail and breathed deep, catching the scent of moss and dampened earth.
From the very first time anyone had ever heard of a man named Li Tao.
Chapter Two
Li Tao loosened the leather strap that secured the sheath against his arm. He was alone in his study, shut away from his soldiers, the servants, and from her. The illustrious Ling Suyin was deep within his stronghold and far from the grasp of his enemies. Now he had time and space to think. To consider.
He drew the thin blade concealed beneath his sleeve and set it across the desk amongst the folded letters. A pile of grey ash lay beside the candle, the remains of the note that had sent him beyond the barricade on a whim. The message had been unsigned and the language obscured. Deliberately so, no doubt, in order to make it impossible to gauge its significance. The report informed him that the military governor, Gao Shiming, had sent men to capture Ling Suyin, or Ling Guifei as she had been titled by the late August Emperor.
The former Precious Consort. A woman who should have meant nothing in the schemes of courts and men now that her benefactor was dead. She had been installed at an isolated river bend to live out the rest of her days in exile. What would Gao want with such a woman?
His instincts told him it was a ploy, but for once Li Tao ignored them. The cryptic message had held a warning, but also something else. Almost a promise. It insinuated he’d regret it if he didn’t act quickly. The Precious Consort’s name stood out among the characters. Ling Suyin.
At the height of her fame, gossip had streamed from the imperial city of Changan about her. She was a seductress, a fox spirit, the most beautiful woman in the empire. In the prosperity of the old regime, poets and courtiers could fixate on a single woman and make her into a goddess.
Li Tao had caught a single glimpse of her the first time he had been to the palace. The hunger that had gripped him had been immediate and all-consuming. He had been a young man then and had hungered for many things: acclaim, respect and power. The sight of her now, more than a decade later, stirred nothing but a faint echo of that forgotten desire.
At first, he had assumed the old wolf must have been obsessed with Lady Ling after seeing her on the Emperor’s arm for so many years. Perhaps Gao wanted the unattainable beauty and glory she represented. But Li Tao had intercepted assassins stalking toward the river bend. Shadow men sent to kill swiftly.
The assassins had died before they could be interrogated. The last of them had fallen on to his own blade to avoid being taken alive. It required money and influence to hire men with that level of dedication. Lady Ling apparently still held some value. A rival warlord wanted her dead, someone else wanted her alive, and he had been lured into the centre of it.
He sat down behind the desk and pinched the space between his eyes, trying to ease the gathering tension. A pile of papers lay stacked before him. A summons demanding his presence in the court at Changan lay on top. Below that, more proclamations stamped with imperial seals.
Over the past years, the imperial forces had diminished while the border armies under control of the jiedushi had grown stronger. The imbalance frightened the ministers in the court enough to try to limit the power of the military governors. As if crippling a strong limb would mask the weak one.
Li Tao ignored the decrees and edicts. His duty was to protect this domain, as the late Emperor had decreed. He’d do it even if it meant defying Emperor Shen and his meddling court. He had kept the borders secure and maintained peace within his district, putting down potential uprisings and keeping his captains in line. And he’d built up his army.
Gao had accused him of treason for these actions. The coward had made his claim a thousand li away before the imperial court. Li Tao needed to switch tactics to face such an enemy. He needed to use subterfuge and artfulness. He needed someone like Ling Suyin. That must have been why he’d been compelled to bring her here.
It was a lie. He shoved the proclamations aside. Lady Ling was here because she had been alone when he found her. She’d been abandoned. She’d been pale with fear when she’d seen him, yet the courtesan had regarded him with elegant resolve, as if she still held the empire in her thrall
. He could have interrogated her by the river. He could have left her at the provincial seat in Chengdu. He could have simply ignored the cryptic warning. Instead he had taken her with him into his domain, to the place he’d worked so hard to keep away from outsiders.
He’d placed her in the south wing in the same room where his once-intended bride had stayed. The arranged marriage to the Emperor’s daughter had collapsed before they’d ever set eyes upon each other. How Gao must have delighted in that failure. In the last year, he had been visited by nothing but disaster and now Lady Ling had materialised like another ill omen.
This agitation of his senses was nothing more than the draw of any male to an alluring female. Yang to yin. But he would never make the mistake of thinking of Ling Suyin as a mere woman. She was a seductress and a shrewd manipulator. A she-demon in the guise of a beautiful woman.
Her treatment was extravagant for a prisoner. Auntie brought tea and ordered a wooden tub brought to her apartments. The bath water had to be heated in cauldrons in the courtyard and hefted up the stairs in buckets, but the guardsmen performed the task without complaint.
Suyin was left alone to soak in the steaming bath, but her muscles remained knotted and anxious. What could Li Tao possibly want from her? She considered all the possibilities, even the blandly obvious one: desire. But a powerful warlord wouldn’t seek a courtesan nearing her autumn years, or go across barricades to do so. Not when there were younger, more easily attained comforts within his borders.
In the imperial harem, a concubine who had not caught the Emperor’s eye by the age of thirty would be cast out to a convent or given to a lower minister for marriage if she was fortunate. She was nearing that age now. Besides, Li Tao didn’t look at her the way her admirers always did—with lust and yearning. Perhaps a touch of awe. Men couldn’t hide it, not even before the August Emperor. She would catch it in their heated stares before they looked away.
They were never truly looking at her.
There was no such shame in the warlord’s eyes. His gaze fixed on her so intensely, as if trying to pierce into her and pry her secrets loose. He’d find nothing there. She could fill the shell of her body with whatever spirit she needed.
The cooling water told her that her mind had wandered. She rose and dried herself without calling for Auntie. With her hair still damp, she pulled on the pale sleeping shift and crawled into the alcove of the bed, succumbing to the exhaustion of the journey.
Her body didn’t care that she was trapped in a tiger’s den, though her mind churned throughout the night. It ran with no destination.
When morning came, a shuffle of movement in the outer chamber awakened her. Her muscles ached from the restless slumber.
She sat up and eased her feet into a pair of slippers before going out into the outer chamber. ‘Auntie, what is all of this?’
The sitting room resembled a flower bed with a dress in every colour draped over the chairs and tables. Auntie lifted an armful of rose-coloured silk, vibrant and layered like the petals of an orchid.
‘The lady will look very beautiful in this.’
Suyin found an empty space among the wardrobe to seat herself. The gowns were as exquisite as the ones she had worn in the palace. Trade had dwindled in the marketplaces over the past year. Checkpoints and barricades had been erected between the provinces, stifling trade. Such finery was unseen outside of the twin capitals of Changan and Luoyang.
Strange that Li Tao would have such a collection waiting for her. She thought again of her initial suspicion, but nothing about his behavior indicated he wanted her in that way—excerpt for that one, brief flash of heat by the river.
She could never be another man’s mistress—even if she outlived the late Emperor by a hundred years she would belong to him only. It was imperial law.
‘Auntie must think the Governor and I are already lovers,’ she prodded.
The old woman pursed her lips as she laid a gown carefully over the painted screen in the corner.
‘Your master didn’t tell you that I was coming, did he?’
The loyal servant wouldn’t answer. ‘Which would the lady prefer?’ Auntie asked.
The old woman’s eyes flickered over the sea of colours. Auntie had been a young girl once. That part of her must still long for delicate, pretty things.
‘It would be quite a scandal, a former concubine and a military governor,’ Suyin went on.
With a sniff, Auntie moved to draw the curtains open. Her laboured footsteps scuffed against the rug on the floor. ‘Master Li wishes to speak to the lady this morning.’
Sunlight streamed in a wide band through the centre of the room. Suyin curled her legs up beneath her and watched Auntie as she returned to the sitting area.
‘What if I told Auntie that the governor has brought me here as his prisoner?’
‘The lady asks too many questions. She must get dressed before Master Li leaves.’
Apparently, Li Tao was not one to care about scandal and Suyin could do nothing to penetrate Auntie’s unquestioning acceptance of her master’s actions.
She selected the rose-coloured silk and followed Auntie behind the dressing screen. Auntie’s hands were slow as she tied on the embroidered bodice and pulled the outer robe over it. When Auntie bent to smooth out the layers of the skirt, Suyin wanted to urge her not to make such a fuss. There were no younger girls in the household staff to help with the task. No wife, no family. The mansion was so empty that one could hear every creak of the floorboards.
Much like her own home by the river.
Auntie evened out the ends of the crimson sash and tied it around Suyin’s waist, leaving the ends trailing down. Then the old woman beckoned her before the mirror.
‘The lady’s hair is thick and black as ink.’ Auntie ran a brush through in long strokes. ‘She is fortunate.’
One day she might live to be grey and bent like Auntie. Her skin would wither and she would be unrecognisable. Perhaps then the empire would grant her peace.
‘Auntie should know I am not the Governor Li’s mistress. I only met him a week ago. We’ve never spoken.’ She tried to catch the old woman’s eye through the reflection in the glass, but Auntie’s head remained bent at her task. ‘I am loyal to the memory of the August Emperor.’
Auntie sniffed again. ‘Master has always been loyal to the August Emperor.’
‘But not to Emperor Shen.’
Suyin winced as Auntie tugged at her hair to wrestle it into a knot. The point of the ivory hairpin jabbed into her scalp. She would have no ally here.
The claws of the familiar game were closing in, the one she had mastered in the imperial court. Who could she trust? Who would help? She had played it ever since being taken away from her home as a child, bought for the bride price of a hundred copper coins.
Watching Lady Ling was like watching a well-crafted opera. She sat before him in the parlour, shoulders lifted in elegant repose, a peach blossom against the colourless walls. The curve of her lips as she sipped her tea was too perfect to be unpractised.
‘I have been thinking.’ She glanced at him over the rim of the cup. ‘It’s not me you want.’
‘What is it that I want?’ he asked.
‘I’m nothing but a symbol. Capturing me must be as significant as—’ she looked at him with a sideways glance ‘—capturing a flag. Why else would a warlord have any interest in a lowly concubine?’
‘Lowly,’ he mused.
He leaned back against his chair to study her. Suyin was undeniably beautiful. So much so that it was both hard to look at her and hard to look away. Soft, sensual mouth and skillfuly expressive eyes wide. The ivory-pale skin at her throat alone made his fingers itch.
‘You were once a courtesan in the pleasure district of Luoyang,’ he remarked.
‘A long, long time ago, Governor.’
‘Many secrets flowed through Luoyang.’
She smiled at him. For him. ‘Wine and music and all sorts of secrets.’
‘I have no need of a mistress.’
His words fell impassively, yet his stomach knotted at the thought of this woman in his bed. Merely a twinge before it was gone.
Her lips pressed tight. She set her teacup down with a distinct clank against the wooden table. ‘I wasn’t offering.’
Never directly. The unspoken was always so much more tempting. He could continue to let her tease and beguile or he could set the terms.
‘They say you can bring a man to his knees with a single look,’ he said.
She propped her chin on to her hands with wicked interest, well aware of the picture she presented. ‘They also say I seduced the Emperor and brought down the empire.’
‘Nonsense.’ He found his pulse increasing to the rhythm of their exchange. His body warmed and he almost liked it. ‘I know what will bring down this empire and it has nothing to do with one man’s obsessive love for his precious concubine.’
‘The Emperor never loved me.’
The abruptness of her denial surprised him. Looking downwards, Suyin traced a fingertip absently over her teacup. A ripple of sadness crossed her face. The imperfection heightened her allure and disappeared so quickly he wondered if she had put it there for his benefit. He would go mad trying to decipher her.
‘They say things about you as well.’ She was no longer trying to charm him. Her voice sharpened to a dagger’s point. ‘About all the men you’ve killed.’
‘At the Emperor’s command,’ he replied evenly.
‘And they were all at his request?’
‘No.’
The lady carried herself admirably. It was only after his prolonged silence that she blinked away.
‘The Emperor died of illness in his bed, Governor Li. I had nothing to do with it, despite what the rumours may say. If…’ She faltered, staring at the dragon ring on his second finger. ‘If that is why you’ve come for me.’