The Dragon and the Pearl

by Jeannie Lin

  ‘Watching you.’ She stroked over the pad of his thumb. ‘Do you know I can read palms?’

  ‘Can you?’ His breathing deepened as if he was drifting once again. He must have been particularly drained that morning to remain in bed for so long. ‘What does mine show?’

  ‘A strong life line and your head line curves downward. Your head will always rule your heart.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  His hand twitched reflexively as she drew an aimless pattern over it. His fingers were broad and long, the skin rough. He opened his eyes to gaze at her through heavy lids, the glint of his pupils tiger-like. They lay face to face. So close.

  If he would only stay. If they could only remain like this, cocooned together like two silkworms. Secure.

  ‘Now I know all your secrets.’ She followed the outline of his arm, trailing over the sleek muscle of his shoulder. ‘All your weaknesses.’

  ‘I have no weaknesses.’

  ‘None?’

  He squirmed as she explored his ribcage with a feather touch. Then she dug her fingers playfully into his side to make him jump. He jerked awake and surged over her, pinning her beneath his weight. Deep laughter filled her ears and she lifted her fingertips to the curve of his mouth.

  He so rarely smiled.

  Their bodies moulded together and she became keenly aware of the dangerous beauty of him: smooth, hard and strong. A perfectly tempered weapon. For a brief moment, she saw the longing in his eyes before they clouded with desire. The unexpected tenderness pierced deep into her heart.

  Madame Ling had always warned her that these emotions were fabricated. She must never allow herself to believe the illusion. Never allow herself to fall in love. If she had lost her chastity in the pleasure den in Luoyang or in the Emperor’s court, then her courtesan sisters could have taught her how to shield herself.

  Li Tao hardened with arousal. They had slept unclothed with this promise between them. A moan caught in her throat as he settled his nakedness against her thighs, seeking her warmth. His skin flushed hot against her. She curved her arms around his neck and her hips lifted towards him without thought. He pushed into her in one clean motion. A soft sigh of acquiescence escaped from her lips as her body accepted him. The arc of sensation plunged her once again into dark waters, into the unknown.

  His black eyes fixed on to her face as he thrust into her. His gaze became distant as arousal and need took over. This was the only way the barriers between them were ever removed. Only in the joining of their bodies, nowhere else.

  She willed herself to be unmoved. This was nothing but flesh upon flesh. A man taking his own pleasure. But Li Tao continued in a steady rhythm and her body opened up to him, pulling her unwilling heart on a thread with it. Each penetration implored a new surrender from her that she knew she shouldn’t give.

  But her sex flooded and her heartbeat quickened despite her defences. Tao was still watching her, urging her to join him as the desire coursed between them, him into her and back again. Her breasts swelled, pressing against the hard plane of his chest. She forced herself to hold still, anchoring her hips down towards the bed.

  His jaw clenched as he fought to force back the tide. Tension vibrated within his muscles as he held himself over her. It wasn’t long before his eyes clamped shut and he sank his head against her shoulder, his thrusts growing more forceful. She wanted to cling to him, her fingers digging into his hips to urge him on. Instead, she curled them into the feather mattress as his ragged breath fanned against her collarbone.

  He shuddered, every muscle locked as his passion overflowed and his seed spilled into her. Then, in a final exhalation, he grew still. For several long moments, he allowed himself to lie there, cheek rested against the swell of her breast; his skin was damp with perspiration. That space of idleness had to be an indulgence for him. Dawn was past and morning was upon them.

  Without a word, he raised himself from her and left the bed to tug on his trousers. She kept her eyes fixed on the alcove above, listening to the faint sounds of his movements.

  He returned to her and when he spoke his voice held a faint trace of humour. ‘Perhaps I can please you tonight.’

  His lips brushed against her forehead and she had to shut her eyes against him. She gathered the quilt around her, pulling the edge of it to her chin. His words reminded her too sharply of what they had between them. This was a physical liaison with an ending already foreseen. Why did her spirit insist on reaching out to him?

  In the far corner of the room, she could hear the splash of wash water, the careful opening of the dresser door. He readied himself each morning without servants. Li Tao was a secretive, distant man even to those closest to him. This would never change.

  She waited for a long time after the closing of the door before rising. She waited even longer, ensuring that he was gone from the mansion, before calling Auntie to her to prepare for the day.

  His duties took him to the administrative offices in Rongzhou that day. It was the closest walled city to the bamboo sea and the provincial governor had summoned him there for a meeting. Yet when he arrived, it wasn’t the bureaucrat that greeted him. Rather it was the bureaucrat’s retainer.

  The man droned on and Li Tao’s thoughts drifted to Suyin. She’d been uncustomarily quiet when he’d left her. Perhaps she’d stopped playing the enchanting courtesan for him and this was her true self. It was impossible to discern and he didn’t want to wonder about it. He wanted to enjoy her conversation and her beauty and the willing infatuation that came with being with a woman like Suyin.

  But he did wonder.

  This worthless functionary was still speaking his obsequious drivel.

  ‘Why didn’t the governor come to me himself?’ Li Tao interrupted.

  That slight show of ire was enough to make the man pale. He rambled off an apology about his master’s inability to make the appointment.

  Li Tao glared at the retainer impatiently. Men like this were suited only for carrying out simple orders. The provincial govenor was Li Tao’s administrative counterpart and the man lived in fear of offending his superiors in Changan.

  ‘If Governor Chou needs to speak to me, he can come to me himself.’

  ‘But the provincial governor needs your assurance that there will be no conflict with the Emperor’s armies when they arrive.’

  What would Shen do? The imperial forces were already scattered wide. Shen didn’t have the reach to oversee the southern district.

  ‘Tell Chou I’ll do what’s necessary, as always.’

  Li Tao made a motion to leave the meeting room, but the retainer rushed to block his path.

  ‘Please! Governor Li must sign this.’

  He stared down at the scroll as the retainer unfurled it. A declaration of undying and absolute loyalty to the Emperor, written in more lines than necessary. The servant flinched when Li Tao looked up at him. The hands holding the ends of the scroll visibly shook.

  ‘Now, why would we need such a decree when we’ve already sworn to serve the empire?’ he asked evenly.

  This time, the man stood aside. In moments, Li Tao had his bodyguards gathered about him and he was back in the saddle, heading for the city gates.

  A waste of time. Chou hadn’t come to meet him because he didn’t need to. All he needed was a piece of paper. The coward didn’t even need his seal on that worthless declaration of loyalty. Chou could make a claim that he had attempted to defy the rogue warlord, in the name of the Emperor. He’d hide behind this flimsy show of alliance with Changan.

  These bureaucratic games weren’t worth his effort. Yet as they left the gates, he thought of Suyin’s advice. Negotiate with Shen. It was too much of a gamble when Gao already had him defeated in the imperial court. Li Tao couldn’t leave the district now with two armies bearing down on them, especially not to fight in the sophisticated battlefield of Changan where he was outmatched.

  Li Tao directed his men east. He had planned to inspect the fortifications at the
junction of the Tuojing and the Long River that day. His armies would need to hold the arteries that fed the southern province. Without those supply lines, neither Gao, nor Shen, could take him.

  Once he was done, he’d have to ride late into the night to return to the bamboo forest. To Suyin. It certainly wasn’t efficient or practical, but he’d told her he would. She had been in his bed when he left. She was bare beneath the covers with just enough smooth skin showing for the image to provoke him long into the day.

  She’d let him leave without a charming look or clever word. That was how they would usually part, with her sultry teasing. It was expected and she obligingly did it to amuse him. The craft of the courtesan was in making a man feel like the lord of the earth, after all.

  It was what he had wanted, wasn’t it? Diversion. Something to think of besides civil unrest and warfare in the night. It was counter-productive to overthink. The bureaucrats could cower behind their scrolls and offices. All that mattered was that he and his armies knew what to do when it was time to act. Suyin would be long gone by then.

  She had been waiting in the sitting room for hours by the time the chamber doors opened that night.

  ‘I wonder,’ she began, making a point of being the first to speak. ‘I wonder if you imagine that I simply remain here motionless and vacant until the moment you return.’

  Her back remained to him as she sat on the padded chaise. From behind her, she heard the creak of the door as it closed, followed by the measured pace of his footsteps.

  ‘I do not think that at all,’ Li Tao replied calmly.

  Either he misread or completely ignored her acid tone. He was still bold enough to rest a hand on her shoulder, his thumb caressing the edge of her neck. A shiver ran down her spine despite her dark mood.

  ‘Sometimes I imagine the way you look when I leave, asleep in my bed.’ His voice resonated deep within her.

  This was not working. She shifted away from his strong fingers, which had managed to seek out the most sensitive spots on her neck.

  ‘Do you know it is past second hour?’

  She turned in her chair to challenge him and was stricken by the sunken shadows beneath his eyes and the exhaustion that weighed down his shoulders.

  ‘I thought for certain you would be asleep by now,’ he said. ‘Come, let’s go to bed.’

  At his whim and mercy. She wouldn’t have it. ‘There are things I wanted to discuss with you.’

  ‘Suyin, we’re both tired. We can talk in the morning.’ He took hold of a strand of hair that had fallen loose and ran it through his fingers, his knuckles gently brushing her cheek.

  His placating tone, the careless affection, and his assumption of command all combined to confuse her emotions. She was touched. She was enraged.

  ‘Fine. Morning then.’ She stood and cast him a pointed look before circling and heading for the door.

  ‘Suyin.’

  The tiredness and resignation in his tone was unmistakable, but she pushed through the corridor past his study and into the main house. With each step, she was well aware that no one followed.

  The snap of the cold air in the courtyard shocked her and she pulled her shawl tight around her shoulders, even though the material was too thin to provide any warmth. She hurried along the stone pathway through the gardens. Through the side archway, she spied the lantern light from the night patrol as they walked the perimeter. Moonlight bathed the scene in a silver glow.

  The moon that was growing rounder each night.

  No lanterns had been lit at the rear of the house where her guest apartments were located and she was forced to slow. The last thing she wanted to do was wake Auntie or any of the others over a quarrel. With her hand on the rail, she felt her way up the stairs and navigated to her room.

  The doors opened to a black void and the desolation of it encompassed her. It had been weeks since she’d occupied the guest apartments. She’d taken to sleeping in Li Tao’s chambers when he was gone. Suyin hesitated at the threshold. Li Tao’s bedchamber was at least heated and his presence beside her an undeniable comfort. But it was only temporary and she couldn’t control her emotions when she was with him.

  She shuffled into the darkness, her hands out in front of her like the sensing whiskers of a cat. Deliberately she left the door open, needing the glimmer of light it provided. After many slow steps, inch by inch, her fingers brushed against the polished wood of the sitting area. From there, she remembered enough to stumble towards the bedchamber.

  The day had been agonisingly long, but at least Auntie and Jun and Cook had distracted her. Night-time was always the worst. After the evening meal, which Li Tao never shared with her, she had nothing to do but wait.

  Her toe connected with a table and a vase struck against her arm before toppling to the floor. She only had a second to grope for it before it crashed and shattered. The violence of the sound made her pulse jump. For some unknown reason, that small calamity nearly set her to tears. She choked back the helplessness and felt her way to the bed, using her hands along the wall to find the alcove. Without bothering to remove her dress, she crawled inside, grateful that the covers hadn’t been stripped now that she no longer slept there.

  The space beneath the quilt was chilled and she curled up with the edges wrapped around her, willing her body to warm. Part of her knew this was irrational. She didn’t need to exile herself like this. But in a way, she was still a prisoner in this mansion. Every night she waited, yet had no power to make any demands on Li Tao. Removing herself from him was the only privilege their arrangement afforded her.

  The glow of a lantern illuminated the room just as a pocket of warmth gathered around her. She turned, surprised that she hadn’t heard Li Tao enter.

  ‘Suyin.’ He spoke her name coiled within a long sigh.

  She pulled the quilt tighter, as if she could burrow and disappear within the folds.

  ‘There’s a broken vase,’ she warned begrudgingly as he approached.

  The shards clinked against the floor as he kicked them aside. She rolled over to watch him as he placed the lantern on to the table. It cast the room in a muted, yellow glow.

  He sat down at the edge of the bed near her feet and leaned back against the wall, exhaustion evident in every muscle. ‘Come back to my chamber,’ he implored.

  ‘No.’

  One of her hairpins dug into her scalp as she turned her head. She tugged it impatiently from her hair and threw it to the floor. She pulled another one and another and tossed them aside, realising then that she still had her slippers on as well. Li Tao surveyed the chaos that littered the ground, speechless.

  He closed his eyes and passed a hand over his forehead, pinching at the bridge of his nose. ‘Please come back, Lady Ling.’

  Oh, Heaven and Earth, no one enraged her like this man.

  ‘Why should I?’ she demanded. ‘Perhaps you should wait for me for once.’

  ‘I do. Every hour of the day.’

  Her chest grew tight and a stinging sensation crept into the corners of her eyes. She sank an inch lower beneath the blanket. Whenever Li Tao conceded anything, it was with such carelessness that he maintained the higher ground while she was left vulnerable. Even reclined against her bed, Li Tao’s posture held a quiet, confident strength that filled her awareness. It made her mourn those empty hours without him.

  ‘You’re returning later and later every day. Sometimes not at all.’

  ‘There is much to do. The northern roads have to be fortified and the grain stores—’ He caught himself with a shake of his head.

  ‘I want to know where you go. What you do.’

  ‘It isn’t important.’

  ‘It is to me.’

  She sounded possessive and she knew it. Like a mistress, like a wife. But she was neither. She was a temporary arrangement, a courtesan meant to stroke his ego and distract him from his troubles. Apparently she was a failure at that since she had set out to trouble him that night.

  ‘
Is this what you wanted to discuss with me?’ he asked.

  If she really wanted to know about his activities, she knew how to find out. She could massage the tension from his shoulders. Draw a hot bath for him. Pour tea and warmed wine and distract him with conversation, but she didn’t merely want information.

  She raised herself, propping herself up with one arm to be able to see his expression. ‘This vigil is wearing you down,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll be fine.’ His denial was immediate, as expected.

  ‘The month is nearly gone. What will happen when the armies arrive?’

  ‘Either Gao and I will come to an understanding or there will be war between us.’

  Perhaps the great Li Tao thought himself invincible, that he could take on both the imperial army under Emperor Shen’s command and Gao’s forces combined. He could be disillusioned enough to take on the demon armies of hell for all she knew.

  ‘What about us?’ Her words caught in her throat, but she forced them past. There was no way for her to ask this question and not leave herself exposed.

  ‘You’ll be under Emperor Shen’s protection by then.’

  She made an impatient sound and wiggled the slipper loose from her foot in order to kick it off the bed. ‘The Emperor has no need for a consort. He already has a tigress of a wife. Who wants to be under another Empress’s claws?’

  ‘I wouldn’t hand you over to be another man’s—’

  The steely sharpness of his tone startled her. What had he meant to say? Concubine? Lover? She froze just as she started to work off the second slipper. Li Tao took hold of her ankle to help her. The intimate touch sent a shudder through her. A rush of warmth travelled from his hand upwards until her face heated and she could barely breathe. This was what it meant to burn for someone.

  ‘Gao wants you dead,’ he said. ‘You need the protection of someone like Shen.’

  ‘Or you.’

  ‘Yes.’ Li Tao’s hand remained on her, gripping her foot within his strong fingers. ‘That was part of our bargain. I’ll keep you safe as long as I can.’