The patient, indulgent lover of the morning was gone. He was now the warlord who expected his orders obeyed. 'You will be returned to the bamboo sea.'

'Whatever this is, your men can handle it,' she insisted. 'You must go to the Emperor.'

He was already shaking his head before she finished. 'It's not safe for you here...with me.'

She wanted to shout at him that nowhere was safe. They had discussed how important this was. This was Li Tao's last chance to fight the accusations of treason. War would follow if he didn't appeal to Shen. Death would follow.

'Tell me,' she implored, trying to command him the way he commanded his men. With will alone.

A look of pain crossed his face, or was it anger? She would never be able to read Li Tao. He always warded her away, building the barriers higher and stronger.

'There are soldiers,' he told her. 'A regiment heading for the provincial border in advance of the approaching armies.'

'Imperial soldiers?'

Li Tao didn't respond. He led her to where w.a.n.g waited astride a horse and lifted her up behind the head bodyguard.

'Please, think carefully about what you're about to do.' She grabbed on to Li Tao's wrist when he tried to let go of her. 'Gao Shiming wants this. He wants to prevent you from meeting Shen.'

His eyes met hers one final time. The emptiness behind his gaze chilled her. All her charm and grace and persuasiveness meant nothing. They were strangers again.

'There's a man in this city I need to see to,' he said.

The statement was not quite directed at her. There was no more time for questions. w.a.n.g directed the horse towards the gate just as Li Tao's soldiers a.s.sembled behind him, disciplined and ready. The last thing she saw was Li Tao stalking toward the city centre with sword drawn.

Li Tao rode down the dirt path with his personal guards beside him. It had only taken a day to secure the provincial capital. His men had surrounded the administrative offices and wrested control with hardly a fight. The fight would come later. Another day to have the prisoners brought to him so he could learn exactly why they'd come. More days and more hours to organise his troops.

Once the capital was under his control, he headed back to the bamboo forest. They switched horses frequently at relay stations to travel as fast as possible. The days and hours were in short supply; every minute carried countless demands.

The mansion emerged through the forest. He should have sent a messenger. w.a.n.g could have been trusted to carry out his orders, but Li Tao came in person anyway. There was no doubt in his mind about why.

Suyin emerged before the entrance like a G.o.ddess in blue silk. She paused at the top of the steps with the stone guardians framing either side of her. Again he sensed the echo of that first hunger of his youth, but stronger this time. Suyin had grown into her power and beauty. It hurt to look at her. The ache of wanting.

A woman like that could convince a man of anything. He'd allowed her to convince him that there was one last chance for peace. He'd wanted to believe so much that he'd been weak with it. She'd wanted to believe as well.

He chose his words carefully as he approached. Nothing soft and flattering came to mind. There was only hard truth.

'There will be no meeting with Shen,' he said.

She paled, then took a steadying breath. 'Come inside.'

Auntie and the servants were gathered in the front parlour. She went to Auntie first and squeezed her wrinkled hand. 'See, he's alive.'

The old woman nodded. At Suyin's quiet instruction, Auntie took the others back into the recesses of the mansion.

Suyin turned to him once they were alone. 'We all were frightened for you when you didn't return.' She was feeling her way around him, hesitant.

'There was an important matter I needed to see to.'

'You must be tired. Cook has supper prepared.'

He shook his head in a flash of anger. They just did not have the time any more. Not for simple pleasantries. Not for indecision. Not for this game of power and desire they always played.

'Come with me,' he said with a roughness that only revealed his anger, but none of the rest. None of the bitter disappointment. None of the faint hope that was now gone.

She took his hand and the cool touch of her skin soothed him beyond comprehension, but he denied the comfort she offered. He needed to remain alert, honed. He tightened his grip as he led her down the corridor to his study. They were barely inside before he shoved the door closed and dragged her into his arms.

Her breath caught as his mouth found the delicate skin of her throat. She shuddered, arching her neck to give him more. His arms tightened desperately around her. He wasn't being gentle, but Suyin knew he wasn't a gentle man.

Li Tao anch.o.r.ed his hips against her. He wanted to lift her in his arms and take her there, against the wall. He would lock her away and lie with her until neither of them could stand.

Suyin wrapped her arms around his neck. 'Tell me everything.'

Her voice cut through the grip of desire. The tension drained way and he let himself just hold her. Soft curves and jasmine perfume surrounded him. Suyin always managed to penetrate deep to the soft, vulnerable organs hidden inside. It was too tempting to keep her near him. Tempting and dangerous.

'It was Gao. One of his regiments has slipped in close while the provincial governor withheld the reports. The messengers I sent to Shen were also stopped.'

He'd always ignored Chou as a harmless, gutless bureaucrat, but his counterpart wasn't as worthless as he'd thought.

'I stripped Chou of any authority so he can no longer be a nuisance.'

She stiffened against him. 'You've wrested control of the entire province.'

Suyin's tone was full of regret. Li Tao had none. He'd spent over a year building an army for this moment. All lesser obstacles had to be removed to prepare for the greater threat.

'My soldiers protect this district and keep it safe from invaders. This province was always under my control.'

He could see how she rebelled against his claim of authority. What would she suggest now? More peaceful discussion? It was much too late for that.

'Was the governor allied with Gao?' she asked.

'He was simply not allied with me. He wanted to make that clear to anyone who would question it.'

His hold tightened around her waist. The silk of her robe slid wondrously beneath his hands. She smelled so good. War was all but upon him, but he insisted on taking just this moment.

Li Tao didn't have a moment to waste on anything but the defence of the province, but he was still right to come back. He'd needed to see her and to hear her voice. And he'd needed something else.

He lifted his head to catch her gaze. 'Tell me why Gao wants you dead.'

She paused, breath held back. Still hiding. 'I don't know.'

'Suyin.' His tone carried a hint of warning.

'I've been trying to figure out why since I came here. I truly don't know.'

'The men we captured were messengers. Gao wants a meeting.'

'A meeting?' A hundred thoughts flickered across her face. 'He must want to negotiate a deal with you directly.'

'That will never happen.'

Li Tao couldn't attack Gao's troops directly. That would be the last evidence the old warlord needed of Li's defiance. Yet Gao had made a move to circle around the imperial forces in order to arrive early. Li Tao had miscalculated. Gao wanted something else besides bringing him down.

'I need to know everything about Gao, starting with why he sent men after you. Gao wanted you dead and someone else wanted you alive.'

'I have no loyalty to Gao. You believe that, don't you?'

She blinked up at him, her eyes wide and vulnerable. Involuntarily, his hand tightened around her waist. He'd already risked too much for her. He might be foolish enough to risk even more, but he wanted to know what he was facing. He wouldn't be ambushed in a blind alley.

'Tell me everything,' he demanded softly.

He guided her to a chair and relinquished his hold on her to face her. She smoothed her robe over her knees. Elegant, graceful, biding her time. He waited.

She managed a small, mournful smile. 'So now you're my interrogator?'

When he refused to be charmed, her shoulders sank. 'Gao was the one who discovered me in Luoyang.' She exhaled slowly, with some effort. 'He brought me before the August Emperor.'

'You were under Gao's control from the beginning.'

She flinched. Her lips parted to deny it, but she couldn't. 'It would be easy to think that all of this was part of a larger plan, an intricate plot. I was only fifteen. I knew nothing about emperors or palaces. Gao came with a party one night to the pavilion. I didn't know who he was, but Madame Ling fawned over him. He came back the next evening alone to watch me from the other side of the curtain.

'My hands trembled so badly, I could barely play. I sensed he was a man of influence. That night he paid to be able to look at me with the curtain pulled back.'

His knuckles clenched. 'Only to look?'

She nodded quickly before continuing. 'The next night Gao came back with a note for five hundred taels of silver and ushered me into a litter headed to the imperial palace. Madame was happy to comply. Her fame in the pleasure district would be immortal.'

'Gao thought your beauty would easily capture Li Ming's heart.'

She stared down at her hands. 'Gao always thought he owned me, but even with all of the warlord's manipulations, the Emperor never called me to his bedchamber. I became worthless to him.'

Li Tao struggled to remain dispa.s.sionate as he listened to the explanation. Suyin had done what was necessary to survive. He'd done the same.

'What did Gao tell you to do?' he asked.

A hand fluttered nervously to her throat. She swallowed. 'I didn't want to be noticed. I tried to disappear. I was only one pretty face among hundreds. You've heard the stories, haven't you? Of concubines being pushed into wells, strangled by eunuchs, slaughtered by jealous emperors.'

For every ten poems speaking of the virtues and graces of the Emperor's concubines, there was one tale of sorrow.

'You still haven't told me anything that would cause Gao to come after you,' he said, his voice hard, his heart harder. He had to remember how clever she was. Suyin had risked her life by agreeing to go with him before Shen, yet she still kept her secrets.

'Please, come sit, Tao.'

She gestured to the place beside her, but he didn't comply. He moved around to sit down in the chair opposite her, where they could remain eye to eye. After a pause, she withdrew and sat with her hands curled together in her lap, acknowledging the small defeat.

'Beautiful women are so very expendable to men of power,' she remarked lifelessly.

The accusation wounded him when he should have been impervious, but he revealed nothing. He merely stared at her, willing her to continue.

'I could describe schemes against the throne, against other warlords, against you.' Suyin pierced him with a glance. 'Sometimes it was as simple as a small remark to the Emperor or finding a bit of information that Gao wanted. I would later discover that someone had been exiled from court, or even executed. Did I cause these things to happen? I don't know.'

'Tell me everything.'

She looked up, surprised at how he mirrored her words. 'I murdered the Empress,' she said quietly.

'What?'

'I killed her. And her child.' Suyin wrapped her arms tight in front of her to keep from shaking. Her eyes filled with tears. 'Not because she threatened me or because I held any ill will towards her. I did it because I was alone and I was weak.'

Chapter Seventeen.

Imperial Palace-AD 743

16 years earlier

It was a misconception that castration rendered the palace eunuchs effeminate and pa.s.sive. Yao, the Empress's eunuch, held the knife to Suyin's throat with more viciousness than any man.

'Do you understand, wh.o.r.e?' The high pitch of his speech chilled her spine.

She gave the tiniest of nods, biting her lip to hold back a sob of fear. Two months in Changan and she already knew the palace of dreams for what it was: a gilded nest of snakes. And now she didn't have Madame Ling to protect her. The den mother's motives had been callously self-serving, but Madame had needed her and had kept her safe in the pleasure district of Luoyang.

Yao had stolen into her room in the dead of night to threaten her. The eunuchs were given access to the women's court as if the only danger a man could pose was between his legs.

He hissed his orders in a harsh whisper as she scrambled up from her sleeping pallet. She pa.s.sed a hand over her throat as she dressed in the dark, the press of the knife looming oppressively over her.

'Take this.' At the door he placed a cup into her hands. Then he waved the knife in front of her face and pointed across the quarter.

Yao had made himself clear. She would bring the brew of herbs to the Empress. Suyin could not protest that this was not her duty. She was a chosen concubine by t.i.tle and not a servant, but once the women had learned a woman of the evening had wiled her way into the Emperor's court, it became a harem pastime to heap a mountain of trivial abuses on her, the punishment of a thousand cuts.

The lanterns were lit in the Empress's palace at the south end of the women's quarters. Suyin hurried through chamber after chamber with the eunuch at her heels.

The Empress lay reclined inside her private apartment, her face nearly as pale as her sheer nightdress. She glanced up and frowned. The palace touted the Empress as a great beauty, but whenever Suyin looked upon her, her face was always twisted into a sneer of displeasure.