The Dragon and the Pearl

Chapter Eighteen



Li Tao carried her from the study back to his bedchamber. They made love again, then he held her until she drifted. Not long after her eyes closed, he rose from the bed. She stirred awake as well. There could be no rest for either of them.

The spot beside her was still warm and she could hear Li Tao moving about the room. With a murmur of protest, she entrenched herself beneath the blanket. She didn’t want to open her eyes and find that it was morning. She wasn’t ready.

‘Is it light outside?’ she asked.

‘The moon is still out.’

She sighed with relief and rolled on to her stomach. The room was dim, lit by a single oil candle placed upon the bedside table. She searched for him through the halo of light. He wore loose fitting trousers and the flicker of light danced over his bare torso. Beautiful in form.

He came to sit beside her on the bed and placed something on to the table. It appeared to be a thin bamboo instrument atop a folded cloth.

‘What is that?’

‘A needle and ink.’

She started to rise, but he eased her back to the bed, his hand rubbing slow circles over the curve of her back.

‘It’s all right.’

She closed her eyes and savoured the sensual brush of his palm. ‘What is my mysterious lover scheming?’

He propped one knee on to the bed and lowered his voice even though they were alone. ‘Will you allow me to inscribe a mark on your skin?’ His palm rose gently along her spine to rest over the plane of her left shoulder. ‘Here.’

She held her breath before releasing it slowly. ‘The same design that you have?’

‘In essence. I’m not as skilled an artist.’ His fingertip traced a curved pattern against her shoulder, sending a lazy shiver down her spine. ‘The pain is not much. The needle only stings slightly.’

The pain of it was the least of her worries. Within hours, she’d be gone. Li Tao would ride out to the front line and the mansion would be locked down and abandoned. Could she allow him to brand her for ever with the mark of thieves and assassins?

She turned away and pressed her cheek against the mattress. ‘You ask too much.’

‘It’s for your protection. I have one enemy more persistent than Shen or Gao.’

His hand grew still, resting possessively against the curve of her back. Li Tao was sending his most trusted bodyguards with her along with an armed escort, but she didn’t want to be protected. She wanted to stay and hold on to what she had, despite the risk.

‘You think your Old Man will come after me?’

‘He’ll try, once I’m gone.’

His answer made her insides go cold. ‘Don’t talk like that.’

He tensed beside her, but said nothing. His fingertips stroked her hair and the stillness between them overwhelmed her. This was the only sign of permanence he’d ever offered. She was glad that her face was turned away so he couldn’t see the tear that escaped down her cheek

She wiped it away and twisted to face him. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ll wear your mark.’

He nodded and turned his attention to the items on the table. With a sense of ritual, he poured a few drops of water on to the flat stone dish and then lifted the ink stick. He ground the charcoal mixture in circular motions to yield a pool of glossy black liquid.

With careful fingers, he brushed her hair from the back of her neck, combing it to one side. She shivered as the strands tickled across her skin. He moved fully on to the bed and his thigh brushed against the outside of hers as he positioned himself.

His breath fanned warm over her as he planted a kiss against her shoulder. Then he reached for the thin bamboo quill. The end of it tapered to a point and she caught the gleam of several small needles at the end.

He smoothed his hand down the line of her spine. ‘Lay flat.’

She obeyed, folding her arms beneath her head as a pillow. There was nothing to do but accept. He ran one hand over the area beneath her shoulder and then paused with fingers outstretched to pull the skin tight. She winced when the needles bit into her, but remained still, anchored by his hold.

He stopped the motion of the instrument. ‘How are you?’

She gasped. ‘You startled me.’

‘Breathe through it. The sting will fade.’

Perhaps on tough hide like his. He moved the bamboo stick a fraction inwards and stabbed again and then again, repeating the motion. She pressed her cheek against her arm, her eyes squeezed shut. The sharp pricks continued until the pain coalesced into a burning sensation. She wavered between asking him to stop so she could catch her breath or remaining silent so it would be over quicker.

The needle stabbed up and down in a rapid staccato, boring the black ink beneath her skin. Her fingers dug into the soft flesh of her upper arms. She tried to concentrate on the scritch-scratch sound of the instrument to distract herself.

Li Tao wiped at her skin with the cloth and then continued. Little by little, the sharp sting of the needles began to blur. The pain never faded, but it receded to the edge of awareness as her body acclimated. The muscles of her back loosened and accepted the pain.

Soon the pain floated above her body, replaced by a warm halo that curled throughout her limbs. With a sigh, she let her head sink in the cradle of her arms. The sensations melded together: the searing prick of the needle, Li Tao’s firm but careful hand on her.

His fingertips stroked lightly between her shoulder blades. ‘Am I hurting you?’

‘It’s not so bad.’

As the burning receded, every other sense grew sharper. Her skin became suffused with warmth. Her breathing slowed to match the steady draw of his above her. She wanted to curl into his touch. Li Tao’s hard thighs straddled either side of her while she lay naked beneath him. The feeling of being sheltered overwhelmed her and it was impossible to deny the sensuality of the experience.

She wished she could see his expression, but she didn’t dare move while he drew the dragon into her. She closed her eyes and surrendered into the jumble of emotions that swirled through her, not at all surprised when her skin warmed and her sex grew damp with longing as the needles continued their relentless path over her. But it would only torment her if they made love again. She would always want one last time.

‘I am in love with you,’ she said when he was done. They didn’t look at one another. ‘You must know that already.’

He spoke after a heavy silence. ‘No. I did not.’

There would be no poetry or words of great feeling. Li Tao was more complicated than words allowed. Her love for him was the same; she couldn’t say when it had begun or when she had stopped pretending. When it had become more important to protect him, than to be protected by him.

She breathed in his scent and tried to capture the feel of being close to him. The design was complete and soon it would be time to go. The mark stung upon her shoulder blade, but she welcomed the pain. She hoped the memory of it, and of Li Tao’s hands on her, would last long into the journey.



Only hours later, Suyin stood outside the mansion. The rest of the household was gathered there as well. The span of the bamboo forest engulfed them. A temporary shelter waving farewell with the breeze. All of their belongings had been stowed away in two wagons. Servants didn’t own many possessions. Suyin realised she didn’t have much of anything either. It was the same as it had been when Li Tao had first come for her by the river.

Li Tao helped Auntie on to the back of the main wagon, seating her beneath the awning rigged to provide shade. They would be packed in amongst the trunks and supplies. It appeared as if they were simply preparing for a trip to the market except for the armed escort assembled around them.

Suyin stood beside the caravan as the last of the goods were loaded, wanting to hold back the inevitable as long as possible. It seemed they all moved slower. Cook inspected the sacks of rice over and over before climbing on to the driver’s seat and Jun took more time than usual using his good arm to hoist himself up beside Cook.

The mark still burned, her skin raw beneath the thin material of her robe. Every twinge reminded her of Li Tao’s mindful touch and the tender pressure of his lips against her back. He had marked her as his, only to send her away. The ache of loss overwhelmed her and she had to look away. She wouldn’t show any tears. Not when he could carry about unmoved, without a trace of emotion.

This was just his way, she told herself. An impassive face to the world that challenged him. But he erected the same wall against her, despite all their nights and mornings and moments.

Wang and the elite guards flanked the supply carts on horseback. An additional armed escort of twenty men would take them beyond the bamboo sea to the southernmost corner of the province. Li Tao was sending his most trusted bodyguards with her and leaving himself unprotected.

That was nonsense. Li Tao had an army of thousands at his command. He didn’t need these swordsmen at his side. He didn’t need her.

‘Lady Ling.’

Li Tao crouched on the bed of the wagon, holding his hand out to her. So they were done. There was nothing left to wait for. She placed her hand into his and her heart sank as his fingers closed around hers. He pulled her upwards. The arm that circled her waist was unnecessary, but welcome. She leaned against him to savour a final moment of closeness. She hoped that she had said everything in the night, with words and without, because there was no time now. And she couldn’t form any thoughts.

‘Please be careful.’

His gaze fixed on to her as hard and unyielding as ever. But there was darkness there, a flicker of pain that was only a mere echo of what she felt inside. He didn’t speak as he led her to sit beside Auntie. Then he only said her name once, low so only she could hear, as he brushed back her hair.

He turned and lowered himself from the wagon. His boots landed with a solid thud on to the packed dirt road. She followed his every movement as he walked to the front of the wagon.

‘Take care of them,’ he told Jun. The boy straightened an inch and nodded.

She knew at any moment the wagon would lurch forwards and the mansion would disappear in the distance. Her mind had woven that picture into her dreams throughout the night. She scrambled forwards to lean over the front of the wagon.

Surely she would have something to say to him. Something that could help. She had conversed with philosophers and diplomats and generals.

‘Li Tao.’

She didn’t have to call him. He was already watching her. He stood tall and starkly handsome and immovable. No matter how hard she searched, Li Tao never showed any sign of doubt or regret. His expression remain stern and fixed, so much like the late Emperor Li Ming, her once protector. A man who had irrevocably decided his fate and was living on borrowed time.

‘There is nothing honourable about fighting to the death,’ she beseeched him.

‘You already know I’m not an honourable man.’

The wagon lurched forwards, the wheels groaning beneath the weight of them. A muffled sniff came from Auntie’s side. Suyin looked back, as she always did.

Li Tao remained alone in the centre of the road with the curtain of bamboo behind him. She forced her gaze away before he became nothing but a dark shape in the distance. Her life had been a string of unwanted journeys, from the humble river bend to the imperial palace. She wanted to believe that this time she would be able to return home, that fate would allow her to come back to find it unchanged.

The ache inside her took over as the mansion disappeared from view. She stared down at her lap, her own hands feeling like they weren’t a part of her anymore.

They were going to a remote village. Cook’s family would take them in and they could disappear amongst the fields of rice and yams. Li Tao believed they would be safer there than walled inside one of the fortress cities under military control.

Now that the journey was underway, the silence became unbearable. Suyin needed some distraction. At least until they were far enough away that she knew Li Tao couldn’t come after them. Until then, she harboured a desperate hope. She kept looking behind them, imagining the sound of hoof-beats in the distance.

Auntie gripped Suyin’s hand tight and she laid her head against the old woman’s shoulder. Auntie never spoke of any children. Certainly her protectiveness toward Li Tao was much like a mother’s love.

‘Sleep,’ Auntie cooed. ‘You look tired.’

Suyin had barely closed her eyes all night. She and Li Tao had been greedy for every last moment together.

‘Maybe a week from here,’ Cook said from the driver’s seat. ‘I’ll make the Lady some special yam noodles when we get there.’

They were trying so valiantly to cheer her. She realised then that she wasn’t alone this time. Li Tao had sent more than his bodyguards. He’d sent the only family he had while he stayed behind.



The day ebbed away in stretches of silence. Cook and Auntie begged her to tell stories about the imperial palace. She described the lake and the plum blossoms in the spring, the great halls that towered over gleaming stone courtyards, making it sound like a faraway place among the clouds. There were thousands of these stories in her head about emperors and concubines and crafty servants.

‘Not these fables.’ Jun’s protest surprised her. ‘Tell us one of your stories, Lady Ling. About something exciting that happened to you.’

He leaned over from the front of the wagon eagerly, gripping the wooden plank for balance.

‘My life was very ordinary, young Jun. I walked about the palace and looked pretty. The Emperor’s caged bird.’

‘What of the insurrection? The palace was under siege for days.’

There was a gleam in Jun’s eye she had never seen before. Auntie shushed him for prying.

‘There is nothing exciting about rebellion.’ Suyin met the youth’s gaze. ‘I was very frightened. The August Emperor was dead and armed men took the inner palace by force. I thought I would be killed.’

‘For the secrets you kept.’

Jun didn’t wait for her response. Satisfied, he turned around to take the reins from Cook.

Where had this morbid curiosity come from? Jun had changed since they’d left. He seemed to stand taller with a newfound brashness. She dismissed it as a boyhood fascination with danger, but a sense of wariness remained with her.



Two travellers approached them, requesting water midway through the next day. They didn’t appear to be beggars, just worn and dusty from the journey. As soft-hearted as she was, Auntie couldn’t refuse. She rummaged through their stores for wrapped dumplings and sat them down in the shade of the wagon.

The men stared at the retinue of armed soldiers as they ate. One of them had a beard that had grown scraggly around the edges. The younger one’s face had a touch of gauntness, his skin pulled back over a pronounced forehead and sharp nose.

‘Rioting has broken out in the south,’ the bearded one said.

Suyin pulled Wang aside. A whisper would be too easy to detect so she spoke quietly and calmly. ‘Do not trust these men,’ she said, before retreating to the other side of the caravan.

Their manner was a touch too forward for peasants. If they were merchants, they carried nothing. When they finally departed, the bearded one raked his gaze over her with such lurid contemplation that Jun edged closer to her. She was touched by the fierce protectiveness that vibrated through the youth.

Was the rest of the empire becoming like this? The roads so unsafe that every stranger was cause for fear?

Wang and the bodyguards discussed the news of rebellion as they continued on the next leg of the journey. Their loyalty was first and foremost to Li Tao and they wanted to send a message to him. Once again, she heard Ru Shan’s name.

Li Tao was fighting a rebellion from within while he also prepared to defend the territory against invaders. The mood grew sullen the further they ventured. The first, feeble attempts at conversation had fallen away to silence, punctured only by the grate of the wheels.

As the wagon rumbled on, Suyin considered how easy it would be for her to convince the party to turn around and return to the bamboo sea. Cook missed his kitchen and Jun fidgeted restlessly on the seat with no gardens to busy himself with. Auntie had stopped reassuring her that Li Tao would be fine. They all wanted to go home.

Once again, the earth element in her reached out to absorb everything around her, seeking an anchor. She yearned to stay and belong somewhere. A place where her life could take root and grow. But Li Tao had sent them away to safety for a purpose. He was counting on her to lead these people. He wouldn’t let anything like sentiment muddle his judgement.



Evening came and they pulled the wagons aside. Suyin sank back as the men set up camp for the night in the wild grass beside the road. She closed her eyes against the weariness that sank deep into her bones.

‘Lady, are you not well?’

Auntie knelt over her, holding out a cup of tea. Suyin glanced over to see Cook already tending to a cooking fire for the evening meal.

‘I must have fallen asleep. I’ve been so tired lately.’

Ever since the failed trip to see the Emperor, she’d been exhausted, as if she had never recovered from the strain. She sat up, feeling selfish for complaining when she never lifted a finger. The entire household had chores that kept them busy from sunrise until sundown. She really was little more than a songbird.

‘I am fine, Auntie.’ She rolled her shoulders to shake off the feeling and sipped her tea.

‘How long have you been feeling like this?’

‘It must be because I haven’t slept. Too much worrying.’

Auntie’s voice dropped into a whisper. ‘Do you ache? Here?’ The woman touched a hand to her own breast.

Suyin’s eyes widened and that was all the confirmation the old woman needed.

‘My girl, you must be with child!’

Could it be? Suyin’s hand trailed down to her stomach. ‘So soon?’

Auntie cradled her face affectionately. Her hands felt like soft, worn leather. ‘Monkey, it only takes once. All that old gossip of you being barren.’ Auntie sniffed dismissively.

‘Auntie!’

They were whispering to one another, sharing a woman’s secret. Suddenly, Suyin was filled with a new sense of purpose. She was with child. She was with child. Such terrible power in that thought.

When the Emperor had chosen her for his charade, she had thought her life as a woman finished. No lovers, no husband, no children. Yet here she was, carrying Li Tao’s child, a part of him growing inside her.

Her eyes stung with the threat of tears. The heavens were capable of kindness after all.

‘I have to go to him,’ she whispered.

‘Lady, you can’t.’

‘But he doesn’t know!’

‘We have the child to think of now.’

Her spirit plummeted after soaring so high. Auntie was right. Li Tao had sent them away to keep them safe. He would insist on the same for his child. Yet the need to have him beside her devoured her heart, greater than any pain she’d ever known.

She sank her head into Auntie’s lap. ‘Oh, Auntie.’

‘Think good thoughts for your little one.’

Auntie smelled like an herb cabinet, earthy and medicinal. She stroked Suyin’s hair, telling her gently once again that everything would be all right. Some part of her, deep inside, yearned for this coddling. She closed her eyes and tried not to think of Li Tao riding into battle.

‘What was Tao like, as a boy?’

Auntie told her about the textile ward, the hovels stacked together wall to wall. The seamstresses would rush to finish the sewing in the daylight because candles were expensive. Suyin was reminded of the thatched house by the river she had lived in when she was a child.

‘What of his mother?’

Auntie sighed above her. ‘His dear mother, the sorrow.’

‘Li Tao’s mother was lost when he was young.’

‘Yes.’

‘Did she take her own life?’

Auntie hushed her. ‘The sorrow,’ she murmured once again. Speaking of such sadness would conjure up the restless spirits that hovered between the living and the dead.

Li Tao remained such a mystery. On their first night, after he’d taken her on the floor of the study, she had escaped to the edge of the gorge in tears. Li Tao had rushed to her side. It was the only time she’d seen fear in his eyes. He’d pulled her into his arms to protect her. The cold-hearted warlord had always tried to protect her. He was trying to protect them all.

If they hadn’t wasted so much time fighting one another, she might know him better. This man who had irrevocably become a part of her.

‘One day Tao left and Auntie did not see him for years. Auntie knew he was alive and that he remembered, because he would send gifts. Money and rice. When Auntie saw him again, he was no longer a boy.’

Suyin started to drift, soothed by Auntie’s touch and voice.

‘He had grown tall, his shoulders wide,’ Auntie continued. ‘He said we were going to Chengdu. When Auntie asked him if he worked for the military governor, he told her that he was the jiedushi.’

Suyin remembered the stir within the court. Li Tao the war hero, the Emperor’s relentless executioner, given the command of an entire military district. A great honour for one so young.

‘So you see, Tao will know what to do,’ Auntie murmured.

Auntie’s voice was beginning to fade to the edges of her consciousness. Suyin was getting so sleepy, lying there in the wagon. Her thoughts drifted to her baby. She didn’t want to send a letter, a feeble scattering of characters on paper in the hands of a messenger. She wanted to tell Li Tao herself. She wanted him to put his arms around her.

Heaven and earth, she didn’t even know how he would react to the news. Li Tao had never spoken of the future.

‘This turned out to be a happy day after all,’ Auntie said.

‘I’m very happy,’ she echoed obediently. A child was supposed to be a joyous thing. She was supposed to be elated and suffused with warmth. In truth, she was confused. The future rippled like the surface of a pond, blurred and unknown before her.

Cook was calling them to dinner, but her body was so tired. She wanted to stay and rest. She would close her eyes and think of Li Tao. Suyin wrapped her arms around herself, feeling small beneath the open sky. At that moment, only she and Auntie knew that everything in the world had changed. It was a secret.

Once again, she had a secret, but one that was more momentous and devastating than any she’d ever kept.