Tao had threatened her, she couldn’t risk being trapped alone with him. Auntie stood back in the sitting area, her forehead creased in a nest of lines. This was how honest people reacted to deception. She gave Auntie a reassuring nod before stepping outside.
Jun fell into step behind her. He was tall with the lanky awkwardness of youth. From what she could see, Li Tao provided for his servants, yet Jun retained a lean wiriness that came from a childhood of scarcity. She had seen it in her village and in the streets of Luoyang.
‘How long have you served the governor?’ she asked.
She strained to hear his mumbled answer.
‘Eight years, Lady Ling.’
Li Tao presented a confusing picture. He was an efficient military governor. His men were disciplined and loyal, and he was known for promoting men through the ranks based on skill rather than social standing, much like the August Emperor. Yet the warlord surrounded himself with such an incongruous crew of servants.
‘Where did you live before?’ she asked to distract herself as they descended the stairs to the second courtyard.
‘At a monastery … an orphanage,’ Jun corrected himself. ‘Auntie asked for Master Li to take me in.’
‘That was generous of him.’ So he was capable of kindness. He also seemed to be obliging and respectful of Auntie.
Jun stopped abruptly at the edge of the courtyard. ‘Lady Ling?’
‘Yes?’
He bowed his head. ‘You are very beautiful.’
Despite her jaded nature, his sincerity warmed her. This unassuming boy, innocent and hopeful, expected nothing in return for his flattery.
‘Thank you for your kind words, Master Jun,’ she said with a smile.
He blushed furiously at that and couldn’t look at her for the rest of the walk to the garden.
They emerged through the circled archway and her attention centred on to Li Tao. He stood beneath the shade of the cedarwood pavilion. Stood rather than sat. He never paced, never made any unnecessary movements. He turned and studied her as she approached. His feral side was held in restraint; at least she hoped so. Her pulse quickened.
‘Lady Ling.’
He invited her to sit with an outstretched hand, but she stopped short of the pavilion and refused to come any closer. Jun stood by her side, looking confused.
‘It is difficult to be gracious when you held a knife to me the last time we met.’
Li Tao’s steely expression transformed into a frown. He dismissed Jun with a wave of his hand and the boy backed away, kneeling to some task behind the shrubbery.
‘I frightened you,’ Li Tao said. ‘I apologise. Please sit.’
His façade of civility didn’t reassure her. She ascended the wooden steps into the pavilion and noticed the faint shadow over his jaw as she glanced up at him. He looked unkempt, as if he’d just come from the road. She moved past him to take her seat on the stone bench.
It wasn’t only fear that caused her heart to race. His nearness stirred her blood, urging her to tempt fate. That made him more dangerous than Gao and all of the other interlopers who had ever plotted against her. When he seated himself across the table, she was grateful for the barrier between them.
‘Ru Shan is away,’ he said. ‘I will need to assign another guardsman to your care.’
She smoothed out her sleeves and folded her hands together on the surface of the table, using the casual gesture to mask her nervousness. She knew exactly why Ru Shan was away. He had used the ruse of visiting his ailing father.
‘Are you afraid I’ll escape, Governor Li? I would lose myself in this bamboo sea before I found the road.’
‘You shouldn’t be left alone. Not after what happened.’
What happened? ‘I wasn’t in any danger from anyone besides you.’
He didn’t answer for a long stretch; she was afraid she’d been too bold.
‘Accept a peace offering, then,’ he said finally.
He lifted a bundle wrapped in canvas on to the table. She stared at him in surprise as he beckoned for her to open it. Theirs was the oddest of acquaintances. She couldn’t decipher what Li Tao was to her. Adversary, protector, companion. Madman.
Perhaps she was mad as well. Why else would she be tempted to accept the tainted protection he offered? She could hide away in the cover of the bamboo forest.
Her message to the Emperor was already travelling toward the capital. Even if Li Tao wasn’t so unpredictable, she couldn’t stay. When Emperor Shen came for him, she could be implicated as a co-conspirator even though she had been brought there against her will. Or worse, they would come with swords and arrows with no pause to sort out who was who.
She reached for the bindings, but hesitated, remembering another package she’d opened in his presence.
‘It’s not a trap,’ he replied when she looked to him.
The image of the fifteen daggers haunted her. She was afraid to ask about the strange delivery, as if the mystery would hold her captive if she uncovered it.
She untied the knots while Li Tao leaned back to watch her. His offering was somewhat awkward given the circumstances, yet oddly earnest because of it. The canvas peeled away to reveal a lacquered case inlaid with abalone shell. She gasped when she lifted the lid and saw the musical instrument inside. The arrangement of the silk strings over wooden bridges sent a flutter of delight through her. She’d left her qin by the river with the rest of her abandoned belongings.
‘It’s beautiful.’
‘The instrument maker told me this was his finest work,’ Li Tao said. ‘But I have no eye for such things.’
She ran her fingers over the polished surface board, teasing the strings. The clear notes rose in the air with a sense of freedom.
‘You’re glowing.’ His tone held its own hint of pleasure.
She looked to him and wished that she hadn’t seen the quiet satisfaction in his eyes. He was focused on her. Always on her.
‘Did you ever hear me play, Governor?’
‘I never had that honour.’
‘Madame Ling taught me. She taught me everything.’ She lifted the instrument from its case and set it carefully on to the carved legs. ‘In Luoyang, I would play in the front room for an hour each night,’ she said, bubbling with excitement as she adjusted the tuning knobs. ‘Only one hour, nothing more. I would close my eyes and play and all of those men would fall madly in love with me.’
His mouth curved the tiniest bit upwards. ‘Every single one?’
‘Every single one.’
In the entertainment district
