Free The Dragon and the Pearl by Jeannie Lin Page A

doing?’
    ‘Mending, for Auntie. I am making use of the daylight while I still have it.’
    She bent to her task. The silver needle darted in and out of the cloth, guided by her skilful fingers. He was surprised to see it was one of his tunics. She continued chirping away while she worked.
    ‘Auntie told me she used to be a seamstress. She is much slower now than she used to be. Her joints are swollen and her eyesight is not as keen as it once was.’
    ‘You do not need to do that.’
    The elegant Ling Guifei shouldn’t be bent over such a menial task.
    ‘I am nearly finished,’ she protested. ‘It is not so different from embroidery… There.’
    She pulled the end of the thread taut and bit through it in a tiny flash of teeth. His stomach tightened involuntarily at the careless gesture. He lowered himself on to the seat beside her.
    Her gaze raked disapprovingly over the dust that covered his clothes. ‘You were gone for three days this time.’
    ‘There were urgent matters I needed to attend to.’
    ‘These urgent matters are keeping you longer and longer.’
    Questioning him as if she were the mistress of the house seemed to put her in oddly good spirits. She perched over the arm of her chair and waited expectantly for an answer. She was becoming more comfortable in his presence while he was more on edge every time he saw her.
    ‘Did the August Emperor confess all his secrets to you like this?’ he asked.
    ‘Yes,’ she replied impetuously. She ran her finger along the sleek, polished wood. ‘Tell me all your troubles and I will nod and sigh until they float away.’
    She demonstrated with a wordless, gentle murmuring in the back of her throat that caressed over him. He laughed and shook his head at her display.
    All a lie, he reminded himself. A very pretty lie and he was charmed in spite of it.
    ‘Gao’s army is moving south,’ he began.
    He watched her face as he continued. It remained a careful mask, clean of any emotion.
    ‘As well as the Emperor’s,’ he added.
    Her lightheartedness faded. ‘You say this so calmly.’
    ‘This was inevitable.’
    ‘Is this what you wanted?’
    ‘No.’ That one word of confession was more than he had spoken to anyone about the inevitable battle before him. He passed a hand over his temples and the weariness poured into him as if the dam had cracked open. ‘I seem to want to tell you things I shouldn’t.’
    ‘Then keep the secrets you need to keep,’ she said gently. ‘Tell me the rest.’
    It could be a ruse. It most likely was a ruse, but it sounded like kindness.
    ‘Emperor Shen wants to control the jiedushi out of fear of rebellion,’ he began. The tension wound tight around his chest like iron chains. ‘But without our armies, the borders will crumble.’
    ‘Yet you weaken the empire by challenging Shen.’
    ‘So a sovereign should never be challenged?’
    She considered his answer for a long time, but said nothing.
    ‘There was a time when Shen might have listened to me, but now…’ He closed his eyes and laid his head back.
    ‘What of the other warlords?’ she asked.
    ‘Too shrewd to take sides, but Gao is forcing the issue.’
    A lesser man might attack the weaker positions first, but Gao didn’t want a drawn-out struggle. He’d take out the strongest first and watch the others fall in line with him. The old wolf had even managed to find a way to do it under the guise of serving the Emperor.
    ‘Gao has always known how to manipulate the court. With a thousand servants inside the palace, all he needed were a few under his control.’
    He opened his eyes to see Suyin stabbing the needle into a pincushion. She folded the tunic into a neat square in her lap, smoothing out the corners fastidiously.
    There was no need to ensnare her into the trap he was caught in. He could return her to her home by the river and wash his hands clean of her, but Gao still wanted her dead. She needed his protection whether she desired it or not.
    ‘Do you