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