This is the story of how Lucas and Paige first met, years before the events of House of Cards, in late nineteenth century Indo-China. A rip-roaring adventure yarn, written with Kris Kunkel.

See this tale in Word format here

The carriage bumped and jingled on the thin road between the rice paddies, making its way toward the white-washed villa on the overlooking hill. It was composed of several low buildings all with a weathered appearance, but the factor had promised that it housed a wonderful bath, attractive compliant women, and was looking for a new supplier.

As the open carriage arrived at the villa, the gates were swung open by a young boy in just a loincloth. He offered a lopsided smile and gibbered in Tonkinese at the driver. An elderly woman emerged from the main house with an umbrella to shade their impressive looking guest.

"Mistress Summer is expecting you," she greeted in halting French.

It was hot on the streets - the sort of baking heat that seemed to rise up from the stone and earth that composed the track. One might expect anyone who travelled in an open carriage to arrive a little heated, a little dusty. But the slender figure who stepped down from the carriage and under the shade of the great umbrella seemed undiscomposed by the heat and dust. His white suit was immaculate, and as he carefully removed his hat, no sheen of sweat shone on his face, not even a band around his brows to mark where the hat had rested. Not a youth, but a man coming into the prime of life, perhaps thirty, perhaps a little older. He was clean shaven, perhaps in token of the climate, but had a small, neat moustache.

"Good," he said.

He drew a card case from his inside pocket, flipped it open and withdrew a thick white card, all with one hand.

"Tell your mistress," he said, "that I shall see her in person."

The name on the card was Lucas St Vire.

The woman bowed and withdrew, never turning her back on him in disrespect. When she reached the doors to the main house she didn't enter, but asked the man to follow. Leading him around to an entrance to the courtyard, she opened the door for him, before following him
in.

"A moment, please?" she asked as she hurried over to one of the kneeling gardeners.

"Mais certainment," said the visitor courteously.

She spoke Tonkinese, but her words were anything but hushed. /It's the Frenchman, mistress. I'd swear I've seen him before mistress, he's a devil. This same man, when I ran the house, thirty years ago. Beware this white devil./

Did a faint, fugitive smile cross the the lips beneath the moustache? Certainly the dark eyes, shaded by the hat, turned to regard the kneeling gardener.

The gardener arose from her knees, brushing dirt from delicate hands. As she turned, Lucas saw that her ao dai was made of precious green silk. She removed her bamboo non and red hair cascaded down her back. /Tani, if he's truly a devil, then he hears your words, and you've doomed us all. Now go see food prepared for my guest,/ Paige admonished the elderly woman.

The dark eyes narrowed slightly as the woman stood and was revealed to be Occidental. But as she crossed the garden to him, there was no trace of surprise visible.

As Tani scurried off, obviously happy to be out of the Frenchman's presence, the mistress of the house greeted Lucas with a low bow. "Welcome to Jade Dawn, Monsieur St Vire," she offered in slightly accented French. It had that drawl that suggested roots in the Creole of the New World. "I apologize for my head woman, but sometimes she is a bit superstitious. I promise you that such things do no sway me, nor these impending negotiations."

Lucas bowed slightly in response. "One trusted that would be the case, Madame. The Jade Dawn has the highest of reputations. It is an honour that you have chosen to receive me as our organisation's most humble representative."

His accent was pure Parisian French, matched with the languid drawl of the aristocrat - more aristocratic than was usually heard in the salons of Paris itself, however.

"Will you join me for tea, or perhaps something else?" The offer had a suggestive tone, but her eyes were almost calculating.

"Tea," said Lucas, "will be wholly delightful."

His smile was polite, courteous, a little aloof ... and his dark eyes watched her every movement, inscrutable.

She didn't seem phased by the attention, in fact she seemed to blossom under the heat of his eyes. She led him to a spacious room where Tani had just finished setting an ivory tea set. Paige poured out, first for her guest and then for herself.

She sat on a golden cushion across from the Frenchman and regarded him carefully. "Should we bandy about pleasantries, monsieur? A bit of flattery and one of my better girls," she offered.

"Or perhaps you could tell me about your organization, what it can offer me that my current arrangement doesn't?" She sipped delicately at her tea, her eyes averted humbly.

Lucas seated himself with the fluid grace of an Oriental, rather than the awkward stiffness of a European. Paige could deduce he had lived a long time in the East, and was familiar with its customs - not the conventional observation of a Western overlord, but a deeper, more intimate
understanding - as was suggested by the way three fingers curved round the delicate porcelain of the bowl he held.

"Your breeding shows in the kindness of your offer," said Lucas politely, "just as your antecedents show in your impatience to turn to business."

There was a faint smile on his lips now - he was teasing her.

"But we are two foreign devils together, Madame, and that might well be the beginning of a bond between us. In addition, Madame, we are two foreign devils that have chosen to step outside the rather dreary limitations of the lives most of those not native to these shores have imposed on themselves. I ... am a smuggler, a pirate, and a dealer in illicit trades. And you, Madame, are the madame of the finest brothel east of Siam, if the rumours are true.

"I would say we were made to be partners."

Again she bowed in slight acceptance of his words. "You need not stand on rumours, monsieur. I invite you to sample any of Jade Dawn's pleasures, without charge, of course." Again, her words hinted that she might be among those items just laid at his feet, but she made no overt gestures.

He inclined his head gracefully - perhaps in acceptance of the offer - perhaps indicating that it was something that should be discussed.

"And I would be just as interested in yours," she added.

By way of response he reached inside his perfectly tailored jacket and slid out a rather incongruously thick silver cigarette case, marked with a crest. He flipped it open, and the reason for the thickness transpired - on one side there were black cigarettes tipped with gold, and then some cigarettes rolled in a curious green paper that looked almost like linen. On the other, set within a recess, were two small ivory pipes, ready primed.

"Nicotine," said Lucas, indicating the black and gold, "hashish," indicating the green, "and opium." His thumb moved over the ivory pipes in a gesture that was almost a caress. "A small sample, Madame, which I hope you will feel inclined to enjoy."

Two quick staccato claps rang out and Tani entered with three women, two of obvious native descent and another that looked of mixed Japanese and Chinese heritage. Their ao dai were much more revealing than their mistress's. The tunics were slit to their hips and they wore no
leggings beneath. They all looked toward the Frenchman, but were careful not to meet his eyes.

Paige waved a hand toward the women. "If these do not please, I have other options available," she offered, her tone suggestive, but not overly so.

"These please me," he said lazily. "Yes, these please me, very much.

"Your names, pretty maidens?" he added in fluent Tonkinese, with the faintest of French accents.

Presumably, he had understood the old woman's warning outside, too.

"I intend to sample all three," he said to Paige. "Feel free to do the same. Although ... they are a little strong. They might go to your ... head." But his glance was to another portion of her anatomy, slightly lower down.

"All three?" Paige smiled at the fop's bravado, but the tone of her voice didn't reveal her contempt. Then again, he didn't seem to be bragging, at least not about the girls, but after all, he was sent here to sell her on their product. And the only thing more inflated than the Frenchman's product seemed to be his ego.

"Then perhaps you'll join me afterward and we'll discuss business then," she allows. "I'm sure I will have had time to sample all three by then."

"Certainly," said Lucas. He rose, and gave a little bow. "Until later, Madame."

He gestured to the woman to lead him away to whatever pleasures awaited him.

As they left the room, Paige reached for a black and lit it from a candle on the table. She puffed on it leisurely, blowing smoke rings as the 'devil' disappeared. When she heard Tani regain her post outside the room, the mistress removed a deck of cards from beneath a pillow. The pattern was a cross, as she had learned from Marie, years ago. The tarot seemed to come alive in her hands at moments, and they now warned her about this man even as they promised that he would be part of her future.

When the cigarette was done, she turned to the hashish, taking the case with her and making for the baths...

When the Frenchman finished, Tani brought him outside one of the bathing chambers. "The Mistress is inside," she said with a small quiver in her heavily accented French.

"Yes?" said Lucas. "Then I shall perhaps not need all three of these delightful trollops to bathe me."

He patted the rump of one of the Tonkinese girls ... and she retreated, giggling, blowing kisses to Lucas, and then giggling again. All the party seem in high good humour - even though the buttocks of the Chinese girl were suspiciously pink. The two girls were naked, Lucas wore a loose robe of finest silk, falling open to the waist. He didn't seem to be in the least exhausted, and gave Tani a particularly warm, sleepy smile, like a tiger who has just finished a delightful snack and has decided, on a whim, to turn man-eater.

He pushed open the doors of the bathing chamber and looked within.

Within was without, or in this case at least outside. Lucas looked on a large immaculately kept courtyard, surrounded on all sides by low, white buildings with elaborately tiled roofs that the metallic green of copper. The air was sultry and warm, lit by the glowing light of a dozen huge red paper lanterns that were hung at careful distances around the perimeter of the courtyard and, in the centre, by a myriad tiny candles that floated on the still surface of a circular lily pond. It was scented with spices, cinnamon and nutmeg, and heady sandalwood, which seemed used to keep the warmth of the water in the tubs of dark polished teak that stood dotted around the courtyard, the path to each of them a little maze of brightly coloured stones. The effect was enchanting, and Lucas stood for a moment looking at it, a little smile on his lips, watching the steam of the hot tubs curled up into evening's darkening sky.

Lounging with her back to Lucas in a larger tub was the mistress, her fiery locks swept up with pins. One of her bare arms draped over the side of the tub, and he could clearly make out his own hashish's scent.

Lucas moved forward, not bothering with the paths, to approach her from behind. Suddenly he went down on one knee, and lifted her slender hand to his lips.

"A feast for a King, Madame," he murmured.

Paige didn't jump, but turned half-lidded eyes upon him over her shoulder, "At a price that even a prince can afford," she agreed, her tone noticeably throatier than before. Taking his hand, she lifted him to his feet. "Join me," she said, the words an order as much as a question.

He smiled and shrugged off the robe. His was not an impressively muscular body. He was, if anything, slight, slender. But there was something of a dancer's grace and balance in his movements. A dancer ... or a fencer.

He seemed to feel no embarrassment, still less shame at being naked before the Madame and the two Chinese girls who lingered. But then, as she could now see, he had no reason to.

She noticed the girls and their genuine expressions of pleasure, cocking her hear to one side to regard the Frenchman. "St. Vire, eh? More like St. Virile, I think. It seems you have delivered on all your claims, so far, monsiuer."

Lucas smiled. "I have that reputation, Madame."

She waved at a low table beside the tub where his case lay, now only containing a few blacks, one green and the two pipes. "Perhaps you'll join me in sampling the white?"

"Certainly," he agreed, and walked over to collect the pipes. He moved back to the tubs and, with a sudden flourish, dropped to one knee and offered the pipes to her, kneeling with head bowed, an artist's model for the naked slave. She had the impression that it wasn't the first time he had done this - and also that it was all part of a huge and amusing game to him.

He looked up, a lazy smile lighting up his face, and she was convinced of it.

"You'd better take both," he said. "I don't want the other to get wet when I climb in."

Paige took both the pipes, her thoughts drifitng to how pretty a slave he'd make, a gold collar on his neck, kneeling at her feet. She silently cursed the hash and the inferno it had created inside her that even being submerged in water hadn't quenched.

Lucas rose. There was the faintest of smiles on his lips, as though he had read her thought exactly ... as though he knew he would provoke this response.

He even managed to climb into the tub elegantly and settled down opposite her. His eyes remained locked on hers ... he did not apparently seem to look down at her body, naked in the steamy waters of the tub. Smiling still, he held out a hand for a pipe.

Paige handed one across, without leaning too close, the ripples of the water and the steam hiding a great deal of her, but offering tantilizing glimpses. She held her own pipe over the edge of the tub for one of the girls to light. The other was at Lucas's shoulder with a taper for the same reason.

The mistress shook her head toward the closest door. //You're excused. I will see to the Frenchman,// she said, as the girls hustled off, a shocked expression in one's eyes.

"So, the girls pleased you?" Paige asked, not being as discreet about looking over the Frenchman.

"I pride myself that the pleasure was mutual," said Lucas. "But yes, Madame, your girls are ... enchanting." He leaned his head back, gazing at the night sky and took a long draw at the pipe. He released it and idly watched the smoke rise in the night air. "And you, Madame, are equally enchanting. And also a very long way from home. You intrigue me."

"All depends on which way you circle the globe, St Virile," she said before taking her own first draw. Her eyes closed as she exhales.

"If we ignore the colonies, you're just as much a fish out of water," Paige explained, her eyes only opening slightly.

A second draw on the pipe, and a small shudder of pleasure rolled through her body. "I don't see how I could intrigue such a man of the world as Saint Virile. I'm just a woman who's providing the oldest service in the world. Nationalist, Imperialist, where-ever you may travel, men need to relax. Wouldn't you say?"

"Madame," said Lucas, idly stretching out his right foot so that it could caress her, "a man may need to relax anywhere, but when a woman displays such talents as yours, she is wasting herself in a colonial backwater such as Cochin China.

"You should be the toast of Paris, with men competing to drink champagne from your shoes - although, admittedly, that has been a salute I have always been able to avoid ... and it must make the shoes devilishly uncomfortable afterwards." He took another draw on the pipe. "Still, I am sure you possess it in you to tempt me to break my rule ... "

He rested back again, peaceful, gazing at the sky - although his toes continued to caress and tease her ankle.

Paige seemed content with his attention, but subtly had floated to her right, scant inches closer to the Frenchman. "I assure you, it's not my shoe that I'd have you drink of, monsieur."

"What makes you think I haven't been the toast of the town? That this isn't my life of leisure? My escape from boring young men who think I could be impressed with their drinking skills?" There was a determination in her eyes even as they closed and her body gave an involuntary shudder at his toes' touch.

Lucas laughed. "Surely you are too young. You cannot be more than ... " He opened his eyes a slit and looks at her. "More than thirty at most. Too young to have been the toast of the town and then to have declined. And far too beautiful."

His foot moved slowly, gracefully, up the inside of her leg as far as her knee.

The mistress released a soft humm of approval at his touch before she took another draw on the pipe. "Declined?

"Perhaps I walked away in my prime. To leave the story at its climax, rather than the denouement."

As Paige slid closer to the Frenchman, the sound of a door sliding open was obvious. She turned with almost preternatural speed.

"What?!"

Lucas turned his head lazily to watch.

//Mistress Paige, I am sorry to interrupt your meeting, but the Obayun is hearing rumors that I would like to lay to rest,// a man said in Tonkinese, his head bowed.

He was dressed in a finer cut of cloth than most of the men that Lucas had seen here today. Something that implied money and power.

Paige pulled Lucas's head down to her chest, that his fair skin was hidden by the walls of the tub.

Lucas bubbled a faint protest through the water, or maybe he was just teasing and tickling her breasts with bubbles.

//My chambers,// she orders as he looks up. //I will be with you when I am done with =business= here,// she explains in much softer tones.

//Your master wouldn't wish to be interrupted in a meeting, nor do I.//

Lucas had pulled against her arms once ... as though testing the strength of her hold. Now, however, he was very still - and she got the impression that he was listening intently.

Paige's grip was tight and he was pretty sure that she could keep him where he was for the nonce. She waited until the man had left to release Lucas.

"Your wares are wonderful," she said, inwardly cursing having to deal with the oyabun's man while this high and aroused. "But, for your own safety, perhaps it's better if you leave us," she suggested. She closed her eyes, attempting to find her centre.

He lifted out of the water, with the sleek, dark look of a seal. For a second his dark eyes considered her in the light of the lamps that illuminated the courtyard, and then he nodded, slowly.

Then he moved across the tub and held her in his arms, aware of the length of their bodies held close together, aware of his own arousal, aware of her tension as he kissed her slowly, lingeringly.

"And you will take delivery of my consignment?"

Paige allowed her body to melt into his, letting the tension flow out into the surrounding water. "My dear Saint, I'll take delivery of whatever you can offer." Her eyes sparkled in the lantern light. "Including the drugs, but your opposing number will only wait in my office so long." She kissed him back, almost willing the drugs from her system.

Other tensions would be longer in leaving her, but in the end would convince the oyabun's man of the continued trust of the mistress of Jade Dawn. "Go, before I forget myself and put pleasure before business."

Lucas laughed.

"I hope, beautiful temptress, that we can combine the two."

A soft touch to her cheek, and he withdrew, allowing her to leave the tub - and giving him the opportunity to observe her doing so. He was confident she would send girls to attend to his own robing ... and other needs.

Paige rolls over the edge of the tub, calling for Tani, only looking back once to regard the odd Frenchman. A small shudder rolled through her body as she donned her own robe again and made for a door on the far side of the courtyard. The steam from the springs obscured her,
welcoming her with its warm arms and hiding her from his gaze.

Perhaps a month later Paige found herself lying in her chambers on a particularly rainy afternoon. The new pillow book had not kept her interest and concern over this week's consignment kept her from sleep. Tani's voice was raised over the rain as she chastised someone for the storm that they had brought into the mistress's house.

Shaking her head, Paige found a robe and stepped into the hall to find the offender was no more than a young boy, in fact the one that she sent to watch the Frenchman.

"Honoured Lady," he said, dropping to one knee. He shot a scared look up at her.

"The Frenchman has been taken - Honoured Lady - by the Henchman of Tao-Lin, the Dragonshead."

He gave a little shudder as he spoke - for the cruelty and ruthlessness of the Chinese triad racketeer were legendary - as were the barbarous punishments he inflicted on those who opposed him.

"Where and when?" she asked, nodding her head toward Tani and then the stables.

Tani scurried off to ready the mistress's carriage, shaking her head. "The devil. I told you mistress, but would you listen, oh no..."

Paige turned and returned to her chambers, expecting the boy to follow. She began changing, with no thought to modesty.

"Tell me everything," she ordered as her robe slips to the floor, her back to the boy.

After one startled look, the boy lowered his eyes, his cheeks glowing.

"The Frenchman was reckless, Honoured Lady. He did not conceal his actions - one might say he flaunted them. Only his connection with you - that he kept secret. I saw ... no-one knew of that. But the others ... Honoured Lady, he did not seem to care if the Dragonshead knew he had a competitor." He frowned - clearly this behaviour puzzled him - it suggested a lack of even common prudence.

"Then, last night, the Frenchman was in the House of the Black Lily. It was said that he was pleasuring himself with the Black Lily herself, though she is Tao-Lin's chosen. Perhaps he had won her heart, perhaps it was a trap set to catch him - I do not know. But men heard the screams of a woman when the Frenchman was taken from her - and now her house is shuttered and dark, as though it mourned.

"They say the Frenchman killed some three or four with a blade before they overpowered him. I do not think Tao-Lin will go easily with him, Honoured Lady."

He raised his head and looked at Paige and she saw the fear in his eyes.

"They have taken him to the House of Living Stone."

Paige uttered an English curse under her breath. As the boy spoke, she had donned black silk leggings and a brocade dress of black on black. Her hair was caught up with ebony combs and long silver pins. She took her non from the wardrobe, and the boy's hand leading him from the room. Stopping at the doorway, she knelt to face him. A gentle kiss on the cheek and a silver 1.5 tiel coin sent the boy on his way. "Quiet, you need to be about this. And make sure your mother sees some of that," she chided, knowing the family would eat well this month and that while others might notice, his family would know not to say anything, or risk losing such patronage.

Walking through her office before heading to the carriage, she walked to a low cabinet near the door. With quick thought she removed a kiem. On first glance someone might take it as a European smallsword, but it was native forged, with a needle-like blade and something she figured the Frenchman could wield.

'Why would he keep this arrangement quiet when so many others he flaunted?' she wondered as she lay the sword on the desk behind her. She selected three flat knives that disappeared into her sleeves and the nape of her neck as quickly as she found them. Next was the dao, the Jade Dawn, the damascus steel catching the light as she examined it. Setting it aside the kiem, she took the small rug from beside the desk and rolled both swords within. A cord from a drawer made it fast and tied to the other end allowed her to sling it over a shoulder like a traveler's bedroll.

She never heard Tani's complaints as she entered the carriage or ordered the driver to the western edge of the province. The gods only knew if he would still be alive by the time she arrived.

The House of Living Stone was, like her own residence, set at some distance outside the city - but there all resemblance ended. While her residence was a low, low building, with many courtyards and gardens, the House of the Living Stone was jammed hard against the great cliff - the tunnels and caves were, she had been told, as much a part of the house as the stuccoed frontage that she could see as her carriage approached.

And it was easy to see, for the building was light up in the brilliance of a dozen fires and many more blazing torches. A shanty town seemed to have grown up around the House of the Living Stone, where drunken crazy houses leaned precariously against one another, seemingly constructed from scraps of wood and iron, with sacking for doors. There was a Babel of voices that reached even to the carriage, and then the smells hot her too - the mixture of spice and ordure that spoke of good cooking and non-existent drains.

The coachman drew rein before they entertained this morass, and swivelled in his seat to speak to Paige.

"What should I do, Honoured Mistress?"

"Wait for me at the Inn of the Crying Monkey until dawn," she said, slinging the roll over her shoulder. "If I've not returned by then, return to the House of Jade Dawn and tell Tani that her daughter has the combination to the safe and my instructions are within." Well, her daughter's birthdate perhaps, but better to offer too little information than too much. No point in tempting anyone unneeded.

She slid from the carriage, away from the shanty town until the carriage took its leave. Some dirt from the road coloured her hands and face before she started walking. Her posture changed as she shuffled into the crowd, keeping careful watch for shadows as she wound her way toward the cliff face. She stopped once to purchase a bowl of curried rice, keeping her light face hidden in shadow beneath her non.

As she crossed the way to the House's outer wall, aiming for where it met the cliff, she let her walk slow, letting the lone guard on this wall watch her. A quick look and a woman's giggle enticed him as she moved into the shadow of a nearby tree. While concerned with the Dragonhead's safety, even the best guard could grow lax when no man dared attack their master.

As the man passed into the shadow he heard the giggle again. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, they caught their last sight of a thin black blade entering his own neck. Paige set the body as if sleeping against the tree and using the corner where the wall met the cliff, made her way into the crime lord's home.

Inside all was noise and bustle. Some sort of festival was in progress - and there were crowds of men raucously gambling - betting not on cards, it seemed, but on the mysterious antics of some rats in a large cage. In a pavilion of rather better appearance than the outbuildings generally found in this courtyard, a group of shrill whores were screaming with delight at some trick they were being shown by their clients. Everywhere were crowds, flaring lights, the gleam of sweaty bodies, and the aromas of human flesh, hot spiced food and sharp sour rich wine.

At the end of this outer courtyard there was a wall, with one gate. This was guarded too, but as Paige watched she saw that simple coolies were being permitted to enter the courtyard when they carried steaming platters of hot food, and to leave with loads of rubbish, passing into the house itself.

Paige slipped into line of coolies, her non low over her face. She aquired a coolie's staff from where he must've left it against the outer wall when relieving himself, right behind the bush where she thought to look for it. Hooking a bucket of garbage she followed some of the others into the house and to wherever they were dumping it. After doing so, she slipped into a hall that seemed to lead toward the caves. It was only likely that the Frenchman was prisoner there someplace. There seemed to be many more guards than usual ... and they seemed in great good humour, despite the fact that being on duty precluded them from enjoying the pleasures of the festivities beyond the walls. Paige caught a reference to "foreign devils" and another reference to implements of torture - which seemed to occasion guffaws of laughter.

There was a way into the caves beyond the rubbish area. It was less guarded ... but then, no-one thought that anyone would be prepared to crawl on hands and knees through the filth in the low tunnel that led into the cave complex.

Paige waited until she was alone and after assuring herself that the swords were secure across her stomach now, she entered the tunnel. "Gods, you better be worth this, St. Virile," she muttered in Creole under her breath as she scurried through the discarded waste.

Once within the cliff face, she discarded her leggings and slippers which had born the worst of the attack. After cleaning her hands as best she could on the 'clean' sections of her discarded pants, she removed the dao and took in her surroundings. She was past the point of no return. She had no way of passing herself off as anything other than what she was, and while that might charm some men, especially in such jubilant moods, eventually she was going to be recognized. She moved quickly and quietly, keeping her eyes open for a room that might hold a change of clothing or a bucket of water, hoping that her odour wouldn't give her away.

She was in a subterranean tunnel. On this level, the walls were rough and rock hewn, and the rocks were darkly slimy in a way that suggested water was not far away - indeed, she could hear a regular dripping from some distance. Illumination was provided by torches that were thrust into holders on the walls - an oddly archaic touch.

The tunnel sloped a little downwards, and a wind blew towards Paige - a breeze that suggested that there was an open space ahead.

About fifty yards ahead, the tunnel opened into a circular cave, and here she found Lucas. He had been chained in the middle of the cave, a long chain that hung from the roof and ended in two cuffs that held his arms stretched painfully above his head, while he swayed as he stood, his feet barely reaching the ground. He had been stripped down to a pair of dark trousers, and his body gleamed with sweat and dirt and - she feared - blood. Certainly, there seemed to be marks on his body consistent with a beating. She could not see his back. His head was lolling forward, his hair falling over his face; despite his position, he seemed to be unconscious.

There were no guards in the room - doubtless they believed this level safe from intrusion.

"Lucas," she whispered as she drew alongside him. "Come on, I can't carry you out of here." She considered it for a moment and decided that she could if it came to that, but the odds of survival were much slimmer.

His head lifted and he look at her, startled. His eyes were bright and clear; there was no sense of the pain-drugged stupor that she had been expecting.

"With all due respect, dear Madame," he said, "what the hell are you doing here?"

Sliding the dao back in her belt she grabbed the chain and climbed it to the cave roof. Once she was close, she inverted herself, placing her bare feet firmly against the ceiling and then she pulled at the anchor, steeling herself for the inevitable fall.

With obvious exertion she answered him, a smile coming to her eyes when she thought of him looking up at her after she had disarded her pants in the sewage. "Rescuing my damsel in distress, of course."

"Not distressed," said Lucas appreciatively. "Not when confronted with so fair a sight ... I wish you'd told me earlier you offered a delivery service."

The anchor was wedged firmly - she felt it give a little. Another couple of tugs should do it.

"Perhaps," remarked Lucas conversationally from the other end, "you have just come to jerk my chain ... "

"Cute."

His voice broke off - and she heard it too - the sound of voices approaching, laughing and talking. She saw Lucas' head tilt back, looking up at her ... and then he slumped back into the position of apparent unconsciousness in which she had first observed him.

Paige stopped pulling and flattened herself along the ceiling.

Three men came striding into the cave - a plump Chinese man, an elderly Tonkinese and, somewhat unexpectedly, a European. His bristling hair cut and the uniform suggested strongly that he was a German Junker. He strong across to Lucas, grabbed his head and yanked it back by the hair. Lucas moaned with pain, and from her elevated position Paige could see that his eyes seemed dazed with pain. He gave no indication that - looking up - he could see Paige against the ceiling, hanging grimly on to the chain.

"So," said the German in excreable French, "are you going to tell us who has paid you to come here?"

"No-one," gasped Lucas. "I came here alone ... I am a simple merchant ... I ... aiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeee!"

This last was a scream of agony as the German aimed two rib-crunching blows at his unprotected body. The chain jerked violently - and then Paige was conscious that it steadied with unexpected speed. Whatever display Lucas was making, he retained enough wits and strength to control the chain at least sufficiently to save her being dislodged.

If this continued, she wasn't going to be able to hang here all night. Paige swung her feet toward the floor, using the momentum to give one last great tug on the hook.

As a dusting of rock covered the junker's head, he looked up, right into the redhead's downward swing of the iron anchor as she fell from the ceiling. As he staggered back, she flipped the anchor back to Lucas with a simple, "Catch!"

She drew the dao from her belt and fell into a defensive stance between the Frenchman and his captors.

Lucas caught the heavy anchor as though she'd tossed him something made out of papier mache. He let the chain slip through his swollen, manacled hands so for one moment she thought he'd dropped it - but in fact he was allowing himself enough slack to make the anchor into a lethal flail. He turned, hefting it, and swung into a vicious circle, catching the German a wicked blow on the back of his head as he tried to rise from Paige's descent. Paige was reminded of an over-ripe water melon smashed against a wall.

Lucas spun round, carried on by his own momentum as the elderly Tonkinese ran, shouting an alarm, into the corridor. The plump Chinaman drew his own blade, long, curved and deadly - more a scimitar than a sword. Paige noticed a red, oily gleam the length of the blade ... it seemed its edge had been treated with poison.

He advanced on her, smiling.

Paige muttered a few curses under her breath even as her smile matched his for fierceness. He'd have reach on her, but she doubted he'd match her strength and even if he did, he'd underestimate her, greatly.

She held the dao like a hand and a half chinese broadsword and released her right grip to loose two throwing knives at the Tonkinese. He didn't garner any other bit of Paige's attention as she had more than enough to keep her occupied already.

She kept his back toward the door, so the guards wouldn't have her rear. As the first swing came, Paige read his movements and anticipated the lunge and ducked in close, her dao held with two hands again in defense as her strong leg swept his feet. As she completed her turn, she brought the sword around in a long slice aimed for his sword arm.

He screamed a long curse as the sword slashed deep and he staggered back, dropping the sword and barely retaining his balance. Then a heavy chain appeared over his face - Lucas had dropped the anchor chain over his head, and was using it as a crude garotte. The Chinaman gurgled and died, his windpipe mashed and crushed by the heavy chain. Over his dead body, Lucas grinned at Paige.

"I should curse you for spoiling my plans," he said. "But you have a certain style, Madame, and that must always command respect."

"Give me a moment and I can chain you back up if you like," she offers sarcastically.

A punctilious little bow - and then the wickedest of smiles. "That, Madame, will not be necessary. At least ... not at this time."

Although he was half naked, filthy, and with the clear marks of his ill-treatment all too apparent, he spoke with the coolness and urbanity she might expect encountering him at an afternoon tea party at the Embassy.

There was a distant shout, and then the sound of running feet. Lucas glanced down ruefully at his manacled hands.

"We should really leave now, you know, without staying to make our excuses," he said. "Impolite though it may be. I don't suppose you have any quick and easy way of getting these shackles off? They are a rather revealing item of costume."

"You never finish complaining about the colonial inconveniences, do you?" she quipped. Pulling a hair pin, she quickly went to work on the manacles, using one half as a straight bar and bending the other a bit for a hook. A satisfying click rewarded her efforts on his right wrist and before it had dropped to the floor she was at work on the other.

He stood very still while she was at work. She was aware of his breath on her bent head - and of a quality of watchfulness about him - oddly, not the watchfulness of one who expected to get caught. No ... this was the watchfulness of the hunter, studying his prey.

"Down the hall and to the left there's a garbage tunnel. If nothing else it'll limit how many men they can funnel after us," she suggested. "You look like shit, you might as well smell like it too."

An ironically quirked eyebrow was her only answer.

"Unless your vaunted 'plans' include a better route?" she asked as the other manacle clicked open.

"Bien sur," he responded with a shrug. "It would not be appropriate - or convenient - to leave here without the information that I have been at such .. pains to obtain." He smiled again, a tightness around his eyes. "We will take what we need," he said, and there was a note of steel now in his voice. "And then we shall destroy this cesspit for good and all." Then he looked at her and frowned. "But this, ma chere, is no task for a lady. I must see you safe first."

"I'll remind monsieur that part of being a woman is knowing when not to be a lady," she answered.

A few steps recovered her rolled carpet and the sword within. She offered it to him, hilt first. "I trust you can handle this?" Paige asked.

Lucas' only answer was a smile, but his hand moved surely and smoothly to take a firm grip. It was clear he knew how to handle it.

"The men that don't die here tonight will recognize me, either as customers of the Jade Dawn or as men of the Dragonhead," she explained watching the entrance way for the men she expected in any moment. "I need to finish this as well as you."

"Lead on," Paige suggested as the first guard turned the corner. The curse that followed was slurred enough by her Creole accent to have almost been unintelligible.

But, in another sense, understandable. For there in front of them, ranged across the width of the corridor were seven of Tao-Lin's henchmen.

Lucas swore too - a far more refined curse - and hefted his blade. He advanced fast, the blade held oddly high - but then he darted forward - moving almost faster than the eye could measure. His blade flashed - and the closest of the henchman gave a gurgling cry as he stumbled forward to crash to the floor face down, hand clutching at his throat in a vain attempt to staunch the bleeding. Lucas advanced, stooped, slashed ... and he was lifting the man's ripped tunic, swinging it around his wrist like a cape.

"Too thin," he murmured. "But ... it will serve."

And with a quick flick of his wrist he snapped it out, bewildering the two who were advancing him. A low thrust followed the manoeuvre, and a second henchman dropped to his knees, clutching at his bleeding stomach. Lucas, smiling coldly, advanced on the third.

Paige was amazed at the Frenchman's skill and now truly wondered if this all hadn't been some plot of his. If St. Vire was dispatching the Dragonhead's house guard with such seeming disregard, she had no idea how he had been captured in the first place. He was definitely her better, and unless a person had studied most of their life, Paige didn't see that often.

Determined that she was saving him, she stepped in, with quick movements and took the third in his side as he worried about Lucas's approach. She had over-extended as she lunged to show up the Frenchman, and number four was struck dumb by her exposed breast. Without hesitation she closed her stance and aimed a blow at the man's neck. "Didn't your mother teach you not to stare?" she chided his head as it rolled across the floor.

Allowing Lucas to close with the next guard gave her the moment to close her robe again. "You do know where we're headed, yes?" she asked as they pressed the attack into the hallway.

"Bien sur," agreed Lucas, withdrawing his blade from the final guard. "Up these stairs - then the third red door on the right. We should keep the noise down - I believe Lao Pan is holding a card party in the first room."

The stairs were not carpeted, but they ran lightly up them, their ascent checked only by dispatching two guards who rushed down to greet them, blades drawn. They had the advantage of height, but they were too impetuous, and their headlong flight down towards Lucas and Paige was their undoing.

The stairs led to two opposing corridors, left and right. Lucas nodded towards the right hand side corridor, and mouthed again, "Third door!"

Then he was running noiselessly down the corridor, trusting to Paige to follow him.

Just as he reached the third doorway, there was the sound of a door opening, and a burst of noise, suggesting that someone was leaving Lao Pan's card party. Lucas tried the door handle to win them safety within the room before they could be seen.

"Merde!" he swore. "It's locked!"

Paige dropped her blade against the wall as quietly as she could while stripping off her top. She pressed Lucas back against the wall and wrapped her lithe legs around his waist, her only clothing the thin silk lace drawers. She pulled a pin from her hair and it enveloped both their faces.

"Keep that little French blade sheathed in your pants and use the other on him if he doesn't think you're just a guard enjoying himself. Either way, I expect he'll close the door and you should be able to surprise him," she whispered. Her mouth almost covered his. "Now grab my breast and pretend you're enjoying this."

"You think I have to pretend?" he murmured into her hair. One hand was caressing along her back, tracing lightly over the bones of her spine in slow, sensuous swoops. The other, though, did not reach for her, but rather behind himself - for some purpose of his own. His eyes were half closed - she gathered that he was concentrating on something other than her.

Behind her, she heard footsteps ... one person. No, two - perhaps three people. She heard a voice, a crude remark. A laugh. They seemed to have come to a halt, and were standing there watching the display.

"You'd better hope," breathed Lucas in her ear, "that they are not waiting their turn."

Paige had been reassured by the soft click that was the door to the party room closing. She leaned back, her legs still wrapped about Lucas, an moaned in pleasure as she exposed herself to the onlookers. Her eyes were open and sizing her targets. As the arch of her back allowed her hands to find the floor, with explosive speed, her legs released Lucas and walked back over her head catching the central voyeur square in the solar plexus. As he fell, she found her feet and her blade and advanced to face the remaining unwanted visitors.

The one on the right, a squat, ugly bully, went at once into a fighting crouch - but the other, a willowy youth with a badly pocked face, turned and ran, shouting wildly, back towards the card room.

Lucas' voice came from behind her.

"If you could just take care of him, Madame ... "

The bully was advancing slowly. His forearms were heavily muscled - the closer he approached, the more Paige was convinced that his squat shape came not from fat but from hard muscles.

The shouts of the runaway were now being answered by cries of surprise and alarm from the poker party.

Paige struck a low, ready, stance with her dai dao, the curved Chinese-influenced hilt in her right hand, the left beckoning the martial artist. She seemed unconcerned by her lack of clothing. As he advanced, the blade became a wall of steel, keeping his strong hands from her, never advancing but keeping their distance constant.

When the blow landed on her cheek, it spun her to the ground with its force. She lay there unmoving as the bully moved toward Lucas who seemed oblivious, for his back was to the conflict and all his attention was fixed on the door. With speed, her leg shot out at the side of a kneecap, bending it an a manner no muscle could hide nor flexibility protect. He recovered quick enough to catch her ankle, even as he crumpled to one side. The redhead took the moment of pause in his deadly hand's movement to use the blade she still held to separate it from its wrist.

As his blood soaked the carpet, she found her feet and prepared to face the inevitable rush from the gaming room.

He screamed, and writhed in agony, his cries forming an interesting counterpoint to the yells of a group of former poker players, now charging along the corridor wielding machetes. But as Paige prepared to tackle them, she felt a sudden yank on the rear of her silken drawers, and then she was propelled violently backwards ... and through the open door.

Paige yelped, but didn't fight.

Lucas grinned at her as he slammed it behind them. The lock clicked.

"Under three minutes. I don't think anyone's ever picked a Mecklenberg-Strelitz lock in under three minutes! I'll have to write a note to the company warning them of the weakness."

She shook her head at him and a smart remark curved the corners of her lips.

They were in a richly appointed study - the silken carpet beneath their feet was almost ankle deep, and the air was rich with spiced incense. All around was heavy, dark, intricately carved furniture and screens, with rich red and gold silk hangings, proclaiming Tao-Lin's attachment to his title of Dragonhead. The two visitors, both nearly naked, sweaty, filthy and bearing the marks of their earlier struggles, seemed wildly incongruous in such a setting.

Lucas suddenly drew Paige to him, and kissed her passionately, before raising his head, his nose wrinkling. "Sacre bleu, you smell vile, Madame! Ah well, time for petty considerations later. You'd best barricade the door."

"You're French, how can you tell?" she shot back even as she began moving cabinets larger than Lucas would've assumed she could handle.

And as abruptly as he had seized her, he released her and moved to the great mahogany desk in the centre of the room, pulling out draws and rifling the contents with an almost frightening dexterity. It would be hard to believe anyone could so speedily read the wealth of documents he pulled out - had she not possessed something of that skill herself. He was separating them -
the larger pile were discarded on the floor - two or three were valuable enough to remain on the desk for the moment. Then he went down on his knees crawling under the desk, and tapping for secret compartments. A muffled "Aha!" suggested he had had some success.

"Aha, yourself," she said. She had removed some robes from one of the chests that now lay between herself and the owner of this office. "Blue, I would think," she commented to no one as she tossed one set to the Frenchman. "Put those on," Paige ordered.

He glanced up at her from his position under the desk - and surveyed the blue robes with disdain. "Not my colour. Not yet my style. But then, I suppose no-one who is anyone is likely to see me. Apart from, of course, yourself ... "

She then busied herself in dressing in a green brocade dress that must've been for a mistress shorter than herself, as the hem was something more suitable for the Jade Dawn than polite Cochin society. A smile lit her face as she considered that the dress might've been meant for her in the first place, what with the other overtures that had been made.

When she turned again, satisfied, Lucas was dressed in the blue robes. He did not look in the least Chinese - but he also looked rather different from the debonair Frenchman who had come to call a few scant weeks before. He could pass as an Hindu in a crowd, perhaps, or a Malay.

"Will you be covering your hair?" he asked. "It is rather memorably vivid, you know."

"And the rest of me that's been exposed tonight isn't?" she protested rhetorically. She procured a non from the same wardrobe and added its bulk to the barricade. "I doubt it will make much of a difference. If Tao-Lin survives the night, I fear the Jade Dawn won't." She examined the blade that shared the name and wiped it clean on a gaudy golden sash that lay among the mess she had created.

"Perhaps, I'll have to entertain your ideas about Paris," she joked.

As he was speaking, he was stuffing folded papers inside his jacket. The thuds against the barricaded door were growing louder.

"I think we should be leaving," he said. "Do you know how to set fuses?"

"Of what nature?" she asked. "Timed or just percussive caps and fuse?"

"Timed," said Lucas. "But short - I don't want to give them time to discover exactly what I've removed here."

He was taking explosives that seemed to be taped beneath the desk as he spoke, and laying them with an experienced hand.

Paige lent a hand to speed the work, quietly.

"We'll take the window, madame," he said. "If we time it just right, the force of the explosion should give us the necessary lift to take us safely to the ground. If not ... " He shrugged. "We'll be squished.

"And I'm sorry for your Jade Dawn. But I have contacts in most of South East Asia. Shanghai might be a little too rough and ready - but something might be done in Nanking ... or even Pekin itself." He smiled at her. "Or Paris. And with the thanks of a grateful government to ease your passage into society, madame."

He stretched out a hand towards her. "Now, if you are finished, I fear we must be going. On a count of ten?"

"Of a grateful government to ease my passage?" she asked, taking his hand in hers. "So the scoundrel is really a government lackey?"

"You might call it noblisse oblige," he murmured.

She walked with him and slid open the window. "We jump on ten or is it ten and then jump?" she joked, sure to anticipate him.

"I leave the choice to the lady," he said - and his grin was wicked.

They paused on the window sill, both silently counting. On "Ten!" they jumped, and the flare of the explosion was burning on their backs behind them, but the percussive force propelled them through the air - out, over the compound.

When they jumped, the explosion caught the attention of the party-goers in the courtyard below. Guards ran for the building as quickly as they regained their feet. The resultant turmoil seemed ideal for the foreigners' escape.

Unnoticed in the turmoil, Lucas and Paige landed, rolling down the grassy bank on the far side of the compound. For a second it seemed as though they would roll out of control into the darkened lake at the bottom of the slope, but there were enough branches to snag their clothes, to catch at them and slow them.

Lucas was on his feet swiftly once their momentum ceased, holding out a hand to assist her to rise with all the elegance and urbanity that he might give to handing a Duchess out of her carriage at the Opera.

"Madame. You'll permit me to tell you I've only once met a woman who would be your match for courage, resourcefulness and ability."

"And I've never met a man that could equal you in sheer elan and bravado," she replied with a teasing smile.

He bowed at that, and kissed her hand with a flourish worthy of the Ancien Regime.

"I've a carriage at the other side of the village," Paige offered. "Of course, I don't think using it is a good idea."

He smiled and shook his head, indicating a narrow path that would take them in the opposite direction, keeping well below the level of the road.

"Do you have an escape from here planned?" she asked as she pushed home a straying scarlet lock. "And does it involve a bath? Preferably one big enough for both of us?"

He gave a little laugh. "Alas, Madame, I arranged for three horses to be in readiness - one for my fool of a groom, one for the villain I was then planning to capture, and one for myself. But bath - no."

He suddenly touched her shoulder and then turned her to face him, staring into her face.

"Your home - after this night, and what you have done, it will no longer be safe for you. I am sorry for that, ma chere. I can give you money - and I can arrange for letter that will help you to be available in any city in this area that you name. But, perhaps, it might be best for you to strike out for pastures new. Wherever you go, you will have the gratitude and aid of the Republic, that I can promise. But I know ... that will be poor compensation to lose a home you have loved."

His hand brushed tenderly along her cheek. "A poor reward for your great courage, ma chere."

"I made such decisions before my carriage left tonight," she admitted her face leaning involuntarily into his touch. "Paris for a beginning or perhaps Spain," she mused as they walked to the mounts. She seemed content to walk in silence with him.

The horses he had promised were waiting in a shallow cave, further along the mountain and on a lower level from the house of Lucas' imprisonment. A shallow-faced groom was asleep on a pile of rags beside them.

"Wake up, idiot!" said Lucas. "I could have been a thief, yes - and then what would you have done?"

Paige chuckled quietly, but did not try to interfere with a master and his servant.

The horses, however, were well tended, and ready to be ridden - they must have been there some little time - since Lucas' capture. The groom took the abuse with a grin, and offered to help Paige mount, but Lucas claimed that honour for himself, before he mounted. As they made their way from the cave, dawn was coming up over the distant river.

"I must go now," said Lucas quietly. "I shall lend you my boy here, to see you safe home. Farewell, Madame! Perhaps, one day, we shall meet again!"

"Perhaps," she agreed.

And then he rode his horse against hers, and drew her towards him so they seemed to meet almost in mid air for one last, long, burning kiss that seemed to possess their very souls ...

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