The Silk Empress
Volume 1 : The Roof of the World

One day, on the Silk Route, East and West meet…

VIIth century China holds a treasure which is the envy of the entire world : silk. In the West, the ladies in the fashionable set are willing to incur debt in order to have this cloth which is as light as a cloud… Silk is a more precious material than either gold or jade, and the Chinese Empire has jealously guarded the secret of its production to preserve its own monopoly.

Through the Silk Route many caravans arrive in China, and with them come men and ideas. It is thus that various religious beliefs vie for control within the Empire. There are the different currents of Buddhism, of course, but there are also the worshippers of the prophet Mani, and even the Christians. But to conquer souls, means are needed, for he who gives most alms to the poor will also gain the greatest number of followers! And that is where our story begins : the conquest of souls will unleash a religious war of a new genre, a pacific war, a war in which the secret weapon is silk…

Everything begins in Tibet one night in winter, when a Buddhist lama gives a young Chinese man a basket where two infants are sleeping, charging him to take them to China. Almost at the same moment, in China, the fifth concubine Wuzhao becomes the official wife of the Emperor. This young woman who is as beautiful as she is intelligent and ambitious has two major defects in the eyes of the dignitaries: not only is she of common stock, but she is also a Buddhist.

From oasis to oasis, from monastery to monastery, the echo of these events which seem anodyne at first sight will have repercussions spreading far and wide throughout the Silk Route. Along the paths of Tibet, of India and of China there begins a gigantic chasing race centred on a clandestine silk trade, in which become mixed up the mysterious twins, a sacred white elephant, a young Christian woman, as well as Buddhist monks and courtesans…

A novel about religions, a novel about exchanges and the fascinating discovery of the other, but above all a novel about love and adventure, the Silk Empress is also, in a way, the novel of the encounter between East and West.