The East India Company is all powerful and ruthlessly determined to maintain supplies of luxury goods to insatiable markets at home. Immense fortunes are made and thousands of lives subordinated to the needs of the Company. Its rule is underpinned by an avaricious civil service and a ruthless standing army. John Deuchars sails to India in 1829 as a civil servant. He is young and idealistic, driven by the need to make his fortune to support the family he left behind. John finds the love of his life, but also faces personal challenge and a cunning adversary. It is fortunate for John that there are also people who are not motivated by greed and who love India and her people. John becomes embroiled in the opium trade, the vehicle by which the company funds the purchase of luxury goods. Amid the grandeur of the 'City of palaces', vice and corruption are woven like a silken thread into the fabric of daily life and the stench of opium fills the air. In any life there are influences for good and evil, but in the presence of such riches, who would not be tempted to shake the golden Pagoda tree?