"Feist, Raymond E & Wurts, Janny - The Empire Trilogy 03 - Mistress of the Empire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Feist Raymond E)

Dew bejeweled the lakeshore grasses, and the calls of
nesting shatra birds carried sweetly on the breeze. Lady
Mara of the Acoma savoured the air, soon to give way to
the day's heat. Seated in her litter, her husband at her side
and her two-year-old son, Justin, napping in her lap, she
closed her eyes and breathed a deep sigh of contentment.

She slipped her fingers into her husband's hand. Hokanu
smiled. He was undeniably handsome, and a proven
warrior; and the easy times had not softened his athletic
appearance. His grip closed possessively over hers, his
strength masked by gentleness.

The past three years had been good ones. For the first
time since childhood, she felt safe, secure from the deadly,
unending political intrigues of the Game of the Council.
The enemy who had killed her father and brother could no
longer threaten her. He was now dust and memories, his
family fallen with him; his ancestral lands and magnificently
appointed estate house had been deeded to Mara by the
Emperor.

Superstition held that ill luck tainted a fallen family's
land; on a wonderful morning such as this, misfortune
seemed nowhere in evidence. As the litter moved slowly
along the shore, the couple shared the peace of the
moment while they regarded the home that they had
created between them.

Nestled between steep, stone-crested hills, the valley
that had first belonged to the Minwanabi Lords was
not only naturally defensible, but so beautiful it was as

10 Mistress of the Empire

if touched by the gods. The lake reflected a placid sky,
the waters rippled by the fast oars of a messenger skiff
bearing dispatches to factors in the Holy City. There, grain
barges poled by chanting slaves delivered this year's harvest
to warehouses for storage until the spring floods allowed
transport downriver.

The dry autumn breeze rippled golden grass, and the
morning sun lit the walls of the estate house like alabaster.
Beyond, in a natural hollow, Force Commanders Lujan and
Xandia drilled a combined troop of Acoma and Shinzawai
warriors. Since Hokanu would one day inherit his father's
tide, his marriage to Mara had not merged the two houses.
Warriors in Acoma green marched in step with others