"Raymond E. Feist & Janny Wurts - empire 3 mistress of the empire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Feist Raymond E)

'No,' Mara repeated, a note in her voice that he instinctively
knew not to cross. 'I won't leave.'

And though she did after a time consent to have
her surviving child sent back to the estate house under
protection of a company of warriors, she sat through the
heat of the morning on the dusty soil, staring at the stilled
face of her firstborn.

Hokanu never left her. The stinks of death did not drive
him away, nor the flies that swarmed and buzzed and sucked
at the eyes of the seeping corpse of the gelding. Controlled
as if on a battlefield, he faced the worst, and coped. In quiet
tones he sent a runner slave to fetch servants, and a small
silk pavilion to offer shade. Mara never looked aside as
the awning was set up above her. As though the people
around her did not exist, she sifted torn earth through
her fingers, until a dozen of her best warriors arrived in
ceremonial armor to bear her fallen son away. No one
argued with Hokanu's suggestion that the boy deserved
battlefield honors. Ayaki had died of an enemy's dart, as
surely as if the poison had struck his own flesh. He had
refused to abandon his beloved horse, and such courage
and responsibility in one so young merited recognition.

Mara watched, her expression rigid as porcelain, as the
warriors lifted her son's body and set it on a bier bedecked
with streamers of Acoma green, a single one scarlet, in
acknowledgment of the Red God who gathers in all life.

The morning breeze had stilled, and the warriors sweated

Tragedy

19

at their task. Hokanu helped Mara to her feet, willing her
not to break. He knew the effort it took to maintain his own
composure, and not just for the sake of Ayaki. Inside his
heart, he bled also for Mara, whose suffering could scarcely
be imagined. He steadied her steps as she moved beside
the bier, and the slow cortege wound its way downslope,
toward the estate house that only hours earlier had seemed
a place blessed by felicity.

It seemed a crime against nature, that the gardens
should still be so lush, and the lakeshore so verdant and
beautiful, and the boy on the bier be so bloody and broken
and still.