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

deeper recriminations.

Only the boy showed no reproach for her folly. Ayaki
was past feeling, beyond reach of sorrow or joy.

Mara choked back a spasm of grief. How she wished
the dart had taken her, that the darkness which ended
all striving could be hers, instead of her son's. That she
had another surviving child did not lessen her despair.
Of the two, Ayaki had known the least of life's fullness,
despite his being the elder. Fathered by Buntokapi of the
Anasati, whose family had been an Acoma enemy, in a
union from which Mara had derived much pain and no
happiness. Political expediency had led her to deeds of
deceit and entrapment that to her maturer view seemed
no less than murder. Ayaki had been her atonement for
his father's wasteful suicide, brought about by Mara's
own machinations. Although by the tenets of the Game
of the Council she had won a telling victory, privately she
considered Buntokapi's death a defeat. That his family's
neglect had made of him a tool open for her to exploit
made no difference. Ayaki had offered her a chance to
give her first husband's shade lasting honor. She had been
determined that his son would rise to the greatness that
Buntokapi had been denied.

But the hope was ended now. Lord Jiro of the Anasati
had been Buntokapi's brother, and-the fact that his plot
against her had misfired and resulted in a nephew's death
had shifted the balance of politics yet again. For, without
Ayaki, the Anasati were free to resume the enmity quiescent
since her father's time.

Ayaki had grown up with the best teachers, and all of
her soldiers' vigilance to protect him; but he had paid for
the privileges of his rank. At nine he had nearly lost his
life to an assassin's knife. Two nurses and a beloved old

household servant had been murdered before his eyes, and

26 Mistress of the Empsre

the experience had left him with nightmares. Mara resisted
an urge to rub his hand in comfort. The flesh was cold, and
his eyes would never open in joy and trust.

Mara did not have to fight down tears; rage at injustice
choked her sorrow for her. The personal demons that had
twisted his father's nature toward cruelty had inspired
melancholy and brooding in Ayaki. Only in the past three