Janny Wurts - Mistress of the Empire

Book Three of the Empire Trilogy

Harper Voyager An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street Lonon SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 1992

Copyright © Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurts 1992

The Authors asserts the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work

A catalogue record for this ebook is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780586203798

Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2012 ISBN: 9780007375653

Version: 2016-12-22

This book is dedicated to

Kyung and Jon Conning,

with appreciation for giving us insights and friendship

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One: Tragedy

Chapter Two: Confrontation

Chapter Three: War

Chapter Four: Adversity

Chapter Five: Machinations

Chapter Six: Gambits

Chapter Seven: Culprit

Chapter Eight: Interrogation

Chapter Nine: Miracle

Chapter Ten: Interval

Chapter Eleven: Bereavement

Chapter Twelve: Warning

Chapter Thirteen: Twist

Chapter Fourteen: Revelation

Chapter Fifteen: Secrets

Chapter Sixteen: Countermoves

Chapter Seventeen: Advice

Chapter Eighteen: Evasion

Chapter Nineteen: Captive

Chapter Twenty: Council

Chapter Twenty-One: Decision

Chapter Twenty-Two: Challenge

Chapter Twenty-Three: Contest

Chapter Twenty-Four: Homecoming

Chapter Twenty-Five: Assembly

Chapter Twenty-Six: Battle

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Defiance

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Retribution

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Destruction

Chapter Thirty: Pursuit

Chapter Thirty-One: Kentosani

Chapter Thirty-Two: Emperor

Chapter Thirty-Three: Imperial Council

Epilogue: Reunion

Keep Reading

Acknowledgments

About the Author

By the Same Author

About the Publisher

The morning sun shone.

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 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 title, his marriage to Mara had not merged the two houses. Warriors in Acoma green marched in step with others in Shinzawai blue, the ranks patched black, here and there, by divisions of insectoid cho-ja. Along with the Minwanabi lands, Lady Mara had gained an alliance with two additional hives and with them the fighting strength of three more companies of warriors bred by their queens for battle.

An enemy foolish enough to launch an assault would invite swift annihilation. Mara and Hokanu, with loyal vassals and allies, between them commanded a standing army unsurpassed in the Nations. Only the Light of Heaven’s own Imperial Whites, with levies from other houses under his sovereignty, would rival these two armies. And as if fine troops and a near-impregnable fortress did not in themselves secure peace, the title Servant of the Empire, bestowed upon Mara for her services to Tsuranuanni, gave her honorary adoption into the Emperor’s own family. The Imperial Whites were as likely to march in her defense, for by the honor central to Tsurani culture, insult or threat to her was as an offense visited upon the Light of Heaven’s blood family.

‘You seem delightfully self-satisfied this morning, wife,’ Hokanu said in her ear.

Mara tilted her head back into his shoulder, her lips parted for his kiss. If, deep in her heart, she missed the wild passion she had known with the red-haired barbarian slave who had fathered Justin, she had come to terms with that loss. Hokanu was a kindred spirit who shared her political shrewdness and inclination toward innovation. He was quick witted, kind, and devoted to her, as well as tolerant of her headstrong nature, as few men of her culture were inclined to be. With him, Mara shared voice as an equal. Marriage had brought a deep and abiding contentment, and though her interest in the Great Game of the Council had lessened, she no longer played out of fear. Hokanu’s kiss warmed the moment like wine, until a high-pitched shout split the quiet.

Mara straightened up from Hokanu’s embrace, her smile mirrored in her husband’s dark eyes. ‘Ayaki,’ they concluded simultaneously. The next moment, galloping hoof beats thundered down the trail by the lake.

Hokanu tightened his arm around his wife’s shoulder as the two of them leaned out to view the antics of Mara’s older son and heir.

A coal black horse burst through the gap in the trees, mane and tail flying in the wind. Green tassels adorned its bridle, and a pearl-stitched breastplate kept the saddle from sliding backward along its lean length of barrel. Crouched in the lacquer-worked stirrups was a boy, recently turned twelve, and as raven haired as his mount. He reined the gelding into a turn and charged toward Mara’s litter, his face flushed with the thrill of speed, and his fine, sequin stitched robe flying like a banner behind.