Daughter of the Empire by Raymond Feist

Author:Raymond Feist [Feist, Raymond]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2017-08-22T00:00:00+00:00

NINE

SNARE

A shout rang out.

“Mara!”

Buntokapi’s anger rent the morning quiet like the challenge of a needra bull. Mara winced. She glanced instinctively at the crib near her side. Little Ayaki still slept, undisturbed by his father’s bellow. His eyes were tightly closed, and his stocky limbs half tangled in his covers. After two months of Buntokapi’s roars, the infant could sleep through a thunderstorm. Mara sighed. The boy was his father’s son, thick of body and with a big head that had made his mother wish for death when he had been born. The difficult labor had drained Mara in a way she would not have thought possible before. While but eighteen years of age, she felt like an old woman, tired all the time. And the first sight of her son had saddened her. She had secretly hoped for a lithe, handsome child, such as her brother Lano must have been as a baby. Instead Buntokapi had given her a red-faced, round-headed little brute, with a visage wrinkled like a tiny old man’s. From the first moment he filled his lungs with air, he had a shout to rival his father’s; already he affected the same scowl. Still, as Ayaki lay asleep, Mara could not feel other than love for him. He is my son as well, she thought, and the blood of his grandfather is in him. The traits he has inherited from his Anasati heritage will be trained out of him and those from the Acoma will be nurtured. He will not be like his father.

“Mara!” Buntokapi’s irritable shout sounded very near at hand, and the next instant the screen to the boy’s nursery slammed back. “Here you are, woman. I’ve been all over the house looking for you.” Buntokapi entered with a frown like a storm cloud.

Mara bowed with serenity, only too glad to lay her embroidery aside. “I have been with our son, husband.”

Buntokapi’s expression eased. He went to the crib where the boy lay, restless now from his father’s loud entrance. Buntokapi reached down, and for a moment Mara feared he would ruffle the boy’s black hair, as he did his hounds’. But instead his meaty hand gently straightened the cover that lay twisted between the tiny legs. The gesture caused Mara an instant’s affection toward Buntokapi, but she banished such sentiment at once. Though he wore the Acoma mantle, Buntokapi was a son of the Anasati, a house second only to the Minwanabi in despite for things Acoma. This Mara knew in her heart. And soon the time would come for change.

Exaggerating her whisper—Ayaki was a sound sleeper—she said, “What do you desire, husband?”

“I must go to Sulan-Qu…ah, on business.” Buntokapi straightened from the crib with studied lack of enthusiasm. “I will not be returning this night, and perhaps tomorrow as well.”

Mara bowed in acquiescence, not missing the haste in her husband’s tread as he departed through the screen. She needed no incongruities to guess that there was no business for her husband to conduct in Sulan-Qu.

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