Empire's Legacy- The Complete Trilogy
Page 1
Praise for
Marian L Thorpe
and the
Empire's Legacy
series
“With energetic prose, lavish attention to detail and a fantasy world that feels both familiar and foreign, the Empire’s Legacy series is as impressive as it is triumphant. Not only did it captivate me from the very first sentences, but it also continued to enchant until the very last full stop.”
Mary Anne Yarde, author of The Dulac Chronicles
“…this whole series has been one of the best I’ve experienced.”
Cover to Cover Book Reviews
“…a series that sucked me in from the start.”
Karen Heenan, author of Songbird
Empire’s Daughter
“…easily one of the most intriguing books I’ve read all year…”
Writerlea Book Reviews
"Empire's Daughter is a story that enriches the imagination. A compelling tale of survival and strength in unity."
Avril Borthiry, author of Triskelion
“…expertly builds an entire world and an entire society…”
Bjørn Larssen, author of Storytellers
“Within the first few pages, I realized I’d stumbled upon a truly special story; for Thorpe has created an alternative world that bends gender and sexual norms in brilliant form.”
Two Doctors Media Collaborative
Empire’s Hostage
“A bold vision of historical fantasy written beautifully from start to finish; Empire’s Hostage takes us on an epic journey that is at once intriguing, convincing, and deeply affecting.”
Jonathan Ballagh, author of The Quantum Door
“Empire’s Hostage is as immersive as Marian L Thorpe’s first book Empire’s Daughter. Filled with beautiful imagery and well-developed, realistic characters, Empire’s Hostage surpassed my expectations. “
D.M. Wiltshire, author of the Prophecy Six series
“With its multidimensional protagonist and its vivid rendering of her world, Empire’s Hostage elevates the genre.”
Maria Luisa Lang, author of The Pharaoh’s Cat
Empire's Exile
“Empire's Exile should put Thorpe on the map of must-read authors
of historical fantasy.”
Amazon review
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Visit my website:
marianlthorpe.com
find me on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/marianthorpe/
Twitter
@marianlthorpe
Marian L Thorpe lives in a small city in Canada
with her husband and a varying number of cats.
Contents
Empire's Legacy
Empire's Daughter
PART I
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
PART II
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Characters of Empire's Daughter
Empire's Hostage
The World of Empire’s Hostage
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
The Characters of
The Vocabulary
Empire's Exile
Part I
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Part II
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Part III
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Part IV
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Epilogue
The Characters of Empire's Exile
The Vocabulary of Empire's Exile
Author’s Note
Empire's Legacy
Marian L Thorpe
Arboretum Press
Empire’s Legacy
Copyright © 2019 Marian L Thorpe
Empire’s Daughter Copyright © 2015 Marian L Thorpe
Empire’s Hostage Copyright © 2017 Marian L Thorpe
Empire’s Exile Copyright © 2018 Marian L Thorpe
All books published in the original and in this omnibus edition by Arboretum Press
Guelph, ON, Canada
www.arboretumpress.com
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.
ISBN (print): 978-1-9992101-0-6
ISBN (e-book): 978-1-9992101-1-3
Quotes from copyright works used under Fair Use Policy.
Ciaridi, John (trans.): The Paradiso, Penguin Group, 2009; Eliot, George: The Mill on the Floss, www.gutenberg.org (public domain); Fry, Christopher, The Lady's Not for Burning, Oxford University Press, 1949; McCauley, Thomas: Lays of Ancient Rome, www.gutenberg.org (public domain): Rilke, Ranier Maria: Letters to a Young Poet, W.H.Norton, 2004. Shakespeare, William: Othello, www.gutenberg.org (public domain); Sun Tzu: The Art of War, www.gutenberg. org (public domain);
†††††
Cover Designs by Anthony O’Brien
www.bookcoverdesign.store
Maps by Marian L Thorpe
Empire's Daughter
In memory of my mother
Enid (Buckby) Thorpe
1919-2012
Royal Corps of Signals 1940-1945
Loyal daughter of her empire
The swallows gather, summer passes,
The grapes hang dark and sweet;
Heavy are the vines,
Heavy is my heart,
Endless is the road beneath my feet.
The sun is setting, the moon is rising,
The night is long and sweet;
I am gone at dawn.
I am gone at day,
Endless is the road beneath my feet.
The cold is deeper, the winters longer,
Summer is short but sweet;
I will remembe
r,
I'll not forget you,
Endless is the road beneath my feet.
Tice’s song
The World of Empire’s Daughter
PART I
I do perceive here a divided duty.
Shakespeare.
Chapter One
I was seventeen the spring Casyn came to Tirvan. He rode quietly into the village late one morning, a few weeks after Festival, with his tools and a few personal possessions. I—along with my cousin and partner, Maya, and her young brother, Pel—had sailed out in the still dawn that morning to check crab traps around the south side of the rocky headland. In the warmth of the spring sun, we hauled traps, took the catch, and reset the lines.
At my insistence, we sailed a bit further along the headland, into coves we hadn’t fished before, setting a few traps to see what these waters might yield. The late sun shone on a golden ocean before we moored back at the harbour, tired but with work still to do. My aunt Tali had come down to the harbour to collect fresh crab for supper. She helped us unload the catch, sort the damaged traps onto the jetty, and sluice down the deck of Dovekie before she mentioned the arrival.
“There’ll be a meeting tonight, Lena,” she said, sorting through the catch for the largest crabs.
I looked up from the trap I was examining. “A meeting? All of us?” I frowned. Only a major event would justify a full meeting outside of the usual schedule. If something minor but urgent needed attention, the council leaders—my mother, our Aunt Sara, and Gille the herdswoman—met to mediate or decide.
“What’s happened?” Maya asked.
Tali stood, her basket full of crabs. “Take this, Pel, and go home. I’ll be there soon.” Pel, tall and strong for his six years, took the heavy basket and started up the hill to the village. Women’s business held no interest for him. Tali watched him for a minute before turning back to us.
“What’s happened?” Maya repeated.
“We have a prospective tenant for the forge,” Tali said.
I looked at her in puzzlement. This was expected. After burying Xani, our metalworker, in the cold of last midwinter, we had heard of a young smith looking for work at Delle village, several day’s ride to the north. She had just finished her apprenticeship and their forge had no place for her. We had sent a message north in the saddlebags of a returning soldier; her arrival was expected any day.
“Of course,” said Maya. “What’s her name?”
“Is there a problem?” I asked.
Tali grinned, her teeth white against her tanned face. “Oh, there’s a problem,” she said. “Our prospective new metalworker is neither from Delle, nor newly-qualified. As a guess, I’d say our new smith brings thirty years of experience—military experience. And his name is Casyn.”
I stared at my aunt, my hands tightening on the crab trap. Maya gasped. All men left the villages at seven to enter the Empire’s military schools, spending their adult years serving in the army. In retirement, they raised horses or grew grapes or taught in the schools, finishing out their days with whatever part of their regiment had survived. Twice a year, war and distance allowing, they came to the villages for Festival, to be provisioned, to gather food and cloth and wine, to make love and father children, to give and carry messages. Festival lasted a week, and then they left. This pattern had shaped our lives for generations. I shook my head. “But he can’t.”
Tali shrugged her narrow shoulders. “That’s to be decided at meeting. He was born here: he’s Xani’s son, actually, so that may give him double claim.” She bent to pick up a broken crab trap. “Are these to go to Siane? Let’s get the catch into the holding pools and take these up. If we stand here talking much longer, you won’t have time to clean up or eat properly before meeting, and I want to get those crabs into boiling water.” We finished our work quickly, and together walked up the short hill to the village, leaving the broken traps stacked outside Siane’s workshop. The traps carried Dovekie’s mark. Siane would notify us when she finished the repairs.
We walked in silence, tired from our long day on the water. At Tali’s house, where Maya and I shared the big front room upstairs, we stopped on the porch. Maya leaned into me, her slight form light against mine. Her head just reached my shoulder. I gave my partner a brief hug. “I’ll see you at the baths in half an hour,” I told her. “I’m going to see my mother for a few minutes.”
“Don’t let her feed you,” Tali said. “In fact, tell her to come here to eat. We’ll have more than enough crab chowder.”
I turned to go.
“Lena?” Tali called after me. “If Gwen has some extra bread, we could use that at supper.”
I nodded. The smell of freshly baked bread always fills my mother’s house, except during the twice-yearly periods when the offspring of Festival liaisons are born. My mother is the village midwife.
I stepped off the porch onto the path before I realized my hands were empty. “Maya!” I called. The shutters to our room opened. She leaned out. “Bring my towel and clothes, will you?”
She laughed. “Maybe.”
I chuckled, continuing on. I probably hadn’t needed to ask. As I walked up the path to my mother’s house, I remembered her teaching me how to bake bread when I was eight or nine. I had kneaded the dough with all the strength in my young arms, while Maya, learning with me, did the measuring and supervised the baking. She liked order, even then, never forgetting a step.
The smell of crab rose off my hands and clothes. Daughters sometimes followed their mother’s craft, or an aunt’s, but just as often they chose to apprentice outside the immediate family. My choice at twelve to go to the boats had met with no argument: I belonged in the open air. When Maya had announced six months earlier that she wanted to fish as well, I hadn’t been surprised. For six years, we’d done just about everything together. Breaking with usual practice, the council had let her wait so we could begin our apprenticeships together.
We’d served our five years, and this spring, we’d outfitted Dovekie and passed from apprentices into craftswomen. Fully adult now, part of the village council, we addressed all women as equals, could form Festival alliances and bear children, or just slip Dovekie’s moorings some morning to sail away into adventure. All this could happen in the secure village world we had grown up in and had taken for granted would continue forever. Tali’s news had shaken the foundations of my assumptions. Adult or not, I wanted my mother’s counsel.
My mother’s house stands in the centre of Tirvan village. Like most village houses, it’s built of wood, two storeys high, with gabled ends. Salt air is hard on paint, so the wood of the house has weathered to a soft silvery-grey, matching the shingles of the roof. The shutters are painted blue, as is the front door, which stood open to admit the cooling breezes of late afternoon. My sister Kira, three years my junior and apprenticed to my mother, sat outside in deep conversation with a young woman. They looked up as I approached.
“Lena, you stink of crab.” Kira looks like my mother, compact and curved, and likes to wear her hair up. With my darker hair and eyes and long limbs, I take after my father. Or so I’m told. His name is Galen. He serves on the northern Wall. I’ve never met him.
“I know. I’m on my way to the baths.” I looked at the other woman. “Hello, Cate.” Six months older than I, trained as a weaver by my aunt Sara, Cate had helped make Dovekie’s sail. Festival had concluded six weeks ago, so I suspected that she had come to confirm pregnancy. But that was for her to tell when she chose. “Is Mother inside?”
“Writing records,” Kira answered. The midwives must record all alliances that result in pregnancy, so we know who our fathers are, and our brothers. Inside, the seabreeze had chased out most of the day’s heat. My mother sat at her desk in the workroom, her record book open on the long pine surface. Neat lines of her writing covered half the page. She looked up, the fine lines around her blue eyes creasing in pleasure.
“Six babies to be born in the new year, all being well,” she
said. “How was the catch today, Lena?”
“Good. We found some new coves. Tali’s making crab chowder for supper. She asked for you to come and bring bread if there is any.” I paused. “Mother, what’s going on? Tali says Xani’s son has come to take over the forge. We won’t let him, will we? Why would he want to live here and not with the men?”
Mother closed her record book, standing. “I’ll come to the baths with you,” she said. “I’ll give you what answers I may when we’ve soaked out the day. Or at least this half of it. We may be in for a long night.” She glanced at me. “Did you bring clean clothes? Or a towel?”
I shook my head absently. “Maya’s bringing them.”
Mother smiled. “She takes good care of you. Give me a moment to collect my things, and we’ll go.”
As we climbed up the hill, the forty or so houses that make up Tirvan, clustered together along the paths, came into full view. The village had grown according to need, with no real pattern. The oldest houses surrounded the harbour or sheltered under the hill pastures; newer houses filled the spaces between. Only the forge sat alone, half-way up the hillside, isolated to protect against fire.
At the very top of the village, hot springs bubbled out of the hillside. The very highest, the sacred one, provided us with water for the rituals of birth and fertility and death. The bracken that surrounded it sheltered small offerings brought by women asking the goddess for intervention or bringing thanks. Another group of springs fed the stream that ran down to the harbour on the far side of the village. At the lowest springs, our foremothers built the bathhouse. Here, the channelled water flowed into two large pools, tiled and stepped to allow us to sit partially or completely submerged, sheltered by the walls and roof of the structure. The steaming water rushed in from the springs and out again through pipes to form a stream that then flowed west, tumbling down a cliff to the ocean. After a day on the boats or in the fields, the water—clear, sulphurous, and very hot—felt wonderful.
Maya was waiting for me, clean clothes in hand. The three of us washed quickly, settling into the hot pool to soak. I stretched my legs out, worked my sore shoulders, and sighed.