Conspiracy of Elders

In 1382, Illary, Chief Justice of the Chachapoyas (Warriors of the Clouds) is mystified by the suspicious death of the revered Chancellor of the nation. The death spawns the appointment of a new Chancellor who acquiesces to the demands of their nation's arch enemies, the Incas, without consulting the Leaders of the Clans as required by the Ancient Laws.

With the threat of civil war looming over the nation, a murdered infant is discovered in a fish jar containing mind-altering drugs within the fortress of Kuelap. She immediately launches an investigation and moves to ensure that the flow of the mind-altering drugs is halted to the Incas.

To her dismay, she identifies the baby as her own first-born - the child she'd been forced to surrender to the ruling Council of Elders during a religious ritual twenty-seven years earlier. Reeling from the discovery, she relentlessly continues the investigation and identifies two Elders as her baby’s murderers, but simultaneously unearths additional evidence to prove that they are also the drug smugglers.

As a mother, should she exact revenge and prosecute the guilty for her baby’s murder? Or should she, as the nation’s selfless Chief Justice, release her baby’s murderers and negotiate with them for vital information needed to stop the Incan invasion?

CONSPIRACY OF ELDERS is a historical novel of 91,572 words which is based on the Chachapoyas (The Warriors of the Clouds), a tribe which once controlled the northern Andean Cloud Forests of Peru from 300-700CE to the late 1400’s CE

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