Lord of a Thousand Nights

Chapter One The Scottish Border 1357 "Be sure he drinks the wine before he gets your clothes off." The instruction was merely the last in a litany of warnings that Reyna had heard as she sightlessly felt her way along the cavernous tunnel. She squeezed the thick hand of the motherly woman who accompanied her. "I will be sure to do it as planned, Alice. They appear a coarse lot, and this siege must be boring. He should be glad for the diversion." "There's only one diversion most men are interested in, child. That is the danger, isn't it?" "Do not worry so." The total darkness in the tunnel terrified Reyna, so she moved quickly, one hand securely in Alice's and the other on the wall. Sounds resonated through the stone beneath her palm. Sappers dug their own tunnel not far from this one. Over the months, she had come to this hidden exit, torch in hand, and listened, judging their progress. She hadn't worried at first, because surely help must come before they completed their work. It wasn't a large army that surrounded the tower house, and a small force from either Harclow or Clivedale could easily lift the siege. But no relief had arrived, and now the sappers were within days of reaching the surrounding wall. Even more worrisome had been the second excavation progressing on the southern side of the fortress. They reached a sharp jog to the right. A sliver of light flooded through the narrow entrance carved behind an obscuring rock formation. Thick brush further hid the entrance from view, and only someone carefully examining the entire terrain had any chance of finding it. This army had not done so thus far, and Reyna smiled at the irony of all of that digging when the postern entrance stood just feet away. "You will know by morning if I have succeeded, Alice. Watch from the tower and alert Sir Thomas and Reginald." Reyna took the basket that Alice carried, and tried to sound brave and calm. "I will go to my mother first, and then to Edinburgh. I will let you know when I am safe there, and you can join me." Alice hugged her. "It is a brave but rash plan that you have, child. Sir Robert would not have approved if he were alive." "If Robert were alive, I would not have to do it." The older woman nodded in resignation. "God go with you, then." Reyna pushed through the entrance and stood within the obscuring brush. Fifty yards away lay the camps that ringed the tower house. It was not a big army, but large enough to ensure that no one left and no provisions arrived. There had been no assaults, no wall scaling, no war machines hurling fire and stones. Nor had there been any negotiations. Just two months of relentless siege. Men moved around the camp, their motions lazy in the summer heat. They didn't wear many clothes, and their bodies had browned in the sun. A few had adopted the cooler kilts of the Scots. But these men were not Scots. English, she thought with disgust, and the notion gave her renewed resolve. The English had been the monsters of her childhood and the enemies of her youth. Their Scottish king may have accepted defeat by King Edward of England ten years ago, but no Scot, especially those on the borders of Cumbria and Northumberland, readily submitted to the authority that the English claimed. She knew all about English soldiers, and what would happen if their sappers succeeded in breaching the walls. Descriptions of English atrocities had been repeated for generations. She forced herself to picture people she knew being butchered and tortured, and she sought strength in those horrible images. It was not in her nature to do what she planned now,Hunter, Madeline is the author of 'Lord of a Thousand Nights' with ISBN 9780553583557 and ISBN 0553583557.