From her position, the Lady Miranda du Lac could see the night sky burn red from the light of thousands of torches and campfires as her husband’s army set up their siegeworks. Horse, foot, artillery; the full might of the Arkland Third Army, some fifteen thousand strong, had returned far sooner than the Glorious Revolution ever dared consider. In the space of an evening, the revolutionaries had gone from exultant about overthrowing the capital and sending hundreds of the aristocracy and their supporters to the noose, to a state of blind panic at the retribution encamped a stone’s throw away from the city’s western approaches. They would strike at before the next dawn, Miranda was sure of it. Her husband was a decisive man, wholly unwilling to let a problem stand any longer than necessary, and her peril would only encourage him to greater haste. Likewise, the capital would not last long against a determined assault. Its hundred-foot-high stone walls, the bane of many of an invader clad in full plate centuries before, would quickly crumble beneath the onslaught of modern artillery, and the enthusiastic mobs that had overrun the city guards and dragged its nobility screaming to Blackstone Prison would find themselves wholly outmatched by the battle-hardened, well-trained and disciplined soldiers her husband commanded. The Glorious Revolution had seen its last dawn.

And in all likelihood, so had she.

Cold night winds plucked at her now-ragged blue silk gown, and Miranda trembled, every creak of the ropes a reminder of how perilous her situation was. Lord Protector Sandsmark had ordered his men to suspend her up from one of the towers set beside the main gate, where the royal banners were formerly hung, and they’d carried out that command with their usual cruel skill and a variety of obscene taunts towards the helpless noblewoman. Stout ropes secured her figure above and below her naked breasts, around her waist, at her thighs and finally her booted ankles, offering four firm anchor points for the cords trailing down from the great wooden beam jutting out from the ramparts. She’d been suspended in mid-air like a hanging cot aboard a ship a sea, and every errant gust of wind left her swinging helplessly in answer, heart pounding at the motion and provoking the fear that this was the moment the ropes would give way and send her plummeting to the unforgiving ground below. The leather muzzle gag that had been her constant companion throughout this horrid ordeal remained in place, stifling her sobs, and the stoic, impenetrable dignity that had sustained her thus far began to break down, fear and exhaustion taking its toll.

For it would be a simple matter to dispose of her in her current state, should Sandsmark’s attempt at using her as leverage fail. The first glimpse of infantry attempting a dawn escalade, or the first roundshot slamming home into the wall, and a sharp axe would see her fate sealed before any of the loyalists could intervene. And when she fell…

Steeling herself, Miranda squirmed against the ropes binding her wrists behind her back, unwilling to meekly remain suspended without at least trying to escape. For time was very much against her, and the future of an entire nation was in peril…