Siege At Castle Arrowthorn

Lady Amelia felt a final sharp pull on her hair as the last of the intricate braids were pinned in place with an ornate ivory clasp studded with rubies. Her lady-in-waiting Jacinta held up a silver mirror so that Amelia could inspect the work that had been carried out upon her head. Amelia nodded her approval and Jacinta returned the mirror to the large chest in Amelia’s bedchambers and then sat in a chair opposite her lady. In the nineteen years since she had been born, the last three of which had been whilst Castle Arrowthorn lay under siege, Lady Amelia had not once had her hair cut. Each morning it took her and her lady-in-waiting at least an hour to comb, plait and set her hair in place. As the sole heir of her father, Lord Caiden Arrowthorn, it was consider a terrible breach of etiquette for her to be seen about the castle until the sun had risen halfway through the morning sky. Thus each morning Lady Amelia and Jacinta would spend the morning bathing, grooming and dressing in long gowns of silk, velvet and lace until it was time to be escorted to the court of her father.

Amelia looked to the sundial that sat upon the nearest windowsill in her stone tower. As a child she had chosen the tallest tower in the castle for her bedchambers, to give her the greatest view of the Arrowthorn mountains and the pass between the great peaks. For it was the sole route through the mountains that the castle had been built to guard many centenaries ago. Noting the time, it would be another hour before she was called to her father’s presence. She hated sitting idly in her chambers. Her unoccupied mind would wonder to the gruesome scenes being played out on the walls of Castle Arrowthorn. The sounds of battle that she had been trying to block from her mind came drifting up to her ears. She could here the sound of steel clashing against wooden shields, the twang of archers bow and worse, the sound of peoples’ screams. She took up her golden harp and began to play a tune she had learnt from a minstrel that had visited the castle in her ninth year. Gradually the soft music helped to drown out the sounds of the outside world.

Her thoughts were broken from playing by a loud knocking on the door that divided her sitting room from the rest of the castle. It was well before the time that she was expected to entertain visitors in her quarters. She would sorely scold whoever had been so presumptuous as to disturb her this early.
“Jacinta,” she spoke to her lady-in-waiting testily.
Jacinta rose from the chair opposite Amelia. “Yes, my lady?”
“Go and see who it is at the door and turn them away. It is the height of poor manners for them to be calling upon me before I have been to court in the morning.”
“Yes, my lady,” Jacinta responded before curtsying and leaving the bedchambers through the thick red curtain that separated Amelia’s bedchambers from her sitting room. Amelia could hear Jacinta undo the large bolts that locked the thick oak door, followed by a brief conversation that was muffled by the curtain separating the rooms. Jacinta returned shortly, her face was ashen white. “My lady. Something terrible has happened.”