8. BLOOD IN FRONT OF THE SUN
Chapter 1
DEATH AWAITS
The young woman with the auburn hair and green eyes rose once more from the hard wooden bench and walked to the small barred window, through which the cool evening wind blew onto her face. It caressed her warm cheeks as she gazed out at the twilight slowly descending over the desert, the desert she loved so dearly and longed for so intensely. She watched the ribbon of red cast by the setting sun against the purple sky, and then looked further southward, to where the sky deepened to blue, to where the Atlas Mountains must lie.
Somewhere, a clock struck eight.
Slowly, stroke by stroke, the chimes sounded like damnation to her.
She quickly shut her beautiful eyes and then slowly let her forehead rest against the bars.
“One more night!” she murmured, her hands clenching convulsively. “Just one more night!”
Suddenly, she felt the sweat cold on her brow and felt her hands tremble with disbelief and fear.
For now, for the thousandth time, she realised again that this was her last night on earth, the very last. Perhaps tomorrow morning she would still see the sun rise. Perhaps not.
She swiftly turned away from the window and returned to the wooden bench. She sat down upon it, her head between her trembling hands. She felt the pounding of her heart and the throbbing of her blood like hammer blows against her temples.
“The last night, the very last!” she whispered despairingly, her gaze suddenly fixed on the deep, grey granite of the cell walls surrounding her. If only she had the strength, she would have pushed these walls down with her hands to be free again, to feel the heat of the sun on her hands once more, to feel the cool caress of the desert wind on her glowing cheeks again, and to feel the rhythmic sway of a great horse beneath her once more.
She heard again the distinct words of the French general, as clearly as if he were uttering them now in her presence.
“The tribunal finds you guilty, Madame. You are guilty of sedition, criminal incitement, and bloodshed. You will be executed by firing squad in this fort tomorrow morning at sunrise. Is there anything you wish to say?”
There was so much she had wanted to say, so many things she had wanted to scream at these French authorities. But strangely, while those devastating words still echoed in her ears, she had been unable to utter a single word. She who had led the desert warriors in so many bloody attacks, she who had ordered great men tortured until they cried like lost children, she who had done all that, had then found no words to say.
For a moment, she thought of the Atlas Mountains, of the great basin where the capital of the Doelaks lay. She thought of the large, cool palace she had inhabited there and of the subservience of the fierce desert warriors she had commanded.
But only for a moment, because then her thoughts immediately returned to everything that had happened today. The heat in the small hall of the barracks building, the high-ranking French officers in their impressive uniforms, the questions, the cross-examination, and the accusations. She thought of the long days she had spent in this cell before they began their trial. The long, solitary days that had dragged by so slowly.
She sprang up from the bench again and went back to the window, grasped the cool bars with her hands, and stared into the evening light that slowly deepened across the world. There was a catch in her throat, and then she let her face sink, sobbing, against the cold granite.
One more night!
Just one more n
