Book of a Thousand Days

Shannon Hale, Book of a Thousand Days, published in 2007. This book is about these two young ladies that are locked up in a look out tower. One is a Princess, Lady Saren and her maid Dashti, Dashti was a mucker; a mucker so a person that has no home basically and they are the lowest class there is and she is honored to be Lady Saren's maid. Lady Saren's father is locking his daughter up because she refuses to marry the man her father picked out for her. Lord Khasar is up in a very high class but Lady Saren is in love with another man of lower class, Khan Tegus. Since Lady Saren refused her fathers offer for a husband her father is locking her up for sever years to teach her a lesson and thinking that hopefully she will be grateful in what her father does for her. Her father is having the two women put in a look out tower and having it bricked up so that there is no way for them to get out. Her father has put enough food in there for seven years and the only way they can get rid of waste and trash is through a tiny metal flap, where they can dump it out of. Dashti takes care of Lady Saren and cooks and cleans for her in the tower. Lady Saren is so depressed about the whole thing that she is constantly sad and is always afraid. When she hears people talking she thinks that it is Lord Khasar coming for her, and she always runs to Dashti for help. One night when the girls were laying around in their bed Lady Saren runs to Dashti saying, "he has come for me, save me." Dashti realizes that it is her lover Khan and tries to get Lady Saren to go talk to him through the metal flap. Lady Saren refuses to talk to him because she is so upset, therefore she tells Dashti to talk to him for her. Dashti says she can't because its a sin to her ancestors, she begs for forgiveness from the ancestors and talks to Khan acting as Lady Saren. He keeps coming back every night for like four days, he has to travel back home because the guards that guard the girls tower are starting to realize that something is going on. He tells Dashti acting as Lady Saren that he will come back for her after he returns home. He gives them a gift, a cat because of all the mice that the girls have in the tower with them. He leaves and is planning to return very soon, and the girls are waiting for him to come back for them.