Nightmares

Writers: Estelle, Nici, AL
Date Posted: 14th September 2005

Characters: Gilbek, Kohler, Enrizial, Mirdra
Description: Gilbek wakes Kohler and Mirdra with the news that Cazlik can't sleep, and Kohler suggests that he ask Enrizial to comfort the boy
Location: Emerald Falls Hold
Date: month 8, day 15 of Turn 3

Gilbek hastened through the darkened corridors of Emerald Falls, taking great care to pass the Lord Holder's door silently. He didn't want to disturb Lord Enrizial with the problem he was faced - not in the early hours of the morning, at least, so he merely nodded to the guards there as if he was on perfectly legitimate business.

He came to the new Steward's quarters, which were mercifully free of the guardsman assigned to defend those of the Blood, and tapped lightly at the door. When he got no response, he risked a more forceful knock and whispered as loudly as he dared.

"Lord Kohler? Steward?"

It was a rumpled and half sleepy man who finally opened the door. "What is it?" Kohler saw the guard and immediately thought the worst.

"I'm sorry to wake you, sir, but we've tried everything else..." Gilbek glanced over his shoulder, as if expecting Enrizial to appear and demand what was going on at any moment. "It's Lord Cazlik."

"What's happened to him..." Kohler shoved past the guard, tying his robe.

"He keeps crying and he won't go to sleep. I'm under orders not to let him out of the nursery at night..." The guardsman looked uncomfortable. It was as if the child was being treated like a prisoner, not the next Heir to the Hold. "He's been calling for Lady Mirdra. I wondered if she would mind coming to see if she could calm him down."

"Oh..." Kohler stopped his forward motion. "Well...that's different..."

"Sir? Don't you think she'll come?"

"Perhaps his uncle might be better suited to caring for him. We've been instructed _not_ to..." It hurt him to say it, but Enrizial needed to learn the consequences of his orders sooner or later.

"But his uncle is Lord Enrizial!" Gilbek was aghast. "I can't wake him up!
If you and Lady Mirdra come quietly to the nursery, the Lord Holder need never know."

"Exactly. Why should I make it easier on him when he's the one who decided a four turn old should be mature enough not to need the comfort of an adult?
Let him deal with it."

"As you wish, milord...but could _you_ tell him that?"

Kohler sighed. "Why not. He asked me here for honest council and I've certainly no qualms about giving it to him when I'm awakened from a good sound sleep."

"Kohler?" Weariness was evident even though Mirdra only spoke her husband's name. She came up behind her husband, tying the sash of her robe around her waist and squinting at the late night visitor though the light that illuminated was rather minimal. "What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry to wake you, milady," Gilbek said hopefully, seeing an unexpected chance to help the boy without involving Lord Enrizial. "It's Lord Cazlik -
he's crying for you. Perhaps if you could just soothe him to sleep..."

"I don't think so," Kohler shook his head. "We were told not to offer even the slightest comfort to Cazlik and therefore, it falls to his Uncle to offer such."

Mirdra started to protest, but managed to shut her mouth before any sound escaped. She would have liked nothing better than to go to Cazlik and reassure him. Yet, she realised what Kohler was doing and the effect it might have; it might just get Enrizial to allow them to be with the boy more.

Gilbek's heart sank. "Yes, milord." With his luck, by the time they'd dragged Lord Enrizial out of bed and got to the nursery, the boy would have fallen asleep in exhaustion and this would all be for nothing.

Kohler only smiled in reply. The worst that could happen was that Enrizial would decide he no longer wanted him for his Steward. After loyal service _and_ with said loyalty having been demostrated, even Enrizial wouldn't be foolish enough to try to take Green Valley from him--he had enough troubles to deal with at this juncture without adding the point to the dunce cap he seemed to like to wear. The only way to force him to think before he proclaimed was to let him deal with the consequences.

***

The boy huddled under his covers despite the warmth of the night, trembling as his eyes adjusted to the darkness and he began to make out dark shapes surrounding him. That black-draped shadow was only a chair with a coat draped over it, he told himself, and the pale, eerie gleam in the corner only moonlight reflecting from a mirror. He had been told he was too big to sleep in his mother's rooms any longer, where the sound of her soft breathing reassured him and kept the monsters at bay, and he had to be brave.

Then he thought he saw a flicker of movement, and the throbbing of the blood in his veins sounded awfully like soft footsteps approaching. Coming closer...closer...closer...

Enrizial sat up with a cry, gasping for breath, his pulse racing. He was still in darkness and the pounding of footsteps had not stopped...it was at the door!

It took him several minutes to calm himself, to remember that he was a grown man now and Lord of the Hold, not a frightened child. There was a guard at his door and another down the corridor, placed there to defend him, and there might be any number of reasons why someone would knock at his door in the night. It might be another fire...

With that thought banishing more nebulous fears, he got out of bed and pulled on a dressing-gown before coming to the door.

"Kohler?" He blinked, rubbing his eyes. This had to be serious if his Steward, too, had been woken. "What is it? What's the matter?"

"Sorry to wake you, milord!" Kohler didn't seem the least sorry, and the slight smile on his face only made his lack of contrition even worse. "But I'm afraid your nephew is having nightmares and crying. Guardsman Gilbek came for me but I _assured_ him that since you'd forbidden Mirdra and I to see to the boy that it must be because you'd planned on doing so."

"Is that all?" Enrizial glanced irritably at Gilbek. "So you woke both the Steward and myself on account of a child crying? Tell him to be quiet and go to sleep - he's got work to do tomorrow."

The guardsman looked miserable. "I tried, milord, but he's afraid of me. He wants Lady Mirdra. If only she could visit him for a few minutes - just long enough to get him to sleep..."

"_No_. I can't have an Heir who's scared of the dark and his own guardsmen,"
Enrizial replied, shaking his head in disgust. He should have expected this, given the taint in the boy's Bloodline, but Cazlik was all he had and would have to measure up somehow. "He'll just have to learn not to be a coward."

Kohler nodded. "As I thought, Gilbek. As you can see, Lord Enrizial expects the four turn old to have the constitution and mental capacity of a grown man. Surely we won't swim against _that_ tide, now will we." Enrizial could act like a runner's ass--he was going to bed and made to walk away. "Just stuff some cloth in his mouth if he screams too loudly and tell the nurses to cover their ears!"

Enrizial frowned. Put like that...it made him recall the dream, the darkened room and the approaching footsteps. Even the guards were looking at him incredulously, the man who'd been at his door perhaps thinking of his own son.

"Oh, very well." He conceded with poor grace. "You and Mirdra may go and see him when you like - just so long as I don't have to be bothered with him again tonight!"

Mirdra suppressed a smile and glanced at her husband. She would certainly have to let him know later what she thought of his cleverness.

"Pleasant dreams, milord," Kohler nodded at the guards, grabbed Mirdra's hand and headed in the direction of the nursery.

One point him, zero Enrizial, and they'd only been there one day...

Last updated on the September 15th 2005

Welcome to Triad Weyrs!

Nightmares