The Dream Map, Ch1- Moving In

Cora had very little to do as Kylion's nursemaid. Jaielle monopolized the boy's time and neither Cora not Aertis was able to get more than a glance at him. She maintained that that her son was chosen. She saw the small mark on Kylion's ankle get a little larger with each passing day, and showed it Aertis and Cora to try to prove her sanity. The mark had become large enough to notice, but they both insisted it was a bruise , and suggested that Kylion might have kicked himself in his sleep.

"Just go away," Jaielle puffed. "You're both idiots. You ask me to prove that the gods have a special plan for Kylion. I show you the mark, and you're blind. You have no faith in your own son."

"Jaielle, the mark is miniscule, and looks rather like a bruise. Wouldn't you say, Cora?"

"Yes, Milord," Cora agreed.

"You would take his side, you peon. How could a peasant understand the concept of greatness? "Milord, this. Milord, that." Aertis is an archer-- not a knight, Cora."

"It's not necessary to speak to her in such a manner," Aertis broke in. "She's here to assist you."

" I don't need her. Kylion and I are both in perfect health."

 Aertis could not argue with this point. Jaielle and Kylion were both very healthy indeed. Since her pregnancy, Jaielle had been stronger and healthier than she had been in the early stages of her marriage. She had never been seriously ill, but before her pregnancy, some small ailment or another always inflicted her.  After the child was born she grew stronger yet, and Aertis admitted that his wife appeared particularly healthy when she was in contact with their son.

"I mean to protect you, Jaielle. You recall how ill your mother was when you were a child."

Jaielle wrapped the baby in linen cloths and laid him in his cradle.

"I am not ill," she stated, and dismissed both her husband and Cora from the nursery.

Cora never got an opportunity to use the cot Aertis had promised in the nursery. Jaielle used it herself every night. Something pulled her to Kylion, like a magnetic force, and she could not bring herself to leave the nursery - much less let Cora handle the care of her son.

Instead, Cora slept on the hammock outside Aertis and Jaielle's quarters while the weather was warm. When the chill of autumn came Aertis invited Cora inside, and she did not decline. Jaielle did not voice any objection. It seemed to please her to have her husband out of her way, and preoccupied with something else.

**********

Sendozor law dictated that the mother keeps primary responsibility of her child for the first five years and so Cora kept track of Jaielle's comings and goings. Often, she secretly followed when Jaielle took the boy to play, or on errands. Cora made a better midwife than a spy, and although Jaielle could sense when Cora lurked nearby she pretended not to notice. Jaielle knew that Pychar and Krytia had plans for her son when he was older, but as far as Cora could see, Kylion's behavior did not deter much from any other baby. It was when Kylion got older that the intrusion began to bother Jaielle.

Once, when Kylion was two and a half years old, Cora had tried to follow to the lake at the far end of Sendozor. Jaielle discovered her, and told her to turn around. Cora refused, and Jaielle grabbed her by her silver blonde hair and pulled her to the frozen ground. Cora backed away at Jaielle's unnatural strength and did not report the incident to Aertis-- although the incident would have been grounds to admit Jaielle to the Asylum. Cora was not sure Aertis would be ready to accept that Jaielle was that far gone. 

Cora and Aertis had grown much closer, of course, but Cora remained insecure. She shared Aertis's quarters, but Cora assumed he only did so because Jaielle had refused him for so long, and Cora was more than happy to fulfill his needs. But Cora could hear the flickers of Aertis's memories, for he sometimes talked in his sleep recalling the better days of their courtship and marriage, and she believed that Aertis still hoped that Jaielle would one day be herself again, and that the two of them would guide their son on his path.

Although Cora adored Aertis, she was not so naive as to think their affair was anything more than convenient. She had been born a peasant, and peasant women in Sendozor often slept with men of higher classes, even royalty if it could bring them or their families' even temporary gain. The wealthy could be very appreciative of the peasants' knack for discretion, and the peasants went as far as to encourage the belief that there was a high instance of promiscuity among each other in order to prevent any unnecessary embarrassment.

Cora knew if Jaielle was committed to the Asylum it would free Aertis to seek a woman of better breeding, and she would lose him forever. She needed more time to determine whether Aertis's was involved with her only for his physical needs, or if he did truly love her.

Cora's memory was long. She was a quick and patient learner, and always kept notes in her head -- especially when it served her purpose.

Cora watched Jaielle's possessiveness of Kylion, and the animosity toward herself. She collected incidents like ammunition in her mind until the boy's fifth year. This was when most children in Sendozor began their apprenticeships with their fathers. Jaielle had denied the boy his namesake, and Aertis had waited for the god and goddess to bless him with a child as long as Jaielle had. Cora was determined not to let Jaielle deny him a legacy.

"What Jaielle is doing is not good for the boy," Cora told Aertis. "Your son needs to see the world outside his mother's eyes. She guards him from everyone, Milord -- even you."

Aertis stroked Cora's hair and kissed her forehead.

"I know this is not the position you signed on for, Milady," he said. "But you have been of great comfort to me these last five years. I will talk to Jaielle, and make her see reason once and for all."

"And if she doesn't?" Cora asked.

"I will have her removed."

"And your son?"

"He is my son. I'll be training him in the trade of archery as tradition dictates."

Cora smiled, and moved closer to Aertis until they both heard Jaielle's voice, singing to Kylion in the distance.

"Would you like me to go somewhere; give you some privacy while you speak to Jaielle?" Cora asked.

"No, My Love," Aertis told her. Cora smiled again. Until that moment, she had not heard those words in broad daylight. They had come just recently in the wee hours of the faded moon, spoken so softly in her ear that a cricket's voice would have drowned the honey of her beloved's voice had she not been listening very carefully. He loved her. Cora at last knew that she had crossed the threshold in Aertis's heart; she was no longer merely a servant, but a companion.

"I will find Jaielle in the nursery," he said. "I fear she will continue to hold a tight grip on the boy. I'll need you close at hand. It may be necessary for you to summon the Militia.

Jaielle was sitting on the nursery floor with Kylion; they were arranging pebbles in different patterns when Aertis walked in.

"That is quite an impressive collection of stones, Kylion," Aertis told the boy. Kylion looked at his mother, searching her eyes, her expression for permission to respond, and she nodded.

"I've gathered them myself, Father," Kylion said, "With Mother's help."

"Your mother helps you with many things, doesn't she, Son?" Aertis said.

"Mother says it's what mothers do."

Aertis nodded. "Yes, that's true," he said. "Has Mother mentioned what fathers do?"

Kylion looked at Jaielle dumbfounded, and scooted onto her lap.

"Aertis," Jaielle said. "He is just a boy. He's not ready for training."

"He is five years old. It is customary for boys to begin the early stages of their apprenticeships at his age. There is nothing irregular." Aertis reached for his son, and Jaielle held on tighter.

"Not all boys begin when they are five, many are seven or eight, and archery can be dangerous," Jaielle told him.

"But, Jaielle," Aertis reasoned. "You've said yourself they boy is special. Chosen, you have said. Certainly, he does not require a delay in training. There is nothing dangerous about archery in the early stages-he would start with a bow his size, and with dull arrows. Nothing could be safer. Release him, Jaielle."

"The boy is tired. He's been gathering his pebbles, playing hard the better part of the morning. Perhaps tomorrow."

"No, Jaielle. Not tomorrow. It is time, now. I don't trust you. I would not put it past you to run off with my son in the night. You must give him to me now."

Jaielle clung tighter still to Kylion and begun to shake nervously she forced out a smile, and a bit of a laugh. "You don't trust me?" she stated. "What right do you have to even mention the word? You with your little whore peasant, sleeping with you in our bed...."

"You overtook Cora's sleeping quarters, Jaielle. She couldn't sleep outside on the hammock in the dead of winter."

"We never needed her here at all, Aertis," Jaielle said.

"I have needed her here," Aertis said.

Cora smiled when she heard this. She had planted her ear firmly against the wall, and she sensed it would soon be time for her to find the militia. She gathered a small sack of coins from the drawer and looked outside. She would summon a passerby to get them. Having lived most of her life as a peasant, she knew the Sendozor peasants well. She knew which ones could and could not be trusted.

Aertis reached his arms between his wife and his son and began to pry him away. Jaielle sank her teeth deep into his upper arm, and dug her nails into his scalp. He screeched in pain and yelled for Cora. Jaielle pulled Kylion into the corner where he curled himself into a small ball. Jaielle moved into a war stance, protecting her precious cargo in the corner.

"The Militia is on the way, Jaielle; you may as well release Kylion to his father. It will make this whole episode easier to explain when you get to the Asylum," Cora began to move toward Jaielle, and Aertis reached his arm in front of her. He was not going to take any chances, and he felt he had only seen the beginning of what Jaielle might be capable of doing.

Jaielle laughed at her husband's gesture and spat at Cora; surprising them all with her precision aim, she hit her rival square in the face, just below her left eye.

"It's too bad you have gone mad, Jaielle. You have a knack for hitting your mark. I could have trained you in archery as well."

Jaielle moved into the corner, and held Kylion on her lap. The boy stared at his father, and he began to feel uneasy, a vision flashed through Aertis's mind of a woman lying injured in the forest, but the image came and went quickly, and Aertis could not identify whom he saw.

"Leave Mother alone," Kylion told his father. "I'll go with you. I'll begin my training." The boy began moving toward Aertis just as the Militia arrived.

"Seize her!" Cora told them. "Take her to the Asylum-it is not safe to continue to have her near the child. Look what she has done to his father; imagine what she could do to the boy!"

"Mother would never hurt me," Kylion told them, but the Militia received their confirmation from Aertis, and they wrapped a white robe around her and forced her into a carriage outside.

"No!" Jaielle screamed, and Kylion tried to run toward her, but his father held him as tightly as his mother had earlier. Kylion stared into his mother's eyes, and she was suddenly calmed.

"Don't worry, Mother. I will tell you everything," he told her.

"I'm sorry, Kylion," Cora told the boy. "But your mother is ill. You will not be visiting her."

Jaielle laughed. "The boy is five years old, and he has surpassed you both. Be easy on them, Son. They can't help that they are so stupid."

"Take her!" Aertis shouted, and the carriage left.