The dragon and the rose

Chapter VIII

I

On the first night of the English stranger's disappearance, Eric de Rocha had a dream. He had been having dreams for as long as he could remember for what kind of human being does not dream while he or she is sleeping? But while we, the common people, all dream mostly uninterpretable messes or the opposite of that, something very simple and unimportant, Eric dreamt of the future even if he was not quite sure about that yet but was starting to think so too; the mere thought of it scared him. In times like this, in the first moments after he jolted awake from such a vision, Eric questioned the existence of God, of a supreme power, of his own being: he questioned everything and anything that came to his mind and he could not simply believe whatever he had been told, he thought that everything was a lie, that it could not be like this because it was like that or that it could not be like that because it was like this. He asked, and questioned, and inquired, and wondered and was sceptic about all that surrounded him and waited for some kind of answer, reassurance or anything that would show him the path he needed to walk. But no such instructions came, there were no answers, no certainty for they had already been given in the dream and Eric had to search for them himself. He would think about these answers for some minutes, becoming more and more drowsy, and then when he saw that they were not that concrete as he had thought them to be, he said to himself that he would interpret the dream the next morning, or day, or night, or whenever just not then. It was evident that he no longer wanted the answers and that he never actually wanted to think about the dreams again. But the dreams would not let him be, they would come back even if not every night, too often to remain unnoticed by the perceptive boy.

That very night he had such a predicting dream as well but this time, even though he wanted to, he could not force himself to calm down and go to sleep. The dreams were tired of his ignorance and had decided to not let him be until they achieved what they had initially wanted. Did they want to warn him? Scare him? Annoy him? Or just simply to inform him of something that had already been decided? Nobody, neither Eric nor even I know, for however vivid they were, the dreams could not speak directly to him.

This time, while he was sleeping soundly and unsuspectingly, they crept on him gently and then they struck. They had not visited him for weeks and now here they were again. Eric immediately learnt that there is always a calm before the storm.

He was in the gardens, running around with Constanza, laughing and teasing and chasing each other. It had started as such a sweet dream! But then the sky darkened, weeping was heard from the castle and the voice of a woman started whispering to him, begging, pleading and then it turned aggravated and the gentle voice become harsh and loud; when he woke up, he could only remember that it was threatening him but with what, he did not know. It was not princess Constanza's voice, of that he was sure, it was just a woman, was his first thought but then he learned that death himself had spoken to him.

He spent the night tossing and turning in his bed, he could not get the certain voice out of his head, not even for a second. And what was even worse, that it haunted him even during the day, whenever he looked at something or someone who was dear to him, he heard the voice. It was a warning, this time he knew. But what kind of warning? What was going to happen? Something bad, he knew that, he saw it and felt it, but would he be able to prevent it? The dreams, even though they had accompanied him through his entire life, were still to new to be sure of such things.

But later, he would know what he saw and everyone else would see it with him again.

II

King Flavian II was most angry and surprised when he heard that the stranger had run away; he scolded his daughter and told her that it was a very risky thing to do in the first place and now, if he was a spy, they shall all bear the consequences of her actions. But then his daughter looked at him with teary eyes and with a sweet and remorseful expression on her saddened face and the king could no longer be angry with his favourite princess and heir. He sent men to look after the stranger but as we all know, they found nothing for they did not look where they should have, right before their nose. And Constanza knew that they would not search for him in the castle, it was evident that no one would have done that thus she was no longer worried.