Not another Fairy Tale

Chapter Three: In Peril

Her name was Loretta and she was the queen of this vast kingdom, but for all her power and position she was a mother first. She had been having visions for the past month or so and all about her beloved son. Rupert was her whole life, and if she lost him there would be no reason to go on.
Yes, she did love her husband, she and Matthias had been betrothed when they were children and by some miracle they managed to fall in love, but it wasn’t until Rupert was born that Queen Loretta understood what it truly meant to love. She was responsible for this new life. She had given birth to it and it was up to her to protect it. Now, that life was in danger and she vowed that nothing bad was ever going to happen to her son.

It was that promise that led her to drastic measures. It was she who had insisted Rupert stay in the castle and never be permitted to leave and for the most part he did. There were only certain occasions that he was allowed to venture out into the world but only with heavy security. The world was dangerous, and she couldn’t take the chance of losing him. She had received a vision several days before his birth. She saw his death so clearly in her mind and she was going to do everything she could to stop it.

That night was like every other night, the half-moon was out and shining, but not as bright as it could be. She couldn’t shake this awful feeling that something bad was going to happen. She had visited her son’s room earlier and he was still safely tucked away for the night. She wished she could have stayed with him and watched over him as he slept like she did when he was a child, but he was a man now and all of 21 years and her place was further in the background.

A young man didn’t need their mother hovering over them all the time. Rupert was becoming more independent in the last few years insisting on training with the knights, something his father more than approved of, but the thought of those brutes roughing up her only son was too much for her.

Even last month when the kingdom sponsored the yearly games she didn’t want Rupert to be a part of it, but in his stubbornness he refused to bide by her wishes. She didn’t have the heart to attend, not wanting to see her son get hurt. She waited in her chambers all the day just waiting to get the horrible news about Rupert. The only news that came was that he had won three out the five events that he had competed in. His father’s only complaint was that he did not win the other two.

Loretta was in her bedchamber unable to sleep. Even after her talk with Rupert that night it did not ease her mind any. She paced the room slowly with the vision of his death playing over and over in her mind. There had to be something she could do to change this fate. It could not happen again, not like it did with her father. She was determined to stop it.
 
She walked to the window and looked out. The half-moon hung low in the sky. It looked sad to her, incomplete, the way she was after her father’s death and before her son’s birth. He was named for her father in hopes that the same fate wouldn’t befall him. What were the chances of two men from the same family with the same name meeting the same end?

“This is not going to happen,” she said out loud. Her long hair fell forward. She made no effort to pull it back as a few hairs clung to her tear-stained face. She then heard a voice from across the room and turned quickly. She hadn’t realized the she had spoken out loud and awakened her sleeping husband.

    ”Loretta,” he said sleepily as he sat up in bed. “Why are you still awake?”

    She looked over at her husband, still carrying a worried look on her face. “I can’t sleep,” she said.

    Matthias sat up in bed and shook his head back and forth. “Of course you can’t sleep, if you don’t get in bed and lie down and close your eyes.”

    “Don’t patronize me, Matthias,” she snapped at him. “I had another vision.”
He just rolled his eyes and got out of bed. “What was it this time?”

“The same one,” she said and paced around the room. Each step became more and more frantic. “I see our son fighting for his life as that golden dagger is plunged repeatedly into his body. It’s all the same every time… just like my father.”

“Loretta, that’s your own mind playing tricks on you,” Matthias said and approached his wife. He grabbed her by the shoulders to stop her from pacing any longer. “You watched your father die exactly the same way, so you have convinced yourself the same thing will happen to Ruppert.”

She used all her strength to break free of her husband’s grip. “I’m not a raving lunatic, Matthias,” she said and reached the door of their chamber, “and I’m going to prove it.”