how you all doing! i'm back btw :D #not dead! um i'm sorry if i haven't replied to reviews to the last chapter but i'm going to try better this time!
Chapter 34… Fathers and Mothers.
Gilan gazed out of the window. The pains were diamonded shaped and covered in a thick layer of dust and the heavy curtain had been pulled three quarters of the way across the window as to not let too much light into the room. He rested his hand on the curtain, feeling the soft velvet under his small fingers, remembering his mother dressed in a coat in the same stuff. The night was bleak and silent.
He turned away from the window for a moment to check on his mother. She was only a small huddle, swamped in the coverlet of the four-poster bed. Her frail body was bent at the hips and her spine was curved as if doubled over in pain. Her hair lay in a thin, dark halo on the pillow and her face was overcome with white pallor.
'She was sick', his father had said. 'I'm sure she'll be better soon', he'd promised. His mother didn't seem as if she was getting better. More like she was getting worse and worse each day and the decrease of her life had faded considerably more since his father had been away at war.
He walked over to the bed and sat on the corner of the soft mattress. Her body on took up a quarter of the bed and it seemed empty without his father's heavy figure and so he could slip on the bed easily without disturbing his mother's sleep.
He knew he should not be in here. His father had told him so much before he had left and had the physician. Yet he felt that he could not leave her- in this room that sank of sickness- as she had not left him when he'd asked. She didn't deserve to be alone and without his father to be here for her it was up to him to be her strength.
She moaned in her sleep and rolled over, turning to face Gilan on the bed. He wondered what had disturbed her as she had not moved in her calm sleep for days. He listened for any sound of someone moving in the room beyond the sick room but it came from the window instead.
Father! He slipped from the bed and sprinted to the window. Indeed, a herd of men were twisting down the hill, over the moat and down in to the castle. He looked down at the brightly coloured flags and banners and searched for his father who would be no doubt riding on one of the strong battle horses.
His father had a light bay horse, Gilan knew. He'd ridden her many times with his father through the wood and grounds of their manor house in the country- yet as his mother's illness had increased they had no chose but remove themselves from the secluded house to the castle were she could retrieve real help- but as his father pounded through the draw bridge he was riding a dark coloured horse that Gilan didn't recognise.
He felt a pang of happiness about his father's return. More than happy, he was really. The worries that had been sprouting in his mind the past few weeks were qwinched. He had feared of his father's death and his mother's. He didn't know what he would have done if both of them died. Or what if his mother died before his father returned home, or-
A sound came through the room beyond and he realised that the sound probably would have awoken his mother. He rushed to her bed just as she opened her eyes. The blueness and intensity had been kill as she seem like a drunk. Her voice was quiet and small when she spook.
'David? David, is that you?' she asked him and Gilan palled at the sound of his father's name not his, but he couldn't blame her.
He replied in a quiet voice, 'no mother, it's Gilan. Your son.' He felt bad that he had to remind her, but her eyes opened a fraction and a small smile returned to her mouth. Maybe she could get better, Gilan though.
'My son, where is your father?'
'He's coming mother,' and just then did the doors spring open and a void of light embraced the dark room. His father stood in the door way, flushed red from the cold night's air. Still wearing his armour tainted with blood and dirt. Grime was greased into the thick lines of his head, yet Gilan felt that he'd never been so pleased to see his father before in his life.
His father looked so different and the same now than he had then. Yet he owned the ill pallor of his mother instead of the strong face his father had worn that night. He was stripped of his silver armour and no glittering sword swung at his side as he walked forward. No, his father was laying like a rag doll on the floor. His face the colour of ashes and his hands chained together with thick irons.
Gilan send a glace behind himself before moving forward. He pushed away the strong emotions that were churning in his chest and went to work. He started with feeling for a puce then checked the chest and mouth for breathing and making sure there was no damage to his father's windpipe. He searched for any manger damage and feeling sick again as he saw a considerable amount of blood pooling from to gapping wounds in his leg and side. He slipped of his cloak and bundled it to wipe away the blood so he could inspect the wound. It was still bleeding in both places and turning yellow at the edges. Gritting his teeth he ripped his cloak into thin strips so that he could bandage the wounds tightly.
He slipped a knife out of his belt and went to work at unlocking the chains. His blade shuffled about into the lock for a moment then he heard a slight click and the iron sprang free. He pulled his father up and over his shoulder and walked out of the tent again.
His eyes glazed over the camp site before he started walking again, being careful not to make any sort of scene. Yet someone caught a glance at him and stood up. Gilan halted and turned to face the man.
'Where you taking him?' asked the man with a pointed finger.
Gilan didn't know what to say before he heard clanking footsteps behind him and turned to face the general in armour.
Sorry for any mistakes i've literally just written this, so please review!