Whatever it was, it was serious; the child wasn't even listening to him. Finally, when nothing Pol could do would serve to comfort him and calm the little boy, he rang for a servant and sent him for a Healer.
Not surprisingly, it was his own daughter Elenor who arrived at the door within a few moments, her pale-green cloak thrown hastily around her shoulders, little tendrils of her warm, brown hair escaping from the hood and dripping onto the floor.
"Who is this?" she asked, as she knelt beside her father to take the child in her own arms. Her heart-shaped face was full of concern, her cheeks pink from the cold, raindrops sparkling on her eyelashes.
"Malken. He's about ten," Pol said, as she bent over the sobbing child. He took advantage of her arrival to get a handkerchief to wipe the poor thing's face and nose. Malken continued to howl, oblivious.
"Malken," she murmured in his ear, holding him close, "Malken, sweetling, it's all right—"
Malken clearly didn't think it was all right, but Pol felt his own faint Gift of Empathy wake in answer to his daughter's more powerful abilities, and recognized her soothing touch on the child's mind.
Slowly, carefully, she insinuated herself between Malken and his own hysteria; slowly the child's sobs began to weaken, his howls to fade. It was a mercy that people were used to children in distress seeking Pol out, otherwise someone would surely have charged into the room by now, intent on beating whoever was frightening Malken into a bloody pulp.
At last, at very long last, Malken hiccuped once, and lapsed into silence, collapsing with exhaustion into Elenor's arms.
Pol took the boy from her, picking him up to carry back to his room. Elenor stood up shakily, her face pale, pulling herself up with the aid of her father's chair. Malken was clearly in no shape to be questioned about what had set him off.
But maybe his Companion had picked out something from Malken's mind that would explain all this.
:Already noted, but you were a bit busy to talk to,: Satiran told him instantly, with none of his usual smugness at having anticipated something Pol wanted. :Hayka thinks his Gift decided to come on him all at once just after dinner. He says that Malken was reading, when something in the book triggered a vision of fire, of people burning to death by the thousands. Hayka is fairly shaken himself; all I can get out of him is that it seemed as if the entire world was going up in a storm of flame. And—:
Satiran hesitated. When Satiran hesitated, Pol worried.
:And?: he prodded, :forewarned is forearmed; and what, Satiran?:
:And somehow you were deeply in the middle of it. That was why he ran to you.:
"Let's get Malken to bed. Did you bring something to dose him with?" Pol asked his daughter, feeling more than a bit of concern for her as well. She was clearly troubled by the strength of Malken's hysteria; had she gotten an inkling of Malken's vision? He didn't want her to worry. Eventually, he would have to tell Ilea, and that would be bad enough. "I think he ought to sleep through the night, after this."
"No, but I can put him to sleep and make him forget what set this off all by myself," she told him, her pallor fading and her authority as a Healer reasserting itself. She gave him a look that told him she wouldn't allow herself to be persuaded otherwise; the tendrils of curling, red-brown hair falling over one soft brown eye made her look absurdly like a stubborn little foal. "That's much safer in a child this small."
She looked so much like Ilea in this mood that Pol couldn't help but smile; he covered his smile lest she misinterpret it as condescension rather than pride, and led the way to the dormitory and the Trainees' rooms.
Down the long corridor and through a door at the end, then up a wooden staircase lit at intervals by lamps with the flames turned low, he led his daughter to the second floor and the beginning of the dormitory rooms for the Trainees. Each child had his own room; not large rooms, but each had his own to himself, with a door he could close and even lock on the rest of the world if he chose to. Malken's room was on this floor; there were four more floors above this one, with the library at the top, and there were signs that the Collegium wing would have to be expanded again soon.
That thought made Pol uneasy; it hadn't occurred to him until now, but—
But when we're about to go to war, more Heralds are Chosen than usual.
As if to be ready to replace the ones that would inevitably fall to the enemy. Especially when the enemy was Karse, whose Sun-priests hated Heralds and their Companions with a fury that defied rational explanation.
He paused at Malken's room, so denoted by the little plaque with his name on the door, and nodded at Elenor. His daughter opened the door for him, and followed him inside, lighting a candle at the fire, then turning down the bedcovers so her father could place the boy in his bed.
Pol tucked him in, removing only his boots; he didn't want to risk rousing him enough to start him on his hysterical weeping again. Elenor knelt beside the bed for a moment with one hand on Malken's pale forehead. When she stood up again, the little boy sighed once, deeply, then curled over on his side, the very picture of natural slumber.
They tiptoed out, closing the door behind them.
Elenor waited until they were in the stairway to confront her father.
"Satiran told you something, didn't he?" she demanded from behind and above him on the stairway. "I saw your face—I know he did! What in Kernos' name did he tell you? That child was terrified! What frightened him so?" In this temper, her changable eyes had gone to a stormy darker color, with flecks of green.
"I'm not entirely certain," he temporized. "He had a vision—"
"A vision!" she replied, sounding more like her mother than he could have imagined. "I think that's too mild a word for something that sends a child into screaming hysterics!"
By this time they had reached the ground floor, and he turned to face her. She looked up at him with pursed lips; he looked down at her wearing his best card-playing face.
Eventually she made a petulant little stamp of her foot. "I can see you've no intention of telling me anything more," she said sullenly, sounding more now like herself, a fourteen-year-old who has been cheated of an adult confession.
He smiled. "I'm glad you understand," he replied mildly, as she glowered at him.
"I don't understand, and I don't like it, but I also don't have a choice, do I?" she grumbled, tucking her wayward hair back into the snood she wore to keep it out of the way.
"No, you don't," he agreed, and reached out to take her stiff body in his arms for a good hug. As he'd expected, she thawed, and returned the embrace.
"After all," he murmured into her damply fragrant hair, "I am your father. I should be able to keep some secrets from you."
"Why?" she retorted, her good humor restored as she reluctantly pulled away from him to go back to her own quarters. "You're only a mere man. Men can't possibly keep secrets from women; we know what you're going to do long before you do it."