Troubled dreams kept Miriam squirming in thousand thread count sheets, tormented in the midst of luxury. Her whimpers and moans went unanswered, unheard in the spacious master bedroom.

Amid fields fecund with imagination and fear, the dark king rode his destrier, resplendent in battle regalia, though tainted with gore. Under flint-hard hooves the ground is churned. No matter. The crops will not come, the earth yield up any bounty.

And so the king charged on to the fallow field, moist with dew in the mid-morning of life. The lance was unfurled, and the trumpets sounded. Their blaring filled the sky in a horrible peal.

With a start and a gasp, Miriam awoke in her own bed. No hoof beats assailed her ears. No weapons of war threatened the still of the night.

She lay alone, the queen sequestered to her bedchamber. The house still hummed with the muffled activity downstairs, knights and pages quietly working through the night. Returning to slumber she did not doubt, they would prevail.