Cry for the Wolf, Chapter 1. by Richard Walker

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I bethink me even temporal princes could never purchase such great care and attention as I have labored to give, for all the great wealth and worldly power they command. Yet, I find that I am confounded still.
While my efforts bring my dear lady mother some comfort and allow her the rest she musts needs have to continue living in this world, praise be to the Light for this small, tender mercy, I am as yet still unable to locate the seat of her affliction, and so am yet powerless to banish it. This battle, how well you know it, has now stretched on for months untold. From day to day I have seen my dear mother's sickness grow fearful strong and wrack her body most hurtfully, only to wane away again and her health wax new so that she walks and talks and carries on about the business of the house and the estate as well and strongly as might you or I. Truth to tell, however, these are the times when I fear for her most, for I know she will be smitten down again and hard, only when I cannot know, to the great vexation of mine heart. Even a more dreadful burden upon mine heart is my being faced daily with the awful knowledge that I am of such good estate, in both body and soul, when she who bore and took such great pains to raise me lies so afflicted.
At the time of my sending this letter to you, mother is smitten most sorely yet again, laid up in bed with a dire weakness that threatens to rob her even of the strength needed to keep her poor heart beating, barely able as she is to keep anything in her stomach long enough to procure any good of it.
I have bethought me the notion of taking Mother on a pilgrimage to see some holy man, to seek some miraculous cure and surcease of this horrible and prolonged affliction, or to take her to some cathedral and raIn my tears and supplications down upon some great and holy prince of the Church to grant her health back unto her, but I fear so to move her on such a trip for the fact that I am near certain that the strain should bleed away the very life I have given so much in the attempt to preserve. Faced with this fearsome dilemma I have chosen to make the short journey to Fallon where, the great All-Feast preparing to be enjoined, I might gain audience with his holiness the Bishop of Fallon or the cathedral canon court of Fallominster as a preliminary step, and by heartfelt supplications and clear explanations I might bring a great and holy man to mother's bedside briefly to call down upon her the blessing of the Light and some miraculous cure. After this 'thought occurred, I bethought me of the tender sensibilities of the great men who sit in the great cathedral temple at Fallon, and perceived that some insult might be construed by them if I failed to come to them first, who sheltered me and allowed me to finish the learning that you, in your inestimable generosity and kindness did first allow me to begin. So in careful consideration of their feelings I have dispatched the necessary entreaties for my needs to the clerks of my acquaintance working for the cathedral chapter, and even' now review my options for good and pleasing gifts to endear myself to them and renew our old friendship.