Read Online The Shadow and Night by Chris Walley - Free Book Online

tea together.”
    â€œAh, I’m sorry, old friend. I’m afraid I shall have to skip the tea. I’ve been put on the next freighter out. Twenty minutes. But I’ll help you stable her.”
    â€œTut, tut! No tea with me? If you please, you youngsters are too busy by far. Here, lass, give me a hoof. I’ll talk to your horse instead.” He stroked a flank. “Good girl, good girl.”
    Suddenly, as if caught by a thought, Jorgio lifted his face up briefly, his brown eyes showing puzzlement. “Do you know, Mister Merral, as I’ve been praying for you lately?”
    â€œYou have?” Merral replied, struck by the intensity in his friend’s face. “Well, I value that. I truly do.”
    Jorgio was now peering at the hoof. “Tut, tut. Ice and sharp rock are nasty things for a hoof. Even with dura-polymer coatings. If they’re all like this I’ll get new coatings put on ’em. But after Nativity.”
    He looked up again at Merral, the angle making his face seem even more distorted. “Funny, it was. I haven’t been sleeping well lately. Restless. For two weeks now. The other night, last night, I think. Anyway, I’m lying awake in my bed. You’ve seen my room, haven’t you? Nice it is. Cozy; you can see it now. Oh no, you’re off away, aren’t you? Anyway, middle of the night the King just says to me, ‘Jorgio Aneld Serter.’ Full name like. So I sits up in bed and says, ‘Your Majesty, present and correct!’ Well, there’s not a lot else to say, is there?”
    Sometimes Merral found it hard to know whether Jorgio was trying to make a joke, but this didn’t sound like one. “I suppose so,” he said, patting his friend on the back. “Not much else indeed. But go on.”
    Jorgio let the hoof drop to the ground and stood up, screwing his face up as he struggled to remember something.
    â€œSo, well, the King, he says, ‘That Merral Stefan D’Avanos, he’s in a spot of bother right now. I think you ought to pray for him.’
    â€œÂ â€˜Well, right you are, Your Majesty,’ I says, and then he’s gone. So I starts asking the Most High to look after you. Half an hour I reckon I prayed. Hard work it was, like wrestling with a bear. Not that I’ve done that, but you takes my meaning. I was in a regular sweat when I finished. I don’t know what the bother was.” He scratched a crumpled ear. “Never had that happen. You know what it was about?”
    â€œLast night? I was safely asleep indoors last night at the Antalfers. But wait.  . . .” Something like ice seemed to run up his spine. “When was this? Last night?” Merral stared into Jorgio’s eyes.
    â€œAye, last night. . . .”
    â€œYou’re sure?”
    The old man wrinkled his weathered face and bit his bottom lip in puzzlement. Then he grunted. “Tut. No! I’m sorry. It wasn’t. It was the night before.”
    Merral stepped back, feeling as if a chill hand had touched him. “No, it wasn’t a bear,” he said, suddenly both chastened and grateful. “But it was something. I don’t know what it was. And I’m very glad you prayed. Very glad.”
    For a moment, Jorgio stared at him, as if waiting for an explanation. Merral found himself oddly disinclined to say anything about his dream and suggested instead that they stable Graceful.

    Ten minutes later, having said farewell to Jorgio, Merral was still oscillating between puzzlement and thankfulness as he made his way down to the loading bay. There, floodlit beneath the weather shelter, he could see the brick red, faceted bulk of the six-wheeled Light Groundfreighter with the code F-28 stamped on its side by the Lamb and Stars emblem.
    He was striding toward it when his attention was caught by a slender female figure with long black hair tied back walking ahead of him with a