Free Bedtime Story by Robert J. Wiersema Page A

desk, rested my hand on the back of his chair. He wasn’t looking at me.
    “Are you sure?” I asked, pulling the chair over to the bed. “You didn’t seem too keen on it.”
    He shrugged, pushing a ball into the web of the glove. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s not
The Lord of the Rings
, but it might be all right.”
    I resisted the urge to kiss the top of his head. “Well, let’s find out,” I said, opening the book. “Assume the position, sport.”
    He didn’t lie down the way he usually did. “Dad,” he said, extending the glove slightly toward me. “Can you help me with this?”
    I looked at the glove, with absolutely no idea what to do with it.
    “Can you help me put this under my mattress?”
    “Isn’t that going to be uncomfortable?”
    “It’s just for another couple of nights. Coach says—”
    “Right.”
    Together we managed to get the glove set firmly in place. When he lay down he shifted several times, twisting and contorting, the way a cat will settle to the contours of its bed and manage to look completely comfortable once it’s done.
    “You all right?” I asked, when he seemed settled.
    “I think so,” he said, shifting a bit more. “It’s a bit lumpy …”
    “Pea under your bed, Princess?” I asked, putting on a fake British accent.
    “No, I didn’t!”
    We both laughed. Quick-witted, my boy.
    “Okay.” I opened the book again. “
To the Four Directions
, by Lazarus Took.”
    “Read by Christopher Knox,” he said, imitating the introductions used in the audio-books we listened to in the van.
    I smiled, at home in at least this little bit of routine.
    A few pages into the first chapter, he stopped me.
    “You don’t have to do that anymore, you know.”
    “Do what?”
    “That thing you do where you call the people in books David for me? You don’t need to do that anymore—I’m eleven years old now.”
    “I didn’t.” It was an old trick, a way of helping David relate to the story and the characters, but I hadn’t done it in a long time. David Baggins just hadn’t seemed right.
    Had I slipped into the old habit?
    I glanced down at the book.
    “No, look here.” I held up the book to him.
    “I’ll get a beating if I am late to the stables,” Tamas complained. But that didn’t stop him from following Dafyd through the winding alley in the dark
.
    “You worry too much, Tamas,” Dafyd said. “You have time for a little food. The stable-master will be asleep for hours yet.…”
    “And here.” Flipping a page.
    Tamas risked a nervous glance at Dafyd, and Mareigh caught the look
.
    “Dafyd,” she said, her voice dropping sternly
.
    “It’s spelled differently, with an
f
and a
y
, but it’s all David. I wasn’t making it up.”
    “Okay,” he said, turning onto his side again. “I believe you.”
    “Shall I go on?” I asked, with mock obsequiousness.
    “By all means.”

    After the death of the handmaiden, Captain Bream and the chosen twenty of his men took to the road earlier than planned, riding hard in formation around Dafyd and the magus. If the Berok had infiltrated the castle, time was of the essence. They had ridden out of Colcott beforedawn, and for the first day, the men took the River Road through the heart of the country. Outside of Colcott Town, the country had given way to smaller villages, clutches of buildings gathered at the edge of the Col River. The road was busy, but the merchants and travellers gave the King’s Men wide berth.
    The horsemen did not slow, and arrived at the garrison as dark was beginning to fall. The horses were boarded, the men fed, and Dafyd collapsed into the first bed that could be found for him, sleeping dreamlessly.
    There had been no idle conversation as they rode, and Dafyd was left alone with his thoughts of the handmaiden who had died in the throne room, who had given her life for his, and of the King who was, even now, dying, hoping for Dafyd to save him. He ached not only from the riding, but