Silver Hooves in the Darkness

Chapter Twelve

The Keeper of the Accounts of Dome Erba had kept her waiting so long in the rain that the people of the city had eaten both breakfast and lunch before she entered his office upon his arrival.

The old man with skin the color of dry, dingy parchment barely looked at her. She silently moved from her position by the door and began to pace the room to relieve a cramp in her leg. He marked his ledger with her formal identification. He had no interest in the name she had received in Dome Biblia, for it was unofficial.

He took a piece of paper and added it to a wicker basket, efficient and precise in his duties. He turned his broad face toward her. His heavily-lidded brown eyes burned hotly with rage. Celso snarled, "You are dripping wet! Look at what you have done to my rug!" He gestured down to a red oval festooned with bizarre creatures upon which she had inadvertently stepped. "Come here!" he ordered.

He did not move from his sturdy, plain chair. As she knelt, he placed the topaz in his platinum ring against her gem to collect the information regarding her Carry. "I am also deducting from the fee you will receive upon your book delivery for the water damage you have inflicted on my rug, which is all that I have left from my father's estate." His braid of grey streaked with black quivered as he expressed his indignation. Her gem gave a plaintive chirp.

He had been so late in opening his office that she thought that she should have fined him. All she could do as an equina was accept the complaint and withstand his rebuke.

 "You must report back to me after you make your delivery and retrieve your pickup, for all Carry transactions, as you are aware, come through me. Now, go and complete your delivery!" he ordered; then, he returned his attention to another stack of papers. The vigorous thumping of an inked wooden stamp upon various documents followed her out of the door.

*****

 She waited again in the rain before an iron gate that was the entrance to a tiled courtyard decorated with small trees finally shorn of the last of their brittle leaves by the rain. On her side of the gate, she had pulled the cord attached to a brass bell, which hung on a wooden pole carved with leaves.

 No one had answered. And in the time she had waited, not a single human had offered her any shelter or small comfort. A few equinii had passed by with a greeting of, "Good running!" She had expected no more from them as they had to focus on their business as she hers.

As the dome orb began to dim again with approaching twilight, the splashing of feet in puddles sounded behind her.

"Little one, you are soaked! How long you must have waited. I am truly sorry! I am Alessandro Di Medico."

No human had ever apologized to her. Paola turned around to find the source of the kind words. A bald young man of average height who was clad in a wet blue robe fussed with an odd contraption that had unsuccessfully shielded him from the rain. He cursed the device as he tried to close it, but it resisted the retraction of its shield. "This umbrella never works right!" he howled in surrender before dropping the contrary device to the ground.

"'Umbrella'?" The equina noted the new word as she rolled around the consonants and vowels in her mouth. It sounded very feminine and almost like a name one could bestow on an equina.

With a tired sigh, Alessandro reached into the cloth bag slung over his broad shoulders. He had the stocky build and fierceness of a boxer more than that of a gentle healer. His skin was a dark olive tone that one might see in someone who farmed. "Keys, keys, keys!" he snarled as he fished about his bag. Finally, he cried out, "Victory!" as he waved a spindly metal key attached to a leather thong. He opened the gate, picked up his battered umbrella and pointed to the two story dwelling beyond. "Some hot tea and some biscuits for me. How about you? What is your preference?" he said amicably as they walked into the courtyard.