The Shadowy Horses

by Susanna Kearsley

“I know all kinds of things.”

  “Adrian…”

  “Well, if you must know,” he said, smiling, “I had the whole story from one of your own finds assistants.”

  My head drooped forward, into my hands. “Oh, God.”

  “No, the redhead, actually. The one with the enormous—”

  “And what, exactly, did she tell you?” I wanted to know.

  “Only that you’d knocked our Brian senseless.”

  “That I’d…?”

  “I didn’t think you had it in you, darling,” he admitted, lacing his fingers together. “But your young assistant claims you’ve got a cracking good left hook.”

  “But surely she can’t actually have seen…”

  “Oh, yes. Apparently she heard your voices, and had just popped her head round to investigate when you sent Brian sailing.”

  It might have looked like that, I conceded, from a certain angle. “But I didn’t see anyone.”

  “No… well, she is a rather polite young thing, and seeing that you had everything so well in hand, you and Fortune, I assume she didn’t want to poke her nose in where she wasn’t needed.”

  I massaged my forehead, closing my eyes. “And how many people did she mention this to, do you suppose?”

  “Only to me, as far as I know. Of course,” he went on, before the news could cheer me, “I myself could not resist sharing the tale with a few of my own lads.”

  “Oh, Adrian.”

  “Don’t ‘oh Adrian’ me. One doesn’t just sit on a story like that.”

  “But now everyone will know.”

  “And why not? It can only raise your stock among the students, darling. My lot already thought you rather smashing—now they’re in absolute awe.”

  I counted backwards from ten. “I’m very flattered. But it wasn’t me that hit Brian.”

  Adrian raised his eyebrows. “It was never our Mr. Fortune?”

  “No, of course not, don’t be stupid.”

  “Who, then?”

  “You won’t believe me,” I warned him.

  “Yes I will. Who was it?”

  “Robbie’s Sentinel.”

  Adrian stared at me. “Bollocks.”

  “See, what did I tell you?”

  “Ghosts can’t hit people.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because there are no such things as ghosts.”

  “Brilliant logic, that,” I commended him. “And anyway, if you keep on arguing, you might find out otherwise. The Sentinel’s become a bit protective of me, as it happens. That’s why he went for Brian.”

  “Oh right.” Adrian assumed a completely accepting expression, then rolled his eyes heavenwards. “Am I the only person on this dig who hasn’t gone completely mad?”

  Before any higher being could answer him, Peter came striding through the doorway like an actor who’d received his cue.

  “Horses!” he announced, in his richly melodious voice.

  Adrian looked at me. “As I was saying…”

  Coming to a halt beside my desk, Peter reached for one of my hands and, turning it palm up, pressed into it a flat, round lump of metal, flaking with corrosion.

  His eyes shone with the exhilaration of discovery, and for an instant I saw, not the old man standing there, but the Peter Quinnell of those fading photographs, his blond hair falling on his unlined face as he pointed again to the roughened bit of metal and smiled beatifically.

  “There, my dear,” he told me, “are your horses.”

  Chapter 29

  After two months of handling nothing but rough ware and Samian ware and scattered old coins, cleaning that single scrap of Roman horse-harness was like polishing Priam’s treasure.

  I could barely wait for the evening meal to finish so I could make my retreat to the kitchen, spread some old newspapers over the table, and set to work again, carefully removing the ugly disfiguring crust of age to reveal the underlying glint of silvered bronze.

  Conservation work always made me rather single-minded. I took very little notice of Jeannie’s leaving, or of Peter popping in to say good night, and when Fabia came home a few hours later she found me still sitting there, deeply absorbed.

  “You’re mad,” she said. “It’s half-past one.”

  “Is it?” I looked up, blinking like a shortsighted watchmaker, and she shook her head.

  “Mad,” she repeated, moving across to open a cupboard. “Want some cocoa? I always have to have my cocoa, every night. My mother’s fault. She was forever bringing me cups in my nursery, and now I can’t sleep without the blasted stuff.”

  Fabia almost never mentioned her mother, and when she did I’d found she tended to keep to a pattern—one brief reminiscence and then nothing more, as though a door slammed instantly to keep her mind from following after the small random memory. It scuttled like a leaf along an empty street and swirled off into silence.

  I said “yes please” to her offer of cocoa and bent again to my work.

  After several minutes Fabia brought both mugs of steaming cocoa over to the table and sat down across from me, frankly curious.

  “Is that what Peter found, this afternoon?”

  “Mm. A phalera,” I named it, shifting the partly cleaned disc safely out of range while I sipped my cocoa.

  “What does it do?”

  “Well, it’s sort of a connector, if you like, for the straps of a horse’s harness. You see these little rings, here, on the back? The leather straps went through there.”

  “Oh right.” She peered more closely, pointing. “What’s that little slot thing for?”

  “To hang a pendant on. When this was on a harness, there’d have been a pendant hanging from it, a flat metal piece shaped like a wolf’s head, or something like that. For decoration.”

  Fabia, with a dubious look at the corroded lump of metal at my elbow, remarked that she couldn’t imagine anything so ugly being in the least bit decorative. “But then I’ve no imagination anyway. If I saw it in a drawing, maybe…”

  “I could do better than a drawing. I could take you down south this summer,” I told her, “to watch a display of the Ermine Street Guard.”

  “The who?”

  “A Roman reenactment group. Their cavalrymen are brilliant, fully kitted out and everything, with replica saddles and harnesses. When those chaps come charging at you with the sun blazing off all those silver phalerae, you know how the ancient Britons must have felt.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” she promised. “Being run down by Romans is not my idea of fun.”

  “It’s tremendous fun, really.”

  “Didn’t the Britons have horses, to fight back with?”

  “Chariots.”

  Her eyebrows arched over the rim of her cocoa mug. “Chariots? What, like in Ben-Hur?”

  “Didn’t they teach you about Boudicca, when you were at school?”

  “Very probably.”

  “Queen of the Iceni,” I elaborated, with a smile. “A rather fierce woman, who stomped all over our Ninth Legion, as it happens.”

  “Oh right. Peter’s mentioned her, I’m sure.”

  “Well, the next time you’re in London you should take a small detour to Westminster Bridge, right across from the Houses of Parliament. There’s a whopping great statue of Queen Boudicca on that corner, charging about in her chariot.”

  Fabia clearly didn’t think it a very practical mode of transport for the British terrain. “Must have rattled one’s teeth a bit, running a chariot over this ground.”

  I agreed that it must have. “But they managed it somehow. The Caledonii—that’s the tribe that lived north of here, up in the Highlands—even they had chariots, according to the Roman writer Tacitus.”

&n
bsp; She frowned. “Were there tribes here in Scotland, then? I didn’t know that. I thought they were all one big group.”

  “No, they were rather divided. The tribe that lived here, in the eastern Borders, would have been the… God, don’t tell me I’ve forgotten it, I used to know them all…” Pressing a hand to my forehead, I struggled to sift the fact from my overcrowded memory. “The Votadini, I think. I’m afraid I don’t know much about them, though. No one does. The Romans didn’t bother much with this part of Scotland—most historians take that to mean the Votadini were a peaceful lot, no real trouble.”

  Fabia shrugged. “Or dead vicious.” She took a sip of cocoa and rolled it round in her mouth. “Mind you, the Romans probably deserved it.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, they were the invaders, weren’t they? You can’t just go around as you please, making a mess of other people’s lives, and not expect some kind of retribution.”

  Only a twenty-year-old, I thought, could so neatly dissect history into black and white, heroes and villains. It was true that, to the Votadini, the Romans were invaders, foreigners, who had no right to be here. But on the other hand, those “Romans” had been settled here in Britain eighty years or so by then—at least two generations had been raised to feel that this was now their home.

  I started to explain to Fabia that history could sometimes be more complicated than it first appeared, but she was in no mood to hear my argument.

  “Nothing complicated about it,” she cut me off, her tone definite. “It’s only justice, pure and simple. An eye for an eye. Take Robbie’s Sentinel, for instance,” she said. “He came up here to kill the Votadini, right? So they had every right to kill him back.”

  One simply couldn’t argue youthful logic, I thought wryly. “Well, they didn’t make a very thorough job of it,” I commented, “if he’s still wandering about in the field.”

  I’d meant it as a joke, but Fabia, still in her righteous attitude, appeared to be weighing the matter. “Yes, but then that’s the ultimate punishment, isn’t it?” she said, finally. “To take your enemy’s life away, to see him lose the people and the things that he most loves, but not to let him die.”

  Watching her, I had the feeling she was speaking of herself, of her own loneliness and devastation, having lost her father and the life that they had shared. Certainly her eyes had grown distant, deeply thoughtful.

  I tried to bring her out of it, by lightening the mood. “I see I’ll have to watch my step,” I teased her, “and keep in your good favor, if that’s your idea of the perfect punishment. I don’t much fancy being made a ghost.”

  She glanced up, shaking off her reverie. “What? Oh right. I wouldn’t worry,” she said, smiling. “Anyway, I’d be afraid to tangle with you, after what you did to Brian.”

  I sighed. “I didn’t hit…”

  “It was a little over the top, though, don’t you think? He’s rather harmless, really.”

  “But I didn’t—”

  “It’s just a good thing,” Fabia said sagely, “it was you that did it, and not Davy. A man’s punch does more damage.”

  ***

  When I repeated that to Jeannie the next morning over breakfast, she doubled over laughing. “Just you try and tell that to my Brian,” she said. “Being hit by a woman’s the worst form of insult. He went off down the pub last night and didn’t rest until he’d got himself into a good manly fight—he came home with a keeker. A black eye,” she translated, saving me the trouble of looking up the word. “And all on account of you.”

  “But I didn’t hit him,” I said, for what seemed like the hundredth time.

  “Aye, you and I both ken that, but Brian was too guttered to mind anything too clearly. Here now, have your porridge while I put your eggs on.”

  I took the bowl obediently, yawning as I forced my eyes fully open. I’d stayed up well past three cleaning the little phalera and Peter must have known because he let me sleep late, undisturbed. Jeannie had very nearly finished with the washing-up when I finally came down. I would have gone straight out into the field, but she was not about to let me pass without a proper breakfast. Like the Sphinx, I thought. It was impossible to get by her, only instead of having to answer riddles one was forced to eat two eggs with toast and sausages.

  “Jeannie,” I said, “can I ask you something?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Does Brian… I mean, has Brian ever…” This was difficult. “Is Brian like Robbie?”

  She set my plate of eggs down cautiously, clearing away the empty porridge bowl. “Like Robbie how?”

  “Does he see things? Is he…”

  “Gifted?” Her eyes met mine in mild surprise.

  “He said something to me yesterday,” I told her, hesitantly. “That is, he sort of told me that he was. And David said he wasn’t, but I thought… I thought I’d ask.”

  She turned away, but not before I saw the smile. “Davy doesn’t ken everything.”

  “So Brian really is—”

  “Not like Robbie,” she broke in, correcting me. “He’s not as good as that. He only gets impressions sometimes, hunches; nothing sure. But I reckon that’s why Robbie never kens what Brian’s up to. And I reckon that’s why your old Roman ghost could do his trick.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I doubt if he could have knocked anyone flat but Brian—ghosts don’t go round hitting anybody, really, do they? But a person with the second sight, that’s different. Vulnerable, they are. You saw what happened to Robbie, out there in that field. He just had too much flowing through his wee brain.”

  “So you think the Sentinel did what he did just by thinking?”

  “Aye, thinking or wishing it. Still,” she added, smiling openly this time, “I’d not be too quick to suggest that to Brian. He’s fair respectful of you now, I’d try and keep it that way.” She turned away again and started chopping vegetables for lunch. After a moment’s thought she added: “Verity?”

  “Yes?”

  “You’re the only one who kens, apart from me. You’ll keep it secret?”

  “If you want me to.”

  “I mean, I’d not be cross if you told Davy…”

  A floorboard creaked in the passageway. “If she told Davy what?” asked David, crossing to check the shortbread tin and frowning when he found it empty. Stealing a piece of toast from my plate instead, he looked from one to the other of us expectantly, waiting for an answer.

  I glanced at Jeannie for approval before I gave him one. “That Brian really does have second sight, like I said yesterday. Not as accurate as Robbie, but even so—”

  “Away!” said David, cutting me off as he, too, turned to Jeannie. “Why did you never tell me?”

  “It’s meant to be a secret,” I explained, then told him what Jeannie thought had happened yesterday, with the Sentinel.

  “Aye,” agreed David, reaching forward to dip his piece of toast in one of my uneaten eggs. “It’s possible.”

  A heavy, muffled thump sounded from the vicinity of the cellar stairs, and Jeannie turned her head sharply. “What the devil’s that?”

  “Your husband,” said David. “His mate’s finally come with the truck, so they’re shifting the vodka.”

  “I’d not say it so loudly,” Jeannie chided him, with eyes that disapproved of the whole affair. “We’ve got students running round the now, and it’d not do Peter any good if anyone found out what’s going on.”

  David, grinning, shrugged off the warning. “It’s only a wee bit of free trading. Don’t be so difficult. Och, that minds me,” he said, looking down at me. “My mother said I was to ask you if you’d do her a wee obligement?”

  “A favor, you mean?” I asked, showing off my growing Scots vocabulary. “What sort of a favo
r?”

  “The museum’s setting up a new exhibition, and my mother was hoping you’d provide a bit of expert advice, seeing how you’ve been with the British Museum and everything.”

  “Of course,” I said, “I’d love to help. When are they wanting to open this new exhibition?”

  “Not this weekend coming, but the next one. My birthday weekend, as it happens. Are you going to eat that sausage?”

  I pushed the plate nearer to him. “Is it really your birthday in two weeks’ time?”

  “Aye. I’ll be fully twenty-two this year.”

  Jeannie laughed. “Liar! You’re thirty-seven, same as Brian.”

  “I am not,” said David loftily, “the same as Brian.”

  “No, you’re much more trouble. D’ye never stop eating? That’s Verity’s breakfast.”

  “Verity’s not so keen on breakfast,” he defended himself. “If I don’t eat this for her she’ll be here all day, when she’s meant to be working.”

  I had to admit, an hour later, that a large and cowardly part of me would have preferred staying down in the kitchen with Jeannie, eating cold eggs, to sitting up here on my own scrubbing down shelves in the finds room. Well, not entirely on my own… my two student assistants were hard at work out in my stall-cum-office, typing madly away at the computer with a diligence that quite escaped me. I could hear the steady tap-tap of the keys and now and then a snatch of conversation, but for all intents and purposes I felt as if I were alone.

  It was the fault of the room, as much as anything. It was a quiet room, close walled and stale for want of windows. No amount of cleaning could remove the air of mustiness, like old books growing moldy in their bindings. There were pleasant smells, as well. In the days when these stables had sheltered horses, this room had been the tack room, and now and then a whiff of leather from some long-discarded saddle drifted past me, hauntingly, and died again in silence. One could almost hear the dust settling in the corners.

  Still, I cheered myself, working in here was preferable, today, to being out of doors. Our summer sun had taken temporary leave and in its place the sky was gray and melancholy, with the hard relentless wind I’d come to think of as a feature of the Borders. I didn’t envy David and Peter, scraping away in that merciless wind, and poor Adrian had stormed in several times already, swearing bloody murder at the weather, which had twice knocked over his equipment.