Shadowy Horses (36 page)

It wasn't proof, not concrete proof, but still it was enough to make the archaeological establishment show some respect, however small, for Peter Quinnell. Even those who mocked his theories could no longer call him mad.

Not that he was
entirety
sane, I thought fondly, when I went outside to find him.

He was standing in the field, alone, a rather tragic figure with his white hair blowing in the wind, his jaw set high and proud. Like King Lear raging at the elements, only the elements by now were fairly tame, and Peter, while he would have made a smashing Lear, was only Peter. He looked around as I approached, and smiled wistfully.

"And they say the gods don't hear us."

"Sorry?"

"I've been pondering the truth, my dear," he said. "And here you are. In Latin, truth is feminine, is it not?
Veritas.
Verity." My name flowed out in his melodic voice like a phrase from a very old song, and he turned his gaze away again. "The truth is buried in this field, somewhere. But if I fail to prove it, can it still be called a truth?"

I considered the question. "Well... I can't see the Sentinel, and I've no scientific proof he exists, but I do know that he's there."

"Ah, but you did see him, didn't you? However vaguely, you did see him. Whereas I..." His words hung sadly on the shifting wind.

“Whereas you have a potsherd that dates from the end of Trajan’s reign," I said, and smiled as he turned again to stare at me.

"I beg your pardon? I have what?"

I repeated the statement, and told him about Howard's telephone call. "He said he'd be happy to give us a firm date, if we could send him down the sherd."

"Good heavens." He stared at me a moment longer, and then crushed me with a hug. "That's marvelous, my dear. That's absolutely—"

The slam of a car door interrupted us, and Robbie came running over the blowing grass with Kip bounding close at his heels. "Heyah," said Robbie. "We got Granny Nan. She's going to change her shoes, she says, and then come out."

"Wonderful," Peter said.

The collie brushed past us, tail wagging, and Robbie nodded at the field. "You found him, did you?"

I looked where he was looking, and saw nothing. "Who do you mean, Robbie? The Sentinel? Where is he?"

"Just there, where Kip is."

Not ten feet in front of us.

Peter looked, too. "Poor chap," he said. "I would have thought he'd find some peace, after what he did today. Putting things to rights, as it were. I would have thought that he could rest."

Robbie wrinkled his freckled nose, looking up. "He doesn't want to rest," he said. "He wants to take care of us."

"Does he, indeed?" Peter's smile was faint. "Well, lean understand that, I suppose."

I thought I understood, as well. And where I'd once been frightened by the thought of being watched, I now took comfort in the presence of the Sentinel. I felt a satisfaction, too, in knowing that today he had been able to redeem himself, to keep his promise, saving the life of the man that his "Claudia" loved. And he would go on protecting us, here at Rosehill. He'd see that we came to no harm. The shadowy horses could run all they wanted; they'd never come near while the Sentinel walked.

Kip suddenly sat and whined an eager little whine, eyes trained upwards, waiting. And then, as though someone had given him a signal, he broke away and bounded off to meet the older woman coming around the house behind us. Robbie turned and said: "Granny Nan's coming." And I was turning myself, to wave hello, so I might have imagined what Peter said next.

His words were quiet, very low, and at any rate I wasn't meant to hear them.

He was speaking to the Sentinel. "Thank you," he said simply, in his lovely, cultured Latin. "Thank you for saving my son."

He dropped his gaze, but not before I saw his wise and weary eyes, and knew for certain that he knew. And then his eyes lifted again, and in place of the sadness there was only a smile, as he held out his hands to greet David's mother.

David was sitting on the bank of the Eye Water, watching the swans. The harbor must have been too rough for them, during the storm, so they'd swum further upriver in search of calmer waters. They drifted now under the trees, snow-white and regal, heads modestly bowed.

I
spread my anorak over the wet grass and sat down beside him. "Your mother's here."

"Oh, aye?"

"Mmm. Peter's giving her the grand tour."

"We'll be waiting for our dinner, then."

I smiled. "Jeannie says eight o'clock."

David checked his watch, and leaned back comfortably. "Plenty of time."

"I see you got your tent back up."

"Aye. The rest'll be no trouble at all, there's hardly any damage done. Tomorrow morning I'll get a few of the lads to give me a hand."

I nodded, hugging my knees. I ought to have told him about Howard's discovery, really, only I knew that if I did
we'd end up talking about the dig, and I didn't want to talk about the dig right now. Instead I watched the pale swans drifting in the shallows. "They're beautiful, aren't they?"

"Aye."

"I'm glad there are two of them. The one looked so lonely, by himself."

David smiled, not looking at me. "He'll not be lonely again. They mate for life, swans do. She's stuck with him now."

And I was stuck with David Fortune, I thought fondly, studying his now familiar face—the deep lines of laughter that crinkled his eyes, the thick slanting fall of black eyelashes touching his cheekbone, the firm, unyielding angle of his jaw, and the nose that, in profile, was not quite straight, as though it had been broken in a fight. I would ask him about that nose, one day, I promised myself. One day, when we were sitting in the red-walled room at Rosehill, watching Peter and Nancy dandle their first-born grandchild, I would ask my husband how he'd broken his nose.

But till then, I could wait—I was in no great hurry. Like the swans, I had mated for life.

David, whose thoughts had obviously been drifting along the same lines, turned his head, and his blue eyes caught mine, very warm. "D'ye ken that in Eyemouth, when a woman marries onto a man, she takes his byname as well? Verity Deid-Banes," he tried the combination on his tongue, and grinned. "It's a fair mouthful, that."

"David. .."

"Of course, you could always be just Davy's Verity."

Since I clearly wasn't going to be given a voice in this decision, I rested my chin on my knees and tilted my head to smile back at him. "Oh?"

"Aye. Davy's Verity." He said it again and nodded firmly, satisfied. "That's what you'll be."

So much for independence, I thought. Still, I took a final stab at it. "I am not," I said, setting him straight, "Davy's Verity."

But my protest had no real effect. He only laughed, and rolling to his side he reached for me, his big hand tangling in my hair as he drew me down toward him. "The hell you're not," he said. And proved it.

Author's Note

This book could not have been written without the expert advice and assistance of my own "field crew" of archaeologists: in Scotland, Pat Storey and Dr. Bill Finlayson, of the University of Edinburgh; and in Canada, Dr. James Barrett, and especially Heather Henderson, who guided me from the beginning and very kindly sieved my manuscript for errors. Many thanks.