The Firebird
Page 12I was looking out of my window past the line of trees that edged the low stone wall beside my door when Rob came round to help me out. I frowned. ‘That field …’
‘… was once a Roman battleground,’ he said with understanding.
Which explained the faint uneasiness I felt as I stepped out and stood, my gaze fixed on the night-black field that stretched beyond the wall. I almost heard the battle cries still hanging on the wind, the clash of swords, the frenzied galloping of horses’ hooves that passed by in a rush and drowned the sound of marching feet … except for one lone set of measured footsteps, coming down the gravelled drive towards us.
I couldn’t help the tiny chill that chased between my shoulder blades, but when I turned to look I only saw a friendly border collie, black and white with one ear perked and one flopped over, long tail wagging as it trotted up to say hello.
Rob bent to give the ears a scratch. ‘Good boy. Come meet Nicola.’
I loved dogs. ‘What’s his name?’
‘Jings.’ He smiled. ‘In Scots, that’s what you say when you’re surprised, like, and when this one was a pup he was forever underfoot, and my mother was aye tripping over him and saying “Jings!” until he thought that was his name, so we just called him that. We couldn’t call him what my granddad said when he tripped over him.’
I shared his smile and turned my collar up against the chill that brushed my neck as I bent down to pat the dog myself. I might have been mistaken when I thought I saw Rob give a nod of greeting to the empty air behind me. But I didn’t mistake the short laugh he gave, low, nor the phrase he spoke, not for my ears. And in Latin.
I understood then. I looked up, but the footsteps had started again, moving off and away from us, into the field. I gave Jings’s head one last pat, straightening. ‘Friend of yours?’
Rob looked where the footsteps had gone. ‘Aye, a very old friend.’
He nodded.
I tried to imagine what that would be like, to be able to see ghosts. Converse with them. ‘He’s one of the Romans, I take it?’
‘Their sentinel, aye. Keeping watch, still.’
A lonely thing, keeping watch over an empty field, night after night through the centuries. Having someone who could see him, as Rob could, must be a relief. I covered up my sudden ache of sympathy by asking, ‘And does he like blondes, as well?’
Rob laughed. I had forgotten just how great a laugh he had. ‘No, he prefers dark-haired women. You’ve nothing to fear from the Sentinel, Nicola.’
Rob’s father, though, was a charmer. He greeted me as we came through the low doorway and into the warmth of the kitchen, his accent betraying his Newcastle origins, more north-of-England than Scottish. He might have been anywhere from his mid forties to late fifties, I couldn’t tell. While his hair was a silvery grey, he was muscled and fit and the lines round his eyes seemed to come more from smiling than age. He was smiling now, white teeth flashing against his tanned skin as he said, ‘So you’re Nicola, are you?’
I couldn’t see any resemblance to Rob in his features, but he tipped his head sideways the same way that Rob often did and I caught the gold glint of a small hoop in one ear that gave him the look of a cut-throat, as did the tattoos snaking over the strong forearms showing beneath the rolled sleeves of his shirt.
He said, ‘Robbie was saying you came up from London?’
‘I did, yes.’
‘Making the bed up,’ his father replied.
I felt guilty. ‘I’m sorry to be such a bother.’
His laugh was like Rob’s, too. ‘You don’t know my Jeannie. She lives for this, eh, Robbie? She’s got biscuits in the oven and all.’
Rob glanced down at me with an ‘I-told-you-so’ look, and pulled one of the chairs at the old kitchen table out so I could sit.
I got feelings from rooms, sometimes, and the warmth in this one came from more than just the Rayburn cooker wafting strong spice-and-ginger scents into the air. There was love here – not perfect, but strong – and a kind of a peace that came with it and helped me relax as I sat, with the collie, Jings, settling under the table and coiling his warm body close by my feet.
Rob sat, too, taking a chair at one end of the table and rocking it back on two legs till his shoulders were propped on the wall behind.
‘Don’t let your mother catch you doing that,’ his father warned, good-naturedly, as he crossed to switch the kettle on. ‘So, Nicola, where did you meet my son?’
Rob exhaled, weary. ‘Dad.’
‘I’m only asking.’
Rob’s father turned, with interest. ‘Oh, aye? When was this?’
‘Two years ago.’
‘Two years ago?’ His interest seemed to sharpen as he looked at Rob. ‘When you were at the uni doing all those tests?’
The look that Rob sent back to him was plainly meant to kill the topic, and his father shrugged and turned away again, returning to his role as host. ‘Will you have tea or coffee, Nicola?’
‘I’d love a cup of tea, please.’
His father’s smile when he glanced round looked curiously pleased, and it was only when I saw Rob bring his own head round to look at me that I became aware of what had happened.