The Shadowy Horses

Taking another sip of coffee, I turned in my chair so I could see out the narrow kitchen window. From the treeless ridge behind the house a lush green field sloped gently downwards, bounded at its bottom edge by the thick tangle of thorn and briar that hid the road from view. Two men were standing in the center of the field, eyes fixed upon the ridge.

One of the men was Peter Quinnell. The other was larger, broader about the shoulders, with curling jet-black hair.

"They've started early," I commented.

"Who?" Her uninterested gray eyes flicked toward the window. "Oh, Peter and Davy, yes. They're always puttering around."

"What docs David Fortune do, exactly?" I asked.

"He's an archaeologist, the same as Peter. Lectures at the University of Edinburgh."

"But surely ..." I frowned. "I mean, wouldn't your grandfather prefer to manage the excavation on his own?''

"I doubt it," she said, flatly. "And anyway, he needs Davy. Or rather, he needs Davy's name on his publications, to make the dig legitimate. Peter's name simply doesn't impress people, these days," she explained, her tone offhand. "Most people think he's past it." Pushing herself away from the counter, she nodded at my empty plate. "Are you finished with that? Good. Come on, then—I've been ordered to give you the grand tour."

Shrugging on my crumpled anorak, I followed Fabia outside. The morning was crisp for late April, clear and sunny, with a brisk breeze blowing from the southwest.

I turned my back to the breeze for a moment, and took a good long look at Rosehill, pleased to find it looked less ominous by daylight. Pinkish-grey plaster that in places didn't cover all the rose-colored brick made the plain house seem prettier. A graceful flight of steps curved up sideways to meet the front door, trailing a delicate handrail that softened the sterner angles, and the narrow white-painted window frames held an abundance of little square panes that reflected the sunlight like glittering faceted gems.

"Why is it called Rosehill?" I asked.

Fabia Quinnell shrugged. "You'll have to ask Peter about that, he has his own theories. There aren't any roses, to speak of. Plenty of daffodils, though." She pointed behind me, at the little hill that edged the drive. It was yellow with daffodils, hundreds of them, all nodding their heads in agreement. Like the daffodils that grew beneath my bedroom window, these gently blew beneath a spreading horse chestnut whose tender folded leaves were freshly green.

Fabia idly plucked a leaf as we passed, and smoothed it between her fingers, turning her head to look beyond the house to a corner of the sunlit field just coming into view.

"Did anything go bump in the night?" she asked me, slowly. "Last night?"

I glanced at her. "Only the cats. Why?"

"Just curious." She pulled her gaze from the field with another shrug and let the flattened leaf fall from her fingers. "This way," she said, and started up the hill toward the stables.

IV

The dark wooden stables crouched long and low on the ridge above the house. From their wide arched entrance one commanded a view that stretched forever, across the roofs of Rosehill and the little cottage by the gate, across the rolling fields and the narrow road and the river that wound through a purple mist of trees, all the way to Eyemouth's distant chimneys and the icy blue North Sea.

"No horses, anymore," said Fabia beside me, gloomily.

Pulling my eyes from that marvelous view, I followed her over the threshold. There hadn't been horses for quite some time, I thought. The smell of them was gone.

Still, I forgave Quinnell for their absence the instant my eyes adjusted to the indoor lighting. "My God," I said, and meant it.

He had worked wonders here.

I was used to doing fieldwork in makeshift labs set up in tents, hauling water back and forth to wash the artifacts and battling my colleagues for table space. Now, as I looked around, I was made stunningly aware of just what sort of money was involved in the Rosehill dig. The cleaning of the place alone must have cost a minor fortune.

To my left, the double row of wooden stalls had been stripped and refinished, their clay floors carefully levelled and swept pristinely bare. One stall, ringed around with freestanding metal shelves, held the microscopes Adrian had raved about—not just the ordinary sort, but a dissecting microscope as well, complete with its camera attachment. Another stall housed packing materials—boxes of all shapes and sizes, self-sealing plastic bags and bubble pack and even silica gel for packing metal. I was suitably impressed.

"It's all right," Fabia conceded with a shrug. "Mind you, we've had no end of trouble with those computers. The programs keep crashing. And the—"

"Good God." I interrupted her, my head poked around a half-open door leading off the wide stone passageway. “You have running water!"

"Hot and cold." Fabia nodded. "That used to be the tack room, so there was already a sink in there, but Peter had to have a larger one, of course."

My admiration for Peter Quinnell grew stronger still. There would be no messing with hosepipes on his excavation, I thought. No tedious lugging of buckets and tubs. And while the hot water bordered on frivolous, the rest of the room was perfectly functional—the ideal place for washing and sorting artifacts. Quinnell had stocked it with dozens of screens, to dry things on, and brushes of every size and shape, right down to the tiniest toothbrush. Long tables had been set up along the end wall, and beneath them waited stacks of trays and shallow sorting boxes.