The Shadowy Horses

I opened my mouth to respond but the big hand on my shoulder lightened warningly, cutting me off, at the same moment Jeannie breathed an urgent whisper: "Verity!"

"What?" I brought my head back round, and saw what had alarmed them.

The Sentinel had moved.

Robbie, beside me, was watching the air not two feet from my face. I drew a sharp breath and then found that I couldn't breathe out again, so I swallowed instead. "Robbie," I said cautiously, afraid to move a muscle, "what is he doing?"

"He's kind of crouched down," came the reply, "to sec you better, like. Now he's reaching out his hand, I think he wants to touch your hair."

David swore softly, the word brushing warm down the back of my neck. I might have imagined the ghost's gentle touch and the sweeping thrill of cold—I'd always had a rather wild imagination. But it didn't stop me shivering.

Adrian, unconvinced, raised the wine flask for another drink. "Go on, then, Verity, my love. Here's your chance to clear up one of history's little mysteries. Ask your friend what legion he belonged to."

He meant it in jest, of course, but I found my voice and asked the question anyway.

The night gave no reply. And Robbie, if he heard an answer, didn't pass it on. Instead he scrambled to his feet, staring uncertainly into the darkness. Behind him, Kip whined sharply, struggling to break free of Wally's hold, but Robbie didn't seem to hear that, either. Slowly, as though following another's gaze, he turned his head and looked toward the house.

The windows were no longer dark. Lights blazed in both the kitchen and the upstairs hall, and even as I registered the fact a small familiar sound came echoing across the field— the sound of someone starting up a car. The motor coughed, and caught, and purred; was pushed till it became a roar, and two clear yellow headlights plunged between the trees that fringed the drive.

The headlights struck the red walls of Rose Cottage and sharply wheeled away again as the car spun out into the road with a panicked shriek of brakes.

"He's going," said Robbie, urgently. "Davy, he's going. He's .. ."

He didn't finish. His large eyes swung toward us, suddenly anguished, and even as Jeannie leapt forward to catch him, he crumpled like a broken doll and fell face-down upon the grass.

"It's all right," said Jeannie, lifting him gently. "He's only had a vision, he'll be fine." But her face, in the cold moonlight, didn't look so self-assured.

Adrian, in his typically selfish fashion, had noticed only one thing. "That was my car," he burst out, indignantly. "The bloody bastard took my car!" And then he turned and sprinted for the house, and the rest of us, after an exchange of glances, followed.

On the level sweep of gravel at the top of the drive, we found Brian McMorran brushing off his trousers. "Crazy bugger," he said sourly. "Nearly ran me over."

Fabia stared at him, disbelieving. "It wasn't Peter, surely?"

"He took my car," Adrian repeated, bleakly, his eyes fixed on the empty square of gravel where the bright red Jaguar should have been.

Wally eyed his son-in-law suspiciously. "What d'ye think yer doing, then, coming home at this hour?"

Straightening, Brian raked a hand through his silver hair and laughed lightly, without humor. "If I'd known this was the welcome I'd get, I'd have stopped the night in town," he told us. He fished in his pocket for his cigarettes and lit one, lifting an eyebrow at Jeannie above the brief flame of the match. "I might ask the same of you, at any rate—the cottage was empty when I got here."

"We were out in the field," she answered.

"In the—?" He broke off, seeming for the first time to notice Robbie's condition, and his lips compressed impatiently. "Aw, bloody hell, you've not been after the ghost? Where's your head, woman? Give him here." The tattooed arms closed protectively around the little boy. "You've been putting a strain on him, can't you see?"

Jeannie set her jaw in self-defence. "He wanted to help Peter," she explained. "And it wasn't the ghost that made him faint. He saw something else, something ..,"

Robbie stirred at the sound of his mother's voice. "Granny Nan," he mumbled, weakly. "Davy, Granny Nan. . .you have to go."

In the sudden silence, David leaned in closer, his jaw tightening. "Go where, lad?"

"Hospital..."

"Oh, Jesus." David straightened and wheeled, his eyes darkening. "Fabia, get me the keys to the Range Rover."

"But Davy .. ."

"Just do it," he snapped.

Robbie, in his father's arms, slipped back into delirium. Even after David had gone, when the taillights of the Range Rover were faint receding points of red, the boy kept calling out to him. “Davy . . . Davy ... Granny Nan. Must help, must... nona ..."

"What was that?" Startled, I turned. "Robbie, what did you—"

"Leave the boy be." Brian gathered his son closer, staring me down with contempt. "He didn't say nothing, just leave him alone."

But I knew what I'd heard.

"Nona"—that's what Robbie had said. It was, I fancied, a belated answer to the question I had asked the Sentinel, before the boy collapsed. Which is your legion? I had asked.

And nona was the Latin word for "Ninth."

XIX

Somewhere in a shadowed recess of the dining room a mantel clock whirred softly and began to chime the hour: four o'clock. I shifted on my window seat and sighed. The house felt very lonely, with everyone asleep.