The Shadowy Horses

“Aye. Your Sentinel's protective, but he's not a jealous fool."

"And how do you figure that?"

"He's left me standing." His grin was very cocksure.

"So he's a rotten judge of character," I said, drawing a deep breath to calm my still-racing heartbeat. "And anyway, I wouldn't look so smug if I were you ... for all you know the Sentinel wasn't even paying attention."

"Give me some credit, lass. I am a scientist."

I paused, mid-breath. "And what does that mean?"

"It means that when you're testing a hypothesis, you'd be a fool to trust just one experiment." As he lowered his head a second time, I glimpsed self-satisfaction in his eyes, those laughing blue eyes that were suddenly all I could see, and then even those eyes disappeared and for several long minutes I found myself unable to think at all.

"That's the third time you've stopped listening," Adrian accused me, wheeling his chair around to face me in amused exasperation.

I glanced up, my pencil frozen in mid-doodle. "I am listening."

"No you're not."

"I am, too." I took a brave shot in the dark. "You were saying you've been having some success ..."

"I was saying," he contradicted me, "that we're being attacked by an army of six-foot-tall killer penguins, and since you didn't bat an eye at that, I can only conclude you weren't listening."

"Ah."

"Ah, indeed." Settling back in his chair, he hooked the dustbin from under his desk and propped his feet up on it. "Still, I'll not take it too personally. I expect you're feeling the effects of your morning's adventures."

It was clearly a probing sort of comment, not at all random or casual, and I sighed when I saw his expression. "How did you find out about that?''

"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 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 around 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 nattered. 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, around 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."

XXIX

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.