It was remarkable workmanship.
To one side stood a lovely Georgian teapot, where Slater was in the process of setting the handle back in place.
He saw Rutledge’s glance and said proudly, “That’s from St. Margaret’s, part of the tea service, and the handle had worn right off. They’ll never know it’s been repaired when I finish with it.”
“You’re very good with your hands,” Rutledge told him. “It’s fine work.”
Slater seemed to expand with the praise. “It’s a gift. I was given it. Do you know those great stones in the beech grove farther along this road? The ones they call Wayland’s Smithy?”
It was the prehistoric tomb. “Yes, I do.”
“I slept there one night. As a boy. And I was given the gift. Even my father had to admit to it. He could shoe horses and mend wagon tongues and put a latch on a barn, whatever needed doing. But this work—” Slater swept his hand above the table. “He couldn’t do it. Even he said as much.”
“He must have been very proud of you.”
A rueful smile dimmed the brightness in his face. “He told me I was dreaming, thinking the smithy had anything to do with gifts. Foolishness, he called it.”
“What do your neighbors think of your work?”
“I don’t show most people. I don’t know why I showed you.” He seemed to consider that for a moment. “You have a way of listening. Most people don’t hear what I say to them. It’s always been like that.”
“How well do you know your neighbors?” Rutledge persisted.
Slater shrugged. “I see them from time to time. Mr. Partridge stands in the dark and looks up at the White Horse. I’ve lost count of the evenings I walk by him and he never speaks. I’m one to like walking in the dark, I go to the Smithy if there’s moonlight. But he just stands there. And the lady—she’s quite strange, you know. I think she’s afraid of the dark. House is shut up tight long before sunset, and stays that way until full light in the morning.” He frowned. “We’re outcasts, if you ask me. That’s why we live here. Nobody else would have us. I was always the biggest in my school, bigger than many of the older boys. And the parents, they was always protecting their little ones from me, thinking I’d do them a harm.” He looked down at his hands, huge and strong. “I’ve never hurt a thing, not so much as a butterfly. But I wasn’t allowed to play with the other children, and they laughed at me sometimes. Gullible, they called me, after a giant in a book. I learned soon enough to stay away from them.”
Rutledge could see the hurt in the big man’s face. “I expect they didn’t understand that giants could be—gentle.”
“They never tried to know.” Slater took a deep breath. “I didn’t mean to trouble you with my life.”
“People are people,” Rutledge said. “Each one interesting in his or her own way. Good or bad, mean or generous, helpful or not, they make up the human race. You must take them as you find them, because few of them ever really change.”
“I’ve been happy here, going in to the forge when I have heavy work to do, staying clear of them all when I can. But it’s lonely, all the same.” He studied Rutledge’s face. “Did you fight in France?”
“Yes, I did.” He answered the question simply, wondering where it was going.
“Aye, I thought as much. You brought it home with you. And you aren’t the first I’ve met with such a look. No offense meant, it’s there for anyone to see. The army wouldn’t take me. I told them I was strong, but they told me I wasn’t up to the work. I told them I could shoe the horses and keep the wagons and caissons moving, but they didn’t believe me.” He shook his head, the disappointment still raw. “I don’t read very well. But what’s that got to say to what I can do with my hands?”
“Very little,” Rutledge answered and turned toward the door. “All the same, you were lucky. It was not a war you’d have liked.”
“What does liking have to do with it?”
He followed Rutledge out into the sunshine again, and noticed when Rutledge took a deep breath, almost unwittingly. “You don’t like small spaces. I’d not sleep in the Smithy, if I were you.” He stood there on his threshold, looking up at the sky.
“Ever think about the old gods?” Slater asked. “The ones before we was all Christians?”
Rutledge remembered a woman named Maggie in Westmorland, who knew the Viking gods in her own fashion. “Sometimes,” he answered.
“They’re still out there, aren’t they? Displaced, but still there, waiting to come back. And they will, one day, and catch us all off our guard. That will be a day of reckoning, when it comes.”
He nodded to Rutledge and went back inside, shutting the door quietly.
5
Walking back to his motorcar, Rutledge tried to see if Partridge’s own motor was still in the shed by the house, but it was impossible, given the direction of the sun, to judge if the light struck metal.
Hamish said, “If ye’re here to see yon horse, ye’ve done precious little to show an interest.”
“I thought you didn’t like the horse.”
“Oh, aye, it’s a wicked beast, but it wasna’ me who told the world and his brother it’s the thing that brought ye here.”
“I could hardly explain that I was looking for Partridge.”
“They ken you arena’ a day-tripper wi’ a taste for what’s cut into the chalk. If ye stay anither day, they’ll no’ need to be told the truth.”
“Then let’s hope Partridge comes home before that.”
Hamish said, “I dona’ think he will.”
“Why?”
“Ye ken, this time they sent a policeman.”
Rutledge climbed the hill again and walked to the head of the great horse. There he stood and looked across the valley. There was another hill here where Saint George slew the dragon—Dragon Hill, as he remembered it was called. One of many places where the militant saint was said to have encountered dragons. Rutledge recalled a page in one of his mother’s books where Saint George on his white horse—this one?—quelled the dozen-headed, fire-breathing beast with a single spear. Gilt edged and delicately painted, the scene was taken from a plate in an ancient manuscript, and the artist had captured the quality of the original work. Saint George was handsomely robed in crimson and sapphire velvet, no workaday dented armor for him.
He turned to study the cottages. Nine of them. It would have been more efficient if the War Office had given him the names of the other residents here. He had met two of them, seen a third, and Partridge made a fourth. Where had the other five inhabitants been as he wandered about, walking into Quincy’s house like a welcomed guest, and then into Slater’s?
He drew himself a mental map of the cottages. They were set out like a horseshoe, appropriate enough here. Four to a side and one at the top of the bend. A lane ran between them, cutting the horseshoe in half, and from the lane paths led to each door.
Slater lived in Number 1 on the left, then Partridge at Number 2, his white gate distinctive, as if shutting out his neighbors. Quincy was the first cottage on the right-hand side, Number 9 on the map, and the woman with the wash hanging on the line lived in Number 8.
Someone opened the door of Number 4 and stepped out into the sunshine, shading his hand to see better as he scanned the cottages and then turned slightly to stare up at the horse. Even at that distance, his eyes seemed to meet Rutledge’s, and he stood there, not moving, for a dozen seconds more. Then he turned his back and stepped inside, shutting his door firmly behind him.
That accounted for five of the residents. And this hadn’t been a casual interest shown by a curious resident. There was more to it. Not a challenge precisely, but an acknowledgment.