“Then for heaven’s sake, come here,” I said, “and let me sketch it out for you.” Pencil in hand, I tugged an unimportant letter from one of the stacks on my desk and turned it over to its blank side. “Here, the average fortress looks like this—you see? A bit rectangular, with rounded corners, like a playing card. A ditch, sometimes a double ditch, outside, and then the ramparts, with a guard tower at each corner. Now…” I took my pencil and drew a square, bang in the center. “The principia, or headquarters building, is here. And running right along in front of it is the via principalis, that’s the road that links the fortress’s two side gates.” I sketched in the gates, too, to keep things absolutely clear. “From the front gate to the headquarters is another road, the via praetoria. And from the headquarters to the back gate, there’s the via decumana. Now, here,” I said, drawing in another square to the left of the principia, “you’d have the granaries, and maybe a workshop. And on the other side of the headquarters building would be the praetorium.”
“What’s that?” Fabia asked, showing a faint spark of interest that made me think she might not yet be past all hope.
“The commander’s house. And then the hospital is usually sort of in this spot right here, and most of the rest would be barrack blocks, and stables for horses.” I filled in the hollow spaces above and below the principia with neat rectangles, to show her.
She leaned over to study my drawing. “So it’s really just barracks, and then this row of important buildings, and then more barracks, with a few crisscrossed streets.”
“Pretty much,” I agreed, smiling at her dismissal of the brilliant efficiency of Roman military planning.
“And this is where we started digging, isn’t it? Down here, at this guard tower?”
“Indeed it is.”
“So…” Her finger trailed up the makeshift map, toward the center. “Peter’s going to start his new trench up in here, somewhere.”
“It shouldn’t be too hard to find,” I assured her. “Just look for a big bunch of people with spades.”
She took my drawing anyway, tucking it into one pocket of her shorts while she gathered up her camera and equipment. When she’d gone, I put my pencil down and stretched, trying to ease the knot between my shoulders.
My two young assistants were outside, manning the water flotation tank that Peter had installed behind the building. An upright, barrel-shaped device with hoses attached for fresh water and drainage, it sifted excavated soil through screens so fine that we could then recover tiny seeds and insect parts, as well as bits of pottery or bone. Bone, I thought, would have been useful. A nice full skeleton, clad in legionary armor, with an ancient Scottish sword still buried in its skull…
But Robbie had said that there weren’t any bones in our field. That struck me as odd. If the Sentinel was, as he claimed to be, a soldier of the Ninth, and if the Ninth had truly perished here, then there ought to be bones, and plenty of them.
A high-pitched snatch of laughter floated in through the long back wall, from where my two students were working. I sighed, and pushed back my chair. As finds supervisor, I reminded myself, I ought properly to be out there with them, supervising, instead of hiding in here like a coward.
The outdoors looked harmless enough, the field an anthill of activity beneath a sky of rolling cloud and brilliant bursts of blue. David was down by the road, by the thorn hedge, crouched over a bit of newly exposed earth that a few of the students were clearing with brushes. More post holes, I speculated. They’d found the edge of what appeared to be one of the barrack blocks yesterday.
Peter, hoping to find some evidence of the Ninth’s presence in the fortress’s principia, stood now like stout Cortez upon a subtle rise of ground near the center of our carefully staked site, directing Fabia’s photography.
Surely any ghost would find activity like that far more interesting than my own boring little scribbles in the finds register. Bolstered by that thought, I turned my back to the field and took a tentative step away from the stable door.
I stopped. Paused. Listened.
Nothing followed but the breeze, and even that was brightly cheerful, not the least bit cold or threatening. The laughter drifted out again from the far side of the building, and I set my shoulders, walking on more bravely now along the long front wall of our Principia. Just round that corner, I promised myself, hating my sudden nervousness. Just round that corner, and up the deeply shaded side wall, and around another corner, and I’d be with people again.
Still, before I left the sunlight and the full sight of the field, I stopped again and listened for the fall of ghostly footsteps. And only when I was satisfied that there was no sound but the distant voices of the dig and the trilling warble of a songbird in the trees ahead of me… only then did I turn the first corner.
I believe I was even smiling as I walked into the strong male hands that waited in the shadows.
Chapter 28
I reacted like a cat. Spinning blindly round I brought my own hands up to knock away the ones that held my arms, then bristling, backed against the wall, preparing for a fight.
When I saw who it was, my terrified posture collapsed into swift indignation. “God, Brian,” I accused him, “you nearly gave me a heart attack.”
And then, because he didn’t say anything immediately, I folded my arms defensively across my chest and took a stab at normal conversation. “When did you get back?”
Ignoring the question, he fixed me with an unimpassioned gaze, making no attempt to be charming. “You’ve been using my boy again, haven’t you?”
“I’m sorry?” My forehead wrinkled in faint confusion.
“Making him do your work for you. D’you think I’m that bloody stupid I wouldn’t find out?”
He’d been drinking. Now that my senses had returned to normal I could smell the lightly mingled scents of beer and sweat that rose from his T-shirt and denims, and hear the slurred edge to his speech. The dashing pirate with the quick smile and a gold hoop earring glinting through the silver of his hair was definitely out this morning. The man before me looked a hardened cutthroat, tattoos snaking up his muscled arms, his dark scowl seeking to intimidate.
It had the opposite effect, with me. “Well, actually,” I challenged him, “I didn’t think you were that bloody stupid you’d raise a fuss over something so harmless.”
His eyebrows lowered. “Look, I told you—”
“Robbie wanted to help me.” I cut him off, curtly. “So I let him. I’ve not taken him out in the field or had him speaking with the dead, or anything, I’ve only let him play with a handful of potsherds and tell me his impressions. It’s a game for him, Brian. There’s no risk involved.”
Brian McMorran’s brown eyes narrowed oddly on mine. With remarkably steady fingers, he placed a cigarette between his lips and touched a match to it, inhaling tersely. “And how would you know,” he asked coldly, “just what risks there might be?”
Unable to respond to that, I spread my hands in mild frustration. “Why are you so against Robbie using his abilities to—”
“I’m not,” snapped Brian. “But he’ll use them for his own self, not for anybody else. It’s his gift; no one else has got a right to it.”
“But he wants to help.”
“It’s taking advantage.”
“I am not,” I said carefully, “taking advantage. I’m only letting Robbie do what Robbie wants to do.”
“Is that a fact?” He lifted the cigarette, staring at me hard, but when he spoke again his voice, still slurred, sounded less angry. “Aye, well, you can keep on with the sherds, then, if he likes it so much, but that’s all, d’you hear? If I find you’ve been making him do more than that—and I’ll know if you do—”
Oh, great, I thought, trying to squelch my uneasiness with humor. Don’t tell me Brian is psychic as well.
br /> He stopped talking suddenly, still watching me. And, unbelievably, I saw his mouth curve in a knowing smile.
“Did it only just occur to you?” he asked. Pitching the cigarette away, he came toward me, his smile growing predatory as my instinctive step backwards brought me up against the cold boards of the stable wall. “Afraid, Miss Grey? Of what? Of me?”
“Of course not.”
“Oh, I think you are.” He stopped mere inches from my body, leaning his hands on the wall to either side of my shoulders, effectively pinning me in place. And with a prickling rush of irritation, I realized I was very much afraid. Not afraid of him physically—for all he was deliberately trying to make me uncomfortable I didn’t for a moment think he’d lay a finger on me. But knowing that he, like his son, could invade my private thoughts… I’d grown used to it, with Robbie, but with Brian the very idea seemed a violation.
“Brian, get off,” I told him.
He laughed quietly, leaning in closer, breathing stale beer, enjoying the feeling of power. “That an invitation?”
My mouth tightened. I could have kneed him one, but given that it was Brian, and a very drunk Brian at that, it did seem a little excessive. Besides, I’d have had a devil of a time explaining it to Jeannie. And calling for help from my students was out as well—by the time they’d turned the corner Brian would have backed away and left me looking like a bloody spineless fool.
I was holding my ground, trying to decide what to do, when I heard someone approaching from the far side of the building, to my right. Someone walking heavily. A man. David, I decided, with a surge of sheer relief.
But even as I formed the thought, David himself proved me wrong as he came whistling round the corner to my left. He stopped short, looking at the scene in front of him. “What the devil’s going on?”
Brian shrugged, not bothering to turn his head. “Just having a bit of fun, Deid-Banes.”
“Aye, well, fun’s over. Let her go.”
“Why should I?”
“Because I’ll belt you one if you don’t.”
I couldn’t see David for Brian’s shoulder, but although he clearly wasn’t pleased he didn’t sound particularly violent. So it stunned me when Brian jerked backwards, spun round, and then fell at my feet like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
I stared down in dismay. “You didn’t have to do that, David. I can take care of…” But I never did finish the sentence. Because by then I had lifted my head to look at David, and I’d seen that he was standing fully ten feet from where Brian lay, his face as surprised as my own.
Across the empty shadows his gaze met mine and he arched an inscrutable eyebrow. “Bloody hell,” he said.
***
“Oh no, I’m sure he’ll be quite all right,” said Peter, who had come in search of me and stood now looking down at Brian’s spread-eagled form with the cheerfully disinterested air of a botanist confronted with a common garden weed. “No, he’s breathing very normally. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.” He smiled encouragement at David. “What did you hit him with?”
“I didn’t touch him.”
“No? Then who…?” The long eyes shifted, curious, to me. “Verity, my dear, you do amaze me. I had no idea…”
“It wasn’t me,” I said, with a shake of my head. “I know this is going to sound awfully foolish, Peter, but I think”—I looked to David for support—“I think the Sentinel did this.”
Peter looked inestimably pleased. “My Sentinel? My soldier of the Ninth?”
“Yes.”
“Good man.” Peter looked down at Brian again and nodded, highly satisfied. “Well done. Still doing his job, as a good soldier should. Being a pain, was he?”
I frowned faintly. “The Sentinel?”
“Brian. I expect he was making an ass of himself?”
David stepped in, diplomatically. “He’d been drinking.”
“Ah.” Peter nodded again, looking very pious and righteous for a man who was himself more often soused than sober. “Yes, well, I suspected as much. Never mind,” he said happily, turning to me, “you must come and see what we’ve been up to. I’ve a rather good feeling about this new spot where we’re starting to dig.”
Incredulous, I looked from his face to the man on the ground and back again. “But… I mean, we can’t just leave him here…”
“Whyever not? I’m sure he’s been laid flat in much rougher places than this.”
“We ought to tell Jeannie, at least.”
Peter paused for a moment, measuring the resolution in my face, then sighed and lifted his shoulders in a shrug that plainly said I was being unreasonable. “All right, if you insist, I shall inform Jeannie that her husband is lying up here, and let her decide what she wants to have done about it. But then,” he said firmly, “you really must come and see what we’ve done.”
David came across to stand beside me as we watched Peter sauntering down to the house. “He truly is a character.”
I made some vague response and David’s head dipped, his eyes keenly searching my face. “Are you sure you’re OK?”
“I’m fine. Only…” I rubbed my arms to warm them, nodding toward the man at my feet. “He has second sight as well, did you know that?”
“What?”
“Like father, like son, I suppose.” The shock had left me feeling a little hysterical, and even I could hear it plainly in my voice.
David studied me solemnly for a moment, then opted for a logical response. “Pull the other one.”
“It’s true. He even said…”
“If our lad Brian had the second sight,” was David’s reasoning, “he’d have more luck in choosing his lottery numbers. And I’m sure he’d not have let himself get flattened by a ghost.”
Still looking down, I hugged myself a little tighter, considering this. “Can a ghost really hit someone, do you think?”
David laughed. “What the devil are you asking me for? I’m no expert.”
“I just didn’t think a ghost could touch a human being, that’s all.”
“Well, apparently…” He let the sentence hang, self-evident. “I do mind a program I saw on the telly—about a ghost in some stately home down south, and supposedly it slapped a woman on the face. Left a great bloody welt, if that eases your mind.”
My mind had already moved on, to other thoughts. In an absent voice, I said: “He follows me.”
David frowned. “Who, Brian?”
“The Sentinel. Robbie says he follows me around sometimes, and tries to talk to me.”
After another briefly searching look, David smiled and took my shoulders in his warm hands, reassuring. “Well, I’d not be worried. He’s just taken with your bonny face, that’s all.”
“Jeannie,” I informed him, “seemed to think it was my bonny hair he liked.”
“It’s possible.” The blue eyes crinkled, warm on mine. “Either way, I doubt you’ll come to any harm. Poor Brian’s proof of that.”
His expression altered slightly as a sudden thought struck him, and before I had time to gauge his intentions the hands on my shoulders tightened and his head dipped swiftly down.
If first kisses were a harbinger of things to come, I told myself, then I was in serious trouble. I couldn’t remember a first kiss like this one. There was nothing searching or tentative about it; it was certain and deep and it brought the blood pounding to my ears. Strangely enough, it also seemed to drain all the energy out of my body, so that when he pulled away again, I found it took great effort to stand upright. But then focusing my eyes, too, took great effort, as did breathing, and though I tried to look quite natural my shaking voice betrayed me. “David, honestly…”
“What?”
“Well, you do choose your moments, don’t you? I mean, we’re pract
ically standing on a drunken man, and my students are just round the corner, and Peter could be back at any minute…”
“Just experimenting.”
“Oh, really?”
“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 waste bin 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?”