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.
'Anither watcher?' Hamish said.
Rutledge wouldn't have been surprised. Someone who knew that Rutledge would be coming and while having no intention of working with him, at least wanted it to be known that he was present as well.
The government kept an eye on certain people. Quietly and unobtrusively as a rule.
What had Partridge done to excite interest? Knowing that might make a difference in deciding where to look for him.
His only choice now was to wait for dark and then search Partridge's cottage. He could come to it by a roundabout way, passing unseen. He'd been told this was merely a watching brief. But if Hamish was right and Partridge wasn't coming back, there could be an advantage in knowing what the man was up to.
Rutledge left the hill of the White Horse half an hour later and went back to The Smith's Arms, where he had taken a room. He found he was in time for luncheon served both in the dining room and at a handful of tables that had been set up outside with benches round them for the lorry drivers.
It was a rough crowd. Men who drove long distances for a living were often footloose by nature and had more in common with one another than with families left behind. They'd cast glances in Rutledge's direction when he drove up and walked into the inn, curious and suspicious. Then conversation had picked up again when he disappeared from view.
The innkeeper's wife-Mrs. Smith-greeted him with a harried nod and went on serving tables with quick efficiency and a laugh that kept the men jolly and at arm's length. Rutledge glimpsed Mr. Smith; the swinging doors into the nether regions showed him briefly. He was the cook here, not his wife.
Rutledge wondered if their name was Smith or if they enjoyed the play on words as well as their anonymity. It would explain why they kept their inn for transient custom and showed no ambition to cater to a different clientele.
Mrs. Smith reappeared from the kitchen with a tray for Rutledge. 'If you won't mind eating it upstairs,' she said apologetically. 'There's not a table to spare for a single.'
He took the tray and thanked her. In his room he looked under the serviette that covered it and found generous sandwiches of beef and pork, a pickle, a small dish of tinned fruit, and a glass of beer.
Sitting by the window he ate with an appetite, listening to the voices rising from the tables below. Someone had started a political argument and found himself shouted down by his comrades good-naturedly calling him a fool. But he stuck to his guns, clearly possessed of a grievance against a proposed tax on goods shipped to France or the Low Countries.
'It'ul put me out of business, I tell you, and you as well,' he said gruffly. 'Wait and see.'
'Rumor,' another voice replied. 'It'ul never happen, see if I'm not right.'
They moved away, still talking, and then it was quiet for a moment before lorry engines roared into life and began to roll out of the yard.
A bird was singing now, a chat, the song filling the air with brightness.
Then a male voice called, 'Betty?'
And Mrs. Smith answered from the doorway almost at Rutledge's feet, her voice was so clear. 'If you're hungry, you're out of luck. That lot ate everything but the rats in the barn and the straw in the mangers.'
'That man-the one who owns the motorcar in the yard. Is he staying here? What do you know about
