A Pale Horse - Charles Todd [15]
“Are you lost, then?”
He came back to the present with a jolt, staring at what appeared to be a giant of a man standing at his elbow.
For the life of him, he couldn’t have told how long the man had been there or what he’d been saying.
“I—Admiring the horse,” he managed, trying to bring it into focus against the backdrop of his slip into the past.
The young man turned to look at it. “Impressive, right enough. I like it best at moonrise. But you’re blocking the road.”
Rutledge glanced in his mirror and saw a large wagon behind him and a patient horse between the shafts. On the wagon was a harrow.
“Sorry.”
He let in the clutch and drove on, still lost in that nightmare world that all too often shared his real one.
The cottages were behind him, and ahead lay Wayland’s Smithy in a copse of beech trees. He could make it out clearly, an arrangement of great stones that encompassed a small space with a narrow opening. It had probably been a Stone Age tomb, not a blacksmith’s shop. Still, legend maintained that if a man left his horse there overnight to be shod, and a coin to pay for the work, the animal would be waiting for him in the morning. More likely, local smiths had discovered a way to expand their trade. For centuries fire and those who used it to work metal were held in high regard, and sometimes feared as well.
A few miles along, he found a small inn by the road, lorries in the yard and a motorcar or two as well.
He stopped to ask if they were serving at this hour, and inside saw a pot of tea standing on a small table near the door, a stack of mugs beside it, sugar and a pitcher of lukewarm milk just behind it.
He poured himself a cup, wandered into the tiny reception area, and sat down by the window overlooking the road.
It was two hours later that he opened his eyes again.
A woman was clearing away the tea things, and she smiled as he stirred and then straightened up in his chair.
“You’re not the first to nod off in that chair,” she said, her eyes merry, “nor the last. That your motorcar by the lilacs?”
“I’m afraid so. When do you begin serving breakfast?”
“Lord love you, we closed the kitchen more than an hour ago. Most of the lorry drivers have moved on. I’d have thought their racket would’ve wakened the dead.”
“Not this dead,” he said, standing and stretching his shoulders. “Do you by any chance have rooms here?”
“We keep a half-dozen beds for travelers. Clean sheets and good food, as well as good cheer. That’s what we offer. And all we offer.” She considered him. “It’s not very posh—”
Rutledge smiled. “Still, I’d like a room for tonight, if you have one. I’m here to see the horse.”
“Oh, yes? It’s early for the day-trippers, but I expect you aren’t the usual visitor. What are you, then?”
Her face was red with the morning’s rush, her hair pinned back out of her way, and her clothing sober, as if she worked hard and had no time to worry about how she looked.
He hadn’t been prepared to deal with questions of this sort.
“I was tired of London, and I drove all night.” Following her into the dining room, he added, “I needed to see something besides walls and pavement and people.”
“Disappointed in love, are you?”
He was on the point of vigorously denying it when he realized that she was teasing him. And he must have looked the picture of the rejected lover, unshaven, his clothes unpressed, his face marked with fatigue.
“No. Foolish in the extreme.”
She laughed. “Sit down over there in the corner—that cloth’s clean—and I’ll bring you whatever’s left from breakfast. There’s usually cold bacon, bread, and hard-boiled eggs in the cupboard. There’s coffee as well as tea. Some of the lorry drivers prefer it to keep them awake.”
“I’ll stay with tea.”
When she brought his plate it was large as a charger, and as promised there were rashers of bacon, eggs, toasted bread, and pots of butter and jam. Rutledge thanked her and added, “I’ve just come past those cottages not far from the spot where you can look up and see the White Horse. Odd place to put them, I should think, unless they’re intended for viewers