It was very early in the morning when Jinny and Sue rode to Glenbost. The world about them was grey, without light.
"When we reach Glenbost we can go over the moor," said Jinny. "Over the top of the hills and down on to the Inverburgh road. Shouldn't think it's much quicker, but it cuts off a good bit of the road."
Glenbost was still closed against the night, no lights showed in any of the croft windows. Mrs. Simpson's shop was shuttered and dead. The junky, rusting cars piled outside the garage were in pools of deep shadow. A cat ran across the road in front of them, making Shantih drift sideways and Pippen prick his ears.
"Here," said Jinny. "It's this track, behind the church." They left the road and began to climb into the hills.
The statue was in Jinny's pocket. Once she had returned it to Epona, her part in the mystery would be over. Last night she had slept without dreaming. The Red Horse was satisfied. The mural on her wall was only a painting. She could not think why she had ever been afraid of it.
As they climbed, light seeped back into the world.
"Pretty steep here," said Sue. "Shall we lead them?"
"All right," said Jinny, dismounting.
Shantih walked sweetly at her side, mouthing the bit, her walk relaxed and easy.
"This is how they brought them," thought Jinny. "Out of the darkness. The procession would be waiting down below to join them, but here in the hills the gods would be alone with the priestesses."
They reached the crest of the hills. The Inverburgh road lay coiled beneath them.
"Whee!" exclaimed Sue. "How about a breather?" She sat down on a comfortable rock.
Light from the rising sun arrowed across the moors. The rocks on the crest of the hills were rimmed with gold.
"Swear," said Jinny to Sue. "Swear on the thing you love most, your most precious thing, that you'll never tell anyone about what I'm going to show you.”
"Swear?” said Sue in amazement. “What do you mean, swear? What are you going to show me?"
"Think of your mostest thing then say, 'I swear,'” instructed Jinny.
Sue thought. "I swear," she said.
"Right," said Jinny. She felt in her pocket and brought out the Horse. She set it on one of the rocks and it was ringed with the sun.
"What is it?"
"I found it at the dig," said Jinny. "It's a Celtic Horse god. It should be with Epona. Her statue is in the Wilton Collection and I'm taking it there."
"Fancy you finding it! Didn't you tell them?"
"They wouldn't have given it to the Wilton," said Jinny. "That's why I found it, so I could take it to Epona."
"It's an Arab," said Sue. "Couldn't be anything else. Maybe that's why you found it, because of Shantih being an Arab."
They sat in silence, watching the Horse until the light spread over the sky and the Horse had lost its halo of sun.
"Are you just going to hand it in to the curator at the Wilton?" asked Sue. "Won't they want to know where you found it and all that?"
"I'll manage," said Jinny, "if you'll hold Shantih."
"Do my best," said Sue.
"Remember," said Jinny, as she put the Horse back in her pocket, "you swore.”
"To my grave," said Sue.
When they reached the Inverburgh road it was already busy. A vast yellow lorry roared past, making Shantih rear.
"Single file," said Sue. "I'll go first. Pippen doesn't mind it."
Keeping well into the side of the road, they made their way into Inverburgh. At first Jinny was tense, sitting stiffly, knowing that Shantih had never been ridden in traffic like this before; that if she got a fright and came down on the road she could break her knees, blemishing herself for life. A car transporter careered past, its twelve convict cars clanking behind it, and Shantih cantered on the spot, her shoes scoring the road.
"If Pippen wasn't here she'd be away," thought Jinny, tugging frantically at Shantih's reins as she heard the rumble of another heavy lorry bearing down on them. "Steady, Shantih, steady."
The lorry roared past and Shantih shot forward into Pippen's broad rear.
"Oh, steady, you idiot," cried Jinny. A bubble of panic blew up inside her head as she fought to control Shantih. Her elbow banged against the Horse in her pocket and suddenly Jinny remembered why she was there. They were taking the Horse back to Epona. She shouldn't be crawling along like this. The Horse must be at the head of the procession.
Jinny squared her shoulders, relaxed her stranglehold on Shantih's reins and sat down hard in the saddle. She rode alongside Sue.
"Shall we trot for a bit?" Jinny asked. "I'll take Shantih in front. She'll settle if she can trot out."
Jinny let Shantih trot on, kept her moving forward, not letting her spook about.
"To take the Horse to Epona," said Jinny aloud.
The traffic grew heavier as they reached Inverburgh, but still Jinny kept Shantih trotting, fleet and red-gold, she gallanted through the city din and fumes.
"Which way?" asked Sue at the traffic lights.
"I know my way to Nell Storr's shop," said Jinny. "Once we're there it's only minutes to the Wilton."
The lights changed to green and Jinny trotted on. Double-decker buses towered above them, motorbikes backfired, passengers in cars shouted and pointed, but Shantih paid no attention to any of them. She was all power and light, brilliant in the city grime. As she rode, Jinny was conscious of the Horse god in her pocket and of Epona waiting in her glass solitude.
"If they could only see them," Jinny thought, looking down at the scurrying pedestrians from her horseman's pride. "Not as they will be in their glass case in the Wilton, but the way they were when the old woman sprinkled her herbs on the fire. If they could only see them. If they only knew what we are doing.”
They stopped outside Nell Storr's shop.
"Along this road," said Jinny, leading the way to the Wilton.
When they turned into the road where the Wilton Collection was they seemed to drop into a silent well. No traffic—even its noise was blown away over the high rooftops.
"About half-way down the road," said Jinny, and, looking ahead, she saw the plaque on the door of the Wilton.
"Shall I just hold them in the street?" asked Sue doubtfully.
"Along there," said Jinny, and they rode past the Wilton to where there was a rough patch of ground between two tenements.
"Even some grass for them," said Jinny as she dismounted.
"Don't be too long," warned Sue, taking Shantih's reins. "I'll yell for you if I can't cope."
Jinny hardly heard her. She took the Horse out her pocket and held it in her hand.
"I shan't be long," she said, and walked slowly up the road to the Wilton. She pushed the door open, went into the hall and stood at the bottom of the flight of stairs. There was no sound in the building, no noises from outside. Jinny climbed the stairs. The long corridor was empty. Carrying the Horse, she went quickly, silently, to the room where Epona waited.
Jinny paused in the doorway, swallowing hard, then crossed to the case in the corner. She moved as if she was flying—a lightness, a certainty. The lid of the case lifted easily. Epona waited, small and self-contained—expressionless. Very slowly, Jinny put the Horse down beside her as they had been on the altar.
"Together," said Jinny, and, for a second, the vision flamed in her mind—the Horse in its awe and majesty, Epona with the fruit in her open hand.
Jinny closed the lid of the case, fitting the lock back into the rotting wood. When had the Horse and Epona last been seen together? Who had last seen them as she was seeing them now? Unanswerable questions built up in Jinny's mind.
Someone came into the room, came to stand beside Jinny. She looked up quickly, afraid they might have seen her. It was an old man, not much taller than Jinny, with a mane of thick grey hair, a brown suit and a gentleness about him.
He stood looking down at Epona and the Horse.
"You brought it?" he asked Jinny.
"Yes," she said.
"He was right then, the man who brought Epona here. He said the Horse would follow."
"Who brought Epona?" demanded Jinny.
"One of the travelling people. You can call them what you please. Some call them tinkers, some still use the old name—the Pony Folk.”
A cold shiver ran through Jinny. "How did he know I would find the Horse?" she cried.
"He only said it would follow. He didn't mention you."
"But it was me," said Jinny. "I dreamed the dreams. I rode Shantih to Brachan back through time and saved the Horse from the archaeologists.”
"Enough that they are with each other again," said the old man calmly. "Tell me how it was."
Standing, surrounded by objects, the Horse and Epona together in front of her, Jinny told him of her fears, her nightmares, her dream ride and how she had found the Horse.
The man nodded, understanding, accepting. "We know so little," he said. "We are so lost that the gods must appear to us as beings of terror."
Then he turned, looking straight at Jinny, and said, '"Don't forget what has happened to you. Don't try and turn it into less than it is. Accept it as you accept the incredible miracle of food—apple blossom into apple." Jinny remembered Sue, left with Pippen and Shantih.
"I'll need to go," she said awkwardly.
The old man nodded. He held out his hand to her.
"I'm Jo Wilton," he said.
"This is your museum?" exclaimed Jinny in surprise.
"Sanctuary," said Jo Wilton and shook Jinny's hand. "The Horse and Epona are safe here. When I die my grandson will take over. He knows far more than I do. My sons stood on my shoulders. My grandson stands on theirs. He was born knowing things I could never even reach. They will be safe with him.”
Jinny took one last look at the statues. They were together again. Her part was over.
"Goodbye," she said, "and thank you."
"Thank you," said Jo Wilton as Jinny ran out of the room.
She dashed along the corridor, hurtled down the stairs and half fell, half leaped into the open air.
"It's back," she yelled to Sue. She wanted to sing and shout and dance. She was free again. Her face was spread in an enormous grin. "I'm free! I'm free! I'm free!”
"Free or not," said Sue. "You have been ages. I thought Shantih was going to trample me underhoof."
Still exploding with laughter, Jinny took Shantih's reins and mounted.
"Were they pleased you took the statue in to them?"
Jinny considered the question as they rode along. Pleased was the wrong word. You weren't pleased about the air. It just was. The rightness of it was more than being pleased. "It belonged there," said Jinny at last.
They left the road and went over the hills to Glenbost. The sky blue, the air sharp. Jinny's mood was as high as the sky. Now there was nothing but light. Once Ken had said, "it's all luminous Love," and, riding back over the hills to Glenbost, Jinny knew it was true.
She let Shantih sail over the stone walls, loving her speed and her courage. She loved Pippen, bustling behind her, loved his steadfastness, his placid contentment. She wanted to tell Sue how it was for her. Kept saying to Sue, "Isn't it wonderful. Isn't it all so wonderful."
Glenbost lay huddled below them. As they rode down, the sun was high in cloudless blue.
"The day that Shantih escaped from the circus van was a day like this," Jinny said. "A blue day."
For a moment, Jinny thought that the two days were linked. Shantih coming to Finmory so that she would be there to find the buried Horse god. But how could that possibly be? Jinny shook back her hair, laughing aloud, for it didn't matter. It was enough to be riding Shantih over the open land.
"Jump this bit," Jinny called back to Sue, and cantered Shantih at a level bit of wall. Shantih leaped and landed in a smooth, flowing arc.
"Oh, horse!" cried Jinny. "Oh, Shantih, Shantih, Shantih.”
They rode past the church and into the village. Dolina was standing outside the shop.
"You'll have been having the letter?" Dolina called, her face glum and despondent as she came across to them.
"What letter?" asked Jinny. But almost she knew. It couldn't have been any other way. She had always known that it couldn't happen.
"From the Education Committee. It's not the weekly boarding we're for. Haven't they found the dry rot in Duninver School? The whole floor's falling in on them. They haven't the room for us, we're to be travelling to Inverburgh after all.”
"Well," said Sue. "Thank goodness for that."
"Aren't you pleased?" she demanded, when Jinny said nothing, only sat on Shantih, staring at Dolina.
"I'll tell you this," said Dolina. "It's the better time we would have been having at the hostel. Clanging about in an old school bus all week. It's not me that would have been choosing that, I can tell you.”
Jinny hardly spoke all the way back to Finmory.
"I'm into shock," she told Sue.
"See you tomorrow, then," said Sue. "When you've recovered." And she turned Pippen to ride down to their tent.
"Yes," said Jinny. "Yes, O.K."
She couldn't start and thank Sue for riding with her to Inverburgh, not just now. She would do that tomorrow. Tomorrow would be cavalletti and the freedom of the moors, no longer haunted by the terror of hoofbeats, the presence of the Red Horse. But today Jinny was still caught up in the wonder that she didn't understand, could only live.
Ken had been waiting for her at the foot of the drive. He came from between the trees, Kelly shadowing his heels.
"You know," he said, seeing Jinny's brightness. "You've heard.”
"Yes," said Jinny. "I won’t have to leave Shantih. She won't have to go to Miss Tuke's."
Saying the words aloud made it real. Jinny wanted to gallop and shout, send Shantih flying over the sands, soaring over the sun. All the things that had closed against her were open now. Her new school, the Art Department, schooling Shantih, teaching her to jump, being able to speak to people again, not having to shut them out.
The Horse and Epona were together.
"Isn't it wonderful? Isn't it all so wonderful?" she demanded.
Ken laughed up at her. "I keep on telling you," he said. "If you'd only listen."