Except that he had only one shoe.
As the pony ambled forward, he adjusted his boater at a debonair angle to cover the sticking plaster, and began fighting with his tie. Beautiful morning. Health and freedom! Breakfast now?
In the light of day, Creighton was revealed as a man of middle years, spare and trim and indelibly tanned by a tropic sun. His close-cropped mustache was ginger, his eyebrows were red-brown and thick as hedges. His nose was an arrogant ax blade. He was staring straight ahead as he drove the pony, with his face shadowed by the brim of his bowler. As he seemed in no hurry to make conversation, Edward remained silent also, content to wait and see what the day would offer to top the night's marvels.
Pony and cart clattered along the hedge-walled lanes, already growing warm. As they passed a farm gate, a dog barked. The damp patches on Creighton's trouser legs were drying. Somewhere a lie-abed cock was still crowing.
Suddenly the colonel cleared his throat and then spoke, addressing his remarks to the pony's back.
"You have seen a wonder, you have been granted a miracle cure. I trust that you will now be receptive to explanations that you might have rejected earlier?"
"I think I can believe anything after that, sir."
"Hrrnph!” Creighton shot him a glance, hazel eyes glinting under the hedge of red-brown eyebrow. “Did you feel anything unusual up there, by the way, even before our friend appeared?"
Edward hesitated, reluctant to admit to romantic fancies. “It did seem a ‘spooky’ sort of place."
Creighton did not scoff as a hard-bitten army man might be expected to. “Ever felt that sort of ‘spookiness’ before?"
"Yes, sir."
"For example?"
"Well, Tinkers’ Wood, near the school. Or Winchester Cathedral on a school outing. I didn't tell anyone, though!"
"Wise of you, I'm sure. Probably several of your classmates would have felt the same and kept equally quiet about it, but there's really nothing to be ashamed of. Sensitivity's usually a sign of artistic talent of one sort or another. Celtic blood helps, for some reason. It doesn't matter either way. When you get to ... Well, never mind that yet. There are certain places that are peculiarly suited to supernatural activities. We call them ‘nodes.’ They have what we call ‘virtuality.’ Some people can sense it, others can't. They seem to be distributed at random, some more marked than others, but here in England you'll almost always find evidence that they've been used, or are still being used, for worship of one kind or another—standing stones, old ruins, churches, graveyards."
"That was why Mr. Old ... er, Mr. Goodfellow ... why he didn't cure my leg in the hospital?” Edward had wondered why he had been made to endure that journey.
"Of course. It would have been much harder for him to do it there than at home in his grove, on his node. Perhaps even impossible for him nowadays."
Creighton turned out of one lane into another, apparently confident that he knew where he was heading. For a while he said no more. Edward began to consider his options. To go to any local enlistment center might be dangerous. Of course the police would be much more inclined to look for him in a nursing home than at a recruiting office, but near Greyfriars he might be recognized by someone. His best plan was probably to head up to town and join all the thousands enlisting at Great Scotland Yard.
Then the colonel began addressing the pony's arse again. “Officially I am Home on leave. Unofficially, I intended to observe the developments in Europe, do a bit of recruiting, and keep an eye on you."
Edward said, “Yes, sir,” respectfully.
"Things went—Hrrnph!—a little askew. The European thing sort of ran away with us. You see, the nature of prophecy is that it usually comes in a frightful muddle, with most incidents undated. Nevertheless, it describes a single future, so it must relate to a unitary stream of events, right?"
"Er. I suppose so.” What had prophecy to do with anything?
"Some foretellings you'd think you can do nothing about—storms or earthquakes. Others you obviously can. If a man is prophesied to die in battle and you poison him first at his dinner table, then you have invalidated the entire prophecy, you see? Prophecy is by nature a chain, so that breaking one link breaks the whole thing. If any one statement is clearly discredited, then the future described is no longer valid and none of the rest of the prophecy applies anymore. If the prophecy foretelling a man dying in battle also foretells a city being wrecked by an earthquake, then by poisoning the man, you can prevent the earthquake."
Edward muttered, “Good Lord!” and nothing more. He seemed to have stumbled into a mystical world that was definitely going to take some getting used to.
"It's all or nothing,” Creighton said. “Like a balloon. Poke one hole in it and the entire thing fails. And you were mentioned in a prophecy."
"I see.” The Jumbo letter had mentioned a chain! Why had Edward been such a fool as to leave it behind?
"About twenty years ago,” Creighton continued, “someone tried to kill your father, Cameron Exeter. The attempt did not succeed, but an investigation revealed that he was mentioned in a certain well-substantiated prophecy, the Vurogty Migafilo. Vurogty is a formal, legal statement. Miga means a village, like the English ham or by, in the genitive case. So in English Vurogty Migafilo would be something like Filoby Testament. It has been around for many years, and many events foretold in it have already come to pass. Many more remain. You see that to be mentioned in such a document is virtually a death sentence?"
He paused, as if to let Edward make an intelligent comment, which seemed an unlikely possibility.
"Because anyone who does not like anything else in the prophecy will try to block its fulfillment?” That felt reasonably intelligent, considering the hour.
"Right on! Good man! In this case, the specific prophecy about your father was particularly unwelcome to the Chamber, and of course that increased his danger considerably."
The trap jingled and joggled along the lane. A thrush sang in the hedgerow. The dawn clouds glowed in decorous pinks. It was all very normal—no genies going by on magic carpets, no knights in armor tilting at dragons.
"What was that specific prophecy, sir?"
"It was foretold that he would sire a son."
"Sir!” This was starting to sound suspiciously like a leg-pull in very poor taste.
"Furthermore, the date was specified very clearly."
"June first, 1896, I presume?"
"No. Sometime in the next two weeks."
Edward said, “Oh.” He studied the thick hedges passing by. Life had been much simpler a few days ago. “Well, that's impossible, so this Testament has now failed?"
Hrrnph! “No again. The date was a misinterpretation. The seeress may not have understood correctly herself, and she expressed herself poorly—the ordeal drove her insane and she died soon after. Prophecy requires an enormous amount of mana, which is why it's so rare. The person who had given her the talent miscalculated. He was utterly drained by her outburst. Almost died himself, or so it's said. That's beside the point. Anyway, the Service decided that your father had better go into hiding until the danger was past. And so he did."