The Adept (9 page)

He might have said more, but at that moment Humphrey’s discreet knock heralded the arrival of tea and scones. As Peregrine followed Adam back to the fireside, he reflected that a capacity for remarkable achievements seemed to run in the Sinclair family.

They passed the evening quietly at Strathmourne. A simple but excellent dinner was followed by brandy in the now-familiar environs of the library.

“I suggest we make an early evening of it,” Adam said. “I think you’ll agree that last night was—ah—something less than restful, and tomorrow, after I make my rounds down at Jordanburn, I’ve got to drive up to Gleneagles for the afternoon. It’s the quarterly meeting of the Royal Scottish Preservation Trust, and I’m speaking. Perhaps you’d like to come along.”

“Well, I—”

“It’s no intrusion, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Adam said with a smile. “I think you’d enjoy it—and it would give me the chance to present you to some good friends of mine who are members of the Trust—friends who might be the source of future commissions,” he added, raising his glass in smiling salute, “if the prospect of my company for the day and a bunch of probably boring lectures aren’t sufficient enticements.”

Warmed through by the brandy and the glow of their growing camaraderie, Peregrine found himself agreeing. Only much later, after he had retired to his room for the night and was drifting off to sleep, did it occur to him that this was the first social engagement in months that he had allowed himself to accept. Nor had he thought even once about the despair that had driven him here to Strathmourne not twenty-four hours before.

The next day, Monday, dawned fair and fine. After an early breakfast, Adam left Peregrine on his own for a few hours while he zipped into Edinburgh to see patients, returning just after eleven to pick him up.

“Traffic was lighter than I expected,” Adam said, as he leaned across to open the passenger door of the Jaguar for Peregrine. “We may even have time for a proper lunch. I told some friends we’d try to join them, if we got there before one.”

They arrived at the Gleneagles Hotel with plenty of time to spare. Adam’s friends turned out to be the Duke of Glendearn, who was president and principal patron of the Trust, and several other titled notables, several of whom were acquainted with Peregrine’s work. The warmth of their reception did much to dispel Peregrine’s initial shyness, and by the time lunch was finished, he was well on the way to finding himself at home.

Peregrine glanced at the program leaflet Adam handed him as they went into the lecture room. The morning’s program, he found, had included the society’s business meeting and several addresses on various aspects of Scottish history. The events scheduled for the afternoon included several more speeches and a series of panel discussions—none of which turned out to be at all boring, so far as Peregrine was concerned.

Adam’s own contribution, last on the agenda, was a lecture on the subject he termed “Intuitive Archaeology.” Interestingly enough, to Peregrine’s way of thinking, no one seemed inclined to leave early. In fact, people who had been wandering in and out during the afternoon made a point to come back in as the duke was Introducing Adam. Evidently Sir Adam Sinclair was one of their more popular speakers.

“This is intended to be an exercise in creative speculation,” Adam warned his listeners, with a smile that compelled their instant attention. “What I am proposing is that, for the next fifty minutes, we waive all consideration of empirical methodology, in order to examine the intuition as a prime tool for archaeological investigation.”

“Intuition,” he repeated, looking around the room. “It’s something that many people think women have more of than men do.” That comment brought a chuckle. “People working in the so-called ‘hard sciences’ tend to mistrust it, because it can’t be ‘proven’ by scientific logic. People working in the ‘soft’ sciences—and psychiatry is one of them—know that intuition can be a very valuable tool, especially when confirmed by results. Perhaps, then, the line between logic and intuition is not as hard and fast as the hard scientists would have us believe.”

As Adam turned to the next page in his notes, Peregrine settled down contentedly to take it all in. This was turning out to be every bit as interesting as he had hoped it might be.

“Actually, many hard scientists do use intuition,” Adam went on, “though most of them would squirm, if forced to admit it. After all, it isn’t ‘logical.’ However, it is no secret that some researchers are infinitely more adept than others ‘ at arriving at correct hypotheses on the basis of slender or confusing physical evidence. Putting this into an historical perspective, I would like to suggest that intuition may, in fact, play a very large role in reconstructing history on the basis of artifacts . . .”

There followed a series of factual anecdotes involving a number of eminent archaeologists and their discoveries. As
Peregrine listened, it began to dawn on him that the faculty Adam was describing was, by any other name, a kind of extrasensory perception. He glanced around him, wondering if any of the other members of the audience had caught the masked drift of the discourse. Before he could form any distinct impressions, the presentation took an even more radical turn.

“If we accept that intuition does, in fact, play a vital expository role in archaeological investigation,” Adam said coolly, “we may well find ourselves obliged to modify our definition of physical reality. To that end, I am going to suspend, for a moment, all consideration of Newtonian physics in order to broaden the concept of nature to include that elusive field in which the intuition operates.”

This announcement generated an interested stir amongst those present. Without pausing to refer to his notes, Adam continued, leaning forward conspiratorially on the podium.

“All physical reality is traditionally quantifiable in terms of three dimensions: height, width, and depth. But such an assessment fails to take account of the fact that objects—and people, for that matter—also exist in the dimension of time. This temporal factor is something that, for lack of a better term, I should like to call Resonance.”

Peregrine sat forward in his chair. He felt suddenly as if he were on the brink of hearing something of vital personal importance.

“To draw an analogy,” Adam went on calmly, “resonance can be interpreted as a kind of existential echo: a subtle shadow of how things used to be. As a theoretical psychologist, I would submit that the ability to perceive resonance is a rare function of the human psyche. In antique times, that faculty was the trademark of priests, seers, and mystics. In these latter days, it is still a factor among those whose livelihood depends on their developing that faculty of vision: archaeologists, psychiatrists, artists . . .”

Artists? Startled, Peregrine was suddenly swamped by a host of half-realized implications. Was this why Adam had wanted him to come along? He was still-struggling to untangle his own thoughts when he was roused from his reverie by an outburst of hand-clapping. He looked up to
see Adam descending from the podium into a crowd of would-be questioners.

It was some time before Adam was free again to join him. By then Peregrine was sufficiently master of his own whirling speculations to follow along gracefully while friends and acquaintances offered their congratulations and goodbyes. The shadows were lengthening by the time they pulled out of the car park. Peregrine held his tongue until they were back on the main road toward Strathmourne, then abruptly voiced the question that he had been at pains to suppress for more than an hour.

“This business of resonance that you spoke of—is that another way of saying that objects can somehow generate images from their temporal past?”

Wry amusement plucked at the corner of Adam’s long mouth. “You were listening closely, weren’t you? Yes, that’s the basic idea. The same principle applies to people as well. Those resonances are sometimes described, in psychic circles, as ‘auras.’ And they can resonate forward in time, as well as backwards.”

“Oh,” said Peregrine. For a moment he stared hard at the road ahead. Then in a rush he said, “This problem of mine—this problem with seeing things that other people can’t see—could it be somehow related to this notion of resonance?”

“It’s at least a theory,” said Adam. “But I can’t give you any hard answers. I suggest you sleep on it.”

That proved to be his last word on the subject. Balked in several further attempts to draw out his host in greater detail, Peregrine at last gave up and allowed the conversation to drift into other channels, equally fascinating, but of far less personal import, so far as Peregrine could tell. Later that night, none the wiser, he went to bed with no expectation of falling asleep readily, let alone dreaming.

But as he lay in bed, staring up at the starry patterns on the ceiling, his thoughts drifted so subtly from conscious into subconscious awareness that he was not aware of having fallen asleep until the onset of the Dream.

Chapter Six

THE DREAM
began as though he were waking up from a light doze. He was still in bed in the Blue Room at Strathmourne, but the door was standing half-open, emitting a wedge of unearthly light. Peregrine rose from the bed and crossed to the doorway. When he looked beyond the confines of the room, he realized that he was standing on the threshold of some other reality.

He should have been facing another door, in a corridor papered in a willow-herb pattern designed by William Morris. Instead, he was confronting a square chamber, empty and bare, whose blank walls had the silvery sheen of mirrors. The wall to his right was broken by a high archway, affording him a view of a succession of other rooms beyond. The light that suffused all the rooms seemed to be emanating from somewhere off in the distance, in that direction.

Peregrine was seized by a sudden desire to locate the source of the light. His dream-self stepped out into the middle of the square chamber, and his own reflection sprang out at him from three sides. He fetched up short, for the reflection did not match up with his appearance.

His dream-persona was wearing the modern clothes he had worn when he had fled to Adam Sinclair in search of counsel. But the self that gazed back at him out of the mirror was wearing only sandals and a striped woolen chlamys thrown over the left shoulder, in a style that recalled amphorae paintings from ancient Greece. Apart from the differences in clothing and hairstyle, however, the reflection conformed with Peregrine’s every look and gesture. It occurred to him, within the framework of the dream, that what he was seeing-might be a true, if deeply hidden, part of himself.

He moved hastily through the arch into the adjoining room. This chamber was mirrored too, and in this one, his reflection wore the short tunic and leather body armor of a Roman centurion. In the room after, he was greeted by a long-haired image of himself in a rich Byzantine dalmatic of embroidered silk. More images followed, detailed like a fantastic display in a museum of historical costume. But the face was always his own.

The strange gallery of mirrors brought him at last to the foot of a tall door. Ornately carved as the entry port of a church, it yielded smoothly when Peregrine gave a tentative tug at the latch. He felt no sense of danger, so he stepped across the threshold and paused to look around.

The chamber in which he found himself was vaulted like a Greek Orthodox chapel, its curving dome overlaid with mosaic work in marble and gold. Light spilled down from a glowing filigree lamp suspended on golden chains from the ceiling. Directly below the lamp, on an upraised dais of white marble, a curiously fashioned pedestal supported a shimmering globe the size of a royal orb.

Aware that he was still dreaming, Peregrine gazed at the orb in wonder. It had a nacreous sheen, like a great pearl. The silken beauty of it drew him like a magnet. Without pausing to consider his actions, he strode across the floor and mounted the dais, hands reverently outstretched to touch it.

The instant of contact brought a radiant flash, like a surge of heat lightning. Reeling, Peregrine flung up his arms to shield his dazzled eyes.

He took his hands away to find the chapel gone, himself suspended in an iridescent sea. Fear of falling gripped him, and he kicked out frantically in an attempt to find the floor. His violent and instinctive movement sent a wave of color surging through the opalescent matrix surrounding him. The wave folded back on itself, fragmenting in a kaleidoscopic explosion of fractured light.

Straightaway Peregrine was swallowed up in a polychrome tempest. He thrashed about in the eddying tides like a swimmer in danger of drowning, becoming more disoriented by the second. Panicking, he choked out a gasping cry for help.

A chorus of voices answered him, calling out reassurance and encouragement. They spoke in different languages, but he understood all of them. In that Pentecostal moment, he realized that they were all echoes of his own voice, all telling him the same thing:

Be still. Be still, and know that thou art lord of all.

He stopped struggling. At once the wild fluctuations of light became less erratic. Holding himself motionless, he willed the storm to subside. By degrees, the warring colors resolved into a unified field of light, like a pearly lake—and he could walk upon it! Awed and astonished, he set off in perfect silence . . .

A soft blue light grew up all around him, gradually overwhelming every other color. In trying to blink back focus, he discovered that his eyes were closed. When he opened them a moment later, he found himself gazing up at a painted sky full of painted stars. He was back in his room at Strathmourne.

He sat up in bed, puzzled and abstracted, as he mentally reviewed the very vivid dream he had just experienced. At the same time, a mild compulsion laid hold of him to commit the details to paper. He found pen and notebook on the table beside his bed, and he switched on the bedside lamp and began to scribble down an account of the dream’s scenes and events.

By the time he had finished, it was past eight o’clock. Mindful that his host was an early riser, Peregrine rushed through his ablutions and, with his notebook tucked under his arm, hurried downstairs to the morning room where Adam habitually ate breakfast. He arrived rather breathlessly to find Adam in the act of pouring himself a steaming cup of tea, a newspaper at his elbow. The wide bow window beyond the table showed the day starting out to be a misty one.

“Good morning,” Peregrine said, tendering the older man a sheepish grin. “I hope I haven’t disgraced myself by being late again for breakfast.”

“Not at all,” Adam laughed, putting aside his paper. “I’ve only just sat down myself. Join me, by all means.” A discerning look produced a raised eyebrow. “Is anything amiss?”

“Not amiss, no.” Peregrine slid eagerly into the chair across from Adam. “I had the most extraordinary dream, just before I woke up. Could we talk about it?”

“Certainly,” Adam replied. “Did you make notes?”

Nodding, Peregrine produced his notebook and proffered it across the table. “It’s all here—everything I could remember. You don’t actually have to read it right now,” he said, somewhat self-consciously. “You can have your breakfast first.

Adam took the notebook and hefted it in his hand, smiling.

“I think I’ll do both at once,” he said lightly. “I’ve found that such material makes far more Interesting breakfast reading than the newspaper. In the meantime, by all means have something to eat.…”

Peregrine went through the motions of taking toast and tea while Adam read and then re-read the closely penned lines. The account ran to several pages. When at last he raised his eyes from the notebook, Peregrine abruptly pushed aside his plate, all further appetite at least temporarily fled.

“Well?” he said, a little apprehensively. “What do you make of it?”

“The textbook response from me,” said Adam, “is, what do you make of it yourself?”

Peregrine grimaced. “I was afraid you’d say that.” After a moment’s thought, he said with some hesitation, “Based on what you said yesterday in your lecture, I suppose it’s all about history—history, and the resonance that history generates. What I don’t understand is, why the self-portrait gallery?’

He glanced obliquely at Adam as though inviting an explanation. Adam gave him a penetrating look from under
his eyebrows and carefully set the notebook on the table between them. “I don’t think you really need my help in extracting meaning from this experience. Do you?”

Peregrine bit his lip, clearly groping for words. “No. No, I suppose I don’t. But—” He shook his head impatiently, then said in a rush, “Adam, I was brought up to be a good Presbyterian, It isn’t easy for me to reconcile notions of reincarnation, with Christianity.

“And yet, Christianity itself embraces a multitude of different interpretations of the same basic story,” Adam responded. “Otherwise, we shouldn’t have all the different denominations of Christians, who all think
their
way of approaching God is best.

“Then, you think the two are compatible?” Peregrine asked doubtfully.

Adam shrugged. “That’s a matter of conscience, for you to decide. My own feeling—and I say this as a committed Christian, and having dined with my bishop only last week—is that Christianity quite possibly embraces far greater and more universal truths than are generally accepted and taught in its various churches.

This rather pointed observation reduced Peregrine to wide-eyed silence. After a long moment, he said slowly, “This is crazy. You’re a psychiatrist, yet you’re telling me that you believe my delusion is no delusion at all, but the truth.”

“I didn’t say that,” Adam replied. “But if it makes you any more comfortable, accept that the
illusion
of past resonances—past lives, if you will—is a useful metaphor for utilizing some seventh sense for which we have no adequate explanation at present. In a word, if it works, use it.”

Goggle-eyed, Peregrine simply stared at him for a moment, taking it all in. Then he nodded slowly.

“I think I understand what you’re saying,” he murmured.

“Somehow, it even makes sense—of a sort.

“Intuitive
sense?” Adam asked, smiling.

“Maybe. But you’re right about one thing: whether it’s
real
or only
seems
real, it’s better than anything
I’ve
been able to come up with to explain what’s happening to me.” He fingered the notebook on the table between them, then looked up again.

“So let’s assume that I
have
had several other lives before this one, just for the sake of argument. If the same is true of you,” he continued in the same reflective tone, “then what I was seeing the other night, when I tried to draw you, was—resonances of
your
past?” He looked to Adam for confirmation.

“Somewhat over-simplified,” Adam agreed, with a wry half-smile, “but essentially correct, as far as it goes.

Peregrine assimilated this. After a pause he asked, “Do you ever find yourself seeing shadows of
my
past lives?”

“Not spontaneously, if that’s what you mean.

“Why not?”

“For one thing,” Adam said, “I suspect that it’s because I’ve developed the ability to limit my temporal perspective as well as expand it. For another, that isn’t where my major talents lie.”

Before Peregrine could demand a fuller explanation, Adam squared his shoulders briskly and set his cup and saucer aside.

“Are you a horseman, by any chance?”

The sudden shift of subject took Peregrine totally by surprise.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Do you ride?”

Blinking, Peregrine said, “I used to be quite keen when. I was at school. Why?”

“As I think I may have mentioned,” Adam said, “I’ve had a crew doing some badly needed clearance work up at Templemor Tower, during the past week. There’s a chap coming by this afternoon—an archaeologist from Ancient Monuments. Before I give him the go-ahead to carry out survey of the ruins, I’d like to take a good look at what’s been done so far. I was planning to trek out there on horseback later this morning, and it occurred to me that you might like to come along, do some sketching. I think we can kit you out in some of my nephew’s breeches and boots—he’s about your size—if you think you’d be interested.”
Peregrine was studying Adam with amazement tinged with suspicion. “Is this going to be another experiment?” he asked.

Adam threw back his head with a laugh. “So much for the subtle approach. Yes, it’s going to be another experiment. I assume you’ve got a pocket sketchbook? Good, then bring it along. I’ll tell you what I have in mind, once we’re on our way.”

John, the ex-Household Cavalry trooper who looked after Adam’s horses, had Adam’s favorite grey gelding already saddled by the time they found riding gear for Peregrine and got down to the stable, and was just leading out the blood bay mare that was to be Peregrine’s mount. The mare nickered as she caught sight of Adam, and the grey pricked his ears and pivoted on the forehand to look too. Behind them in the stable aisle, two more heads poked out above stable doors with equine interest.

Their keeper grinned and lifted a hand in affable greeting, almost a salute, as he cross-tied the mare and began saddling.
“Morning, sir. He’s all ready to go, and I’ll have Poppy ready in a minute.