The Sage of Waterloo by Leona Francombe Page B

moment—relative, that is, to the utter rigor in my limbs. In a flash of déjà vu, I recognized the fear I’d known when venturing out by the full moon to observe my grandmother. But thoughts of the Hougoumont night also fueled a curious resolve. Now that I was removed from my birthplace, I had a moment (enhanced, I realized later, by the presence of doom) to reflect on one of those vintage Old Lavender tenets: something to the effect that someone else’s predicament is almost always worse than one’s own. For example, our kind generally has only the usual night predators to worry about. Waterloo combatants, on the other hand, had had snipers and skirmishers to contend with, not to mention mud, clogged weapons and fatigue, and regardless of whether it was death or survival that had greeted them at battle’s end, those lads had gone forth gallantly and accepted whichever hand was extended. Surely, then, I could face whatever awaited me under the peony.
    I also remember wondering about my new proprietor, and whether she’d been wise in her choice of rabbit. I was glaringly white, after all. Caillou had only been pale gray, and he’d been visible from across the Waterloo battlefield.
    There was a vigorous scattering of earth, as if by an impatient beak. Then with horror I saw a small shadow detach itself from the peony’s larger one and skip with purpose towards me (though stylishly, I couldn’t help noticing). Death has many guises, I reminded myself . . . especially winged ones . . . and so I made myself even flatter, awaiting my fate. Should I speak to it? I wondered. Negotiate in some way? It was difficult to imagine Caillou surviving even this long in the proceedings, so I ceased to wonder what he might have said or done.
    Before I could determine anything more, however, there was another thurrup , a rustle of ivy and the thing was gone.
    I went faint with relief.
    But I had to admit that there’d been a strange measure of grace about those wings, as if they’d belonged to something not intent on dinner. Was this my gift speaking? Had I read the air correctly? I knew that I couldn’t afford to get poetic, though, stranded as I was at the back of the Untried . . . and at twilight, no less.
    Someone came out of the house calling my name. Rabbits don’t usually respond to that sort of thing, sensing as we do a trap just about everywhere, so I was reluctant to emerge from the shadows. I was found easily, though (I would have made a lousy foot soldier in the end), and gently locked in for the night.
    How I longed for warm bodies that night! For musky smells, and the nocturnal whispers of Hougoumont. The sound of the beech branch would have been most welcome, even with its suggestion of phantom drummers.
    I wasn’t entirely alone, however. Old Lavender still felt close by, lingering somewhere in the ectoplasm. What had happened to her? The question stalked my sleep each night, and greeted me every day upon waking. Would I ever know the answer?
    I tried to imagine the confusion in the colony after I’d left—after the farmer had headed out the North Gate with the load of us, and the dust had settled on the lane. Everyone in the pen would have been milling, taking stock. Maybe Spode, with his newly minted seniority, would have chosen a solemn moment to deliver the news.
    Old Lavender, gone! Would there have been chaos? Insurrection? I considered the way that Grandmother had hectored everybody at one time or another and decided that some in the colony might have even breathed a sigh of relief at her departure. I could imagine the rumors swirling: Had the rabbit in the moon bewitched her? Or a wild lover?
    Alone, in an unfamiliar hutch, I simply couldn’t ward off the vision of that moonlit night: Old Lavender standing on her hind legs like a young doe, and the specter of something moving against the south wall. Curiously, there’d been no scent