Something large had started to move in their direction. It seemed to slow, and Griffoni gave another whistle, at the sound of which the motion increased.
It was a horse, catapulting towards them. He knew the names of the different speeds of a horse: walk, trot, canter, gallop. But this was something different: jet-propelled.
As Brunetti watched, the horse thundered towards them, leaping over obstacles the humans couldn’t see from where they were, aimed right at them, relentless.
Fifteen metres from them, the horse, began to slow, then slowed again, until it stopped only a metre away and reared up on its back legs. While still in the air, just like a horse in some phony American Western, it threw back its head and let out a high-pitched whinny, then thudded back down on its front hooves and moved up to the railing, head moving up and down, up and down in a frenzy.
During all of this, Manuela had been at first afraid, then quiet, then stunned. Brunetti turned and watched her, saw her face, for the first time, washed clean of the uncertainty that too often veiled it.
Moving as if spurred by some stronger force, she stood on the bottom rung of the fence and then the second. She leaned forward, arms spread wide.
‘Petunia,’ she said and wrapped her arms around the horse’s neck. ‘Petunia.’