Talk:Taran'is
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
A Ghost Story (Treasurer's House)
Harry Martindale, nursing a pint in Ye Olde Starre Inn pub, picks up the story of what you might see.
Just a boy of 17 back in 1953, Harry's first job was as an apprentice heating man assigned to chisel through a 1 1/2-metre-thick stone wall in the cellar of the grand house.
"It was just coming up to lunch on my second day when I heard a horn or trumpet playing and I thought to myself, `Someone's playing the wireless loud.' All of a sudden I see the helmet, with plume, come out of the wall. It's on the head of a soldier and he's on a horse. I stepped back (off a small ladder) and ended up on my backside, my hair standing straight up, I was terrified."
But it didn't end there. Following the mounted soldier came a ragtag militia.
"The Roman soldiers came out in twos, there were at least 20 of them and I could see they wanted a shave. I could see the darker complexion and I just sat on the floor looking at them. I thought what are they going to do to me?"
As the last of the soldiers marched straight through the far wall, Harry made a break for the stone steps out of the cellar, out of breath and trembling.
"Then the curator in the house walked by, took one look at me and said, `Ah, I see you've met our Roman soldiers.'"
It turns out Harry was neither the first nor the last to have a surprise in the cellar – now open for guided tours.
