His face was creased with pain, so I directed the flashlight away.
“Fact-checking,” he explained, when I asked again why he was there. “It’s an old sentry station. They’d keep the fire burning low here, in the hearth, while they watched the loch for sea-borne enemies. That’s why the path rings round to the doorway.” His voice dropped in embarrassment. ”The bit I fell through was the chimney hole.”
I felt shame wash over me at my earlier smugness. If it hadn’t been for Alec the cabbie’s flashlight, I would likely have taken the quick route down into the hole, too.
“If I put my shoulder under your arm, do you think you might be able to walk?” I asked. “I’m supposed to have a cab coming for me, but he’s late.”
“Oh, that’s grand,” Jack said, wincing as he struggled to stand. “And I am right grateful for his tardiness.” He placed his arm around my shoulders, and took a tentative step.
“I reckon I can manage, if I don’t put all my weight down on it,” he said. “Here—gi’ me yer pack, so ye don’t have to carry that and me, too.”
“It’s okay, I can manage,” I said, but he slid it off my shoulder and onto his own.
“No’ much in it, now yer laptop’s gone, eh?” he said, as we awkwardly shuffled toward the sentry-room opening.
“So you read that bit?” I gasped. The man was heavier than he looked. “It was a pretty awful day.”
“I can imagine.”
We continued our slow, shambling progress along the path leading down to the causeway, pausing every few feet for one or the other of us to catch our breath.
Above us, a low moon hung over the craggy dark line of the mountains. The hoot of an owl rang out, and some distance away, another echoed in the dark. The sound seemed so old a primal shiver worked its way through me.
“You’re cold,” he said. “Hold up a bit.”
“No—no, I’m fine,” I said, lying through my chattering teeth.
The brilliant moon spoke to a crystal clear sky and though the wind had stopped, the air felt like a solid wall of ice. With one arm, he grabbed the edge of the strange silvery blanket he was wearing and pulled it around my shoulders. I stood there a moment, enveloped in his warmth. “That better?”
My teeth were still chattering, but I nodded. SO much better.
“It’s a space blanket,” he explained. “Helps a bit, aye? I did think to bring a safety kit, but no food or phone. Daft.”
We started along the path toward the road again. My face was still exposed to the icy air, but if we moved carefully, the blanket created a sort of a circle of warmth that surrounded us both.
In the distance, a set of headlights jounced into view.
We stopped to rest against a big rock near the castle-end of the causeway. “Can you make it across here?” I asked. “The cabbie said he wasn’t allowed to drive on this bit.”
“Yeah, yeah. It’s much easier on the flat.”
The light of the moon showed me he was lying just as surely as I had been when I declared myself warm. His jaw was tightly set with pain, but I could feel him trying to bear more of his own weight as we inched forward again.
“What were you doing there in the first place?” I asked, more to take his mind off his pain than anything else. “I thought you were working on some secret project after the BBC gig.”
“Yeah, well, not much of a secret now, is it?” he said, stopping to rub his good leg, which was clearly getting pretty sore. “I could kill Rebecca for suggesting it, too. The plan was to stand the watch for the length of time a sentry would have done.”
“A sentry?”
“Yeah. The man I’m writing about had some experience as a soldier in the fourteenth century, and I wanted to make sure I captured what it really felt like to stand guard all night.”
We’d made it about half way across the causeway, and we paused to stop and gasp a bit. I thought about asking him who Rebecca was, but got distracted when he tucked the blanket more closely under my chin.
“I planned to stand eight hours—a full shift,” he said quietly, “but I’d only been here two and a half or so before I fell, like an eejit.”
I thought about this a minute, stalling in order to bask in the warmth under the magic blanket. Even with our slow progress, any movement swirled the cold air around our legs and upward.
“So, the idea was that if you experienced what your character went through, you’d be able to tell the story better?”
He laughed—a short, sharp, pain-filled sound. “Aye—perhaps a little too thorough in my research, aye?”