Chapter 3
Rory
Fraserburgh, Scotland
The wind was trying to kill him, and Rory was losing his patience. Winter already prowled the edges of the North Sea though autumn had barely begun.
He stood on the scaffolding sixty feet above the ground, one hand braced against the castle wall, the other gripping a line that was supposed to secure the pulley housing.
The North Sea gale hit him full in the face, salt spray stinging his eyes, the cold cutting straight through his coat.
Below, his crew huddled against the base of the tower, looking up at him with expressions that ranged from concerned to frankly appalled.
“Captain!” Ewan’s voice barely carried over the wind. “Come down, ye daft man!”
Rory ignored him. The pulley housing had worked loose in last night’s storm, and if it came free, it would take out the hoist mechanism and two weeks of scaffolding.
He wasn’t losing two weeks. Not with the Commissioners breathing down his neck and the budget already stretched past the breaking point.
He wrapped the line twice around the anchor post, pulled it taut, and tied it off with fingers that had gone numb ten minutes ago. The knot held. He tested it once, twice, then started down.
Ewan was waiting at the bottom, arms crossed, wearing the expression of a man who had opinions and was going to share them whether anyone wanted to hear them or not.
“Yer going to get yourself killed,” Ewan said.
“I didna get killed.”
“Ye didna get killed today.”
Rory pulled his gloves off and flexed his hands. “Is the mortar set on the upper courses?”
“Aye, but Elrick’s grumbling about the lime again. Says the local supplier’s sending dross. And this time he might be right. I had a look myself. The color’s off.”
Rory swore under his breath.
“Show me.”
They crossed the construction yard. Rory pulled the lid off the nearest barrel, rubbed a pinch of the lime between his fingers, and frowned.
“Underburnt. Half of this willna set. Send it back.”
“And the Commissioners?”
“Will write us a letter. We’ll write one back. By the time we’ve finished apologizing to each other we’ll have proper lime.”
Ewan grinned. “Ye’ve a way with words, Captain.”
“I’ve a way with losing my temper.” Rory shook the lime off his fingers. “There’s a difference.”
Across the yard, young Jim, the newest of the apprentices, was carrying an armful of dressed stone bigger than his arms. Rory crossed and lifted half of it off him without breaking stride.
“Captain—”
“Take what I’ve left ye, lad. I’m nae interested in carrying ye home along with the stone.”
Jim’s mouth twitched. He was a serious boy and the smile didn’t come easy. Behind them, Ewan let out a small laugh.
At midday Rory retreated to his quarters, a small room in the castle’s upper floor that served as both bedroom and study.
The desk was buried under papers. Construction plans, supply inventories, letters from the Commissioners, his own calculations for the lens mechanism.
He cleared a space, sat down, and opened the most recent letter from Thomas Smith.
Captain Sinclair —
The Board has reviewed your latest expenditure report and notes with concern the overrun on stone procurement. While we appreciate the challenges of the Kinnaird Head site, we must remind you that the project budget is not without limits…
Rory read the letter twice, set it down, and stared at the wall.
The Commissioners wanted a lighthouse. They wanted it built well, fast, and cheap. Any two of those three were possible. All three were a fantasy, and no amount of polite letters from Edinburgh was going to change the physics of stone and mortar and the North Sea weather.
He pulled a fresh sheet of paper toward him, dipped his quill, and began his reply.
Sir —
I am in receipt of your letter of the 3rd and have noted the Board’s concerns.
I would respectfully observe that the cost of quality stone is not a matter of preference but of necessity.
The North Sea does not negotiate, and the lighthouse must be built to withstand forces that will outlast every man presently involved in its construction…
Too blunt. Smith was a reasonable man, but the Board members reading over his shoulder were politicians, and politicians responded better to diplomacy than to being told they were wrong.
He crossed out the last line and tried again.
…I remain confident that the current approach will deliver a structure worthy of the Commissioners’ investment, and I welcome any opportunity to discuss the matter further.
Better. Not honest, but better.
Ewan knocked and came in without waiting. He had a cup of small beer in one hand and a worried expression on his face.
“The lens mechanism. It’s seized again.”
Rory closed his eyes. “Where?”
“Same place. The third bearing in the gear train. Elrick tried to free it. Wouldna budge.”
The lens mechanism was the heart of the lighthouse. A rotating assembly of brass gears and polished glass that would focus the lamp’s light into a beam visible at sea.
Without it, the lighthouse was just a very expensive tower with a very expensive lamp sitting on top of it.
The rotation had to be smooth and constant, one revolution every thirty seconds, and for three months Rory had been trying to make the gear train work, and for three months the bearings had been seizing.
The problem was corrosion. The salt air attacked the brass, pitting the bearing surfaces and changing the clearances between inspections. He’d tried different lubricants. Whale oil, tallow, even beeswax. None lasted more than a week.
It was the one problem he couldn’t solve, and it sat in his chest like a stone.
“I’ll look at it after supper,” he said.
“Ye said that yesterday.”
“And I’ll say it again tomorrow if need be.”
Ewan set the beer on the desk and leaned against the doorframe. He was a big man, broad and solid, with hands like shovels and a face that defaulted to cheerful even when delivering bad news.
“When’s the last time ye slept more than four hours?”
“I dinna keep count.”
“Aye, that’s what I thought.” Ewan paused at the door. “Captain?”
“What?”
“Murtagh wouldna want ye working yourself into the ground.”
The name hit him like a fist. Rory’s hand tightened on the quill.
“Dinna,” he said quietly.
“I’m just saying—”
“I ken what ye’re saying. Leave it.”
Ewan left, leaving Rory in the silence of his small room, listening to the wind, the sea, and the distant ring of chisels, as he let the grief wash through him the way he always did, quickly, completely, and then locked back down where it belonged.
He pulled the lowest drawer of the desk open. Beneath the ledger and the sheaf of stone-supplier receipts, tucked into the corner where no one else would look, was a small tin that had once held coffee. He lifted it out, flicked the lid with his thumbnail, and looked at what was inside.
A strip of linen. A few inches long, torn along the seam, darker at one edge where blood had set into the weave fourteen years ago and had never quite come out.
He didn’t pick it up, only looked at it, the way a man looks at a headstone. Then he closed the tin, set it back behind the ledger, and shut the drawer.
I ken what ye’re saying, Ewan. I’m saying it to myself.
He took a long pull of the small beer, straightened his back, and picked up the quill to finish the letter to Smith.