I traced the vaulted roof above me as I lay in bed, allowing the starlight to ease through the arrow-slit window and reveal the weft and pattern of the whinstone slabs. Stone is a good thing; it is solid, enduring. Stone never lets you down or betrays you like people do or promises one thing and delivers another like our Border weather does. You can rely on stone.
As the light increased, I could see the joins where the masons had cunningly fitted the great blocks together and I could even see the marks of the chisels where the masons had carved, following the grain of the rock to create tens of thousands of individual masterpieces that were connected together to form this Cardona Tower.
It was not time yet. I knew that. The stars told me the time by night, as the sun told me the time by
