Page 26 of Winter Longing
“What’s going on?” Cole asked, inclining his head toward the corner of the castle. “Aside from the obvious, that the castle is crumbling.”
Davey shrugged. “Mayhap heavy rain has re-shaped the ground,” he said by way of explanation, “or the frost, the ice, has shifted all of it.”
“And you guys are supposed to fix it?” He asked, sending his gaze up along the great height of the wall.
“Aye,” replied Davey. “But Dersey dinna say how. We were now discussing mayhap ramming some larger stones into place there.”
Cole winced. He was no engineer, but he guessed that wasn’t going to work. “I think you might have to dig out all that sagging ground and replace that with more stone.” With his hands in his pockets, he shrugged as well, admitting, “But that’s just a guess, though I think it might prove more stable in the long run.”
Davey twisted his mouth in conjecture and consulted the guys with him, repeating what Cole had said, and then speaking in their language, possibly repeating it again for their benefit. A few of them nodded, even as none of them seemed to be pleased with the extra work. Seems they’d have been happy to take the easy route, simply adding more stone to the vulnerable base.
“If you have a shovel, I’ll give you a hand digging it out,” Cole offered. At the blank look of Davey and the others, Cole made shoveling motions with his hands. “Shovel? Dig? Spade?”
“Aye, spade,” Davey said, catching on, while at least one other nodded his understanding as well.
Fifteen minutes later, Cole bent over the smooth-handled spade, stabbing the ground repeatedly to loosen the packed earth. The section of the wall they were reinforcing showed clear signs of erosion, and his task was to remove the area where the ground had washed away. He’d called a halt a few minutes earlier when he realized the others with shovels were digging far too wide a section, risking more unnecessary work than progress.
“Hold up,” Cole had said, stepping into the middle of the activity. Drawing on his experience as one of the older players on the lacrosse team, he slipped naturally into the role of directing and correcting. Using the tip of his spade, he marked two rough lines in the ground. “We don’t need to take out that much. Just this section here.” He pointed between the lines. “Dig inward until you hit the stone, then we’ll pack in another layer of rocks before we cover it all with this dirt we’re pulling out.”
It might all be guesswork, but it seemed a solid enough plan.
The two digging men exchanged uncertain glances, but when Davey translated the plan—delivered with the same easy authority of someone who knew how to manage people as Cole had—they seemed to relax.
Even with the adjusted, smaller section, the work was grueling. The ground was a stubborn mix of clay and dense earth, threaded with shards of slate and chunks of stone. Every strike of the spade jarred his arms, and the cold bit into his hands. Sweat began to gather beneath his coat despite the frigid air, and the steady rhythm of digging was punctuated by grunts of effort and the occasional muttered curse.
It took nearly half an hour to prepare the trench. While Cole and the other two men labored to dig, Davey and the remaining workers fetched the heavy stones they’d need to reinforce the wall.
By the time they’d finished clearing the trench, Cole straightened up with a groan, pressing a hand to his lower back. He wasn’t sure whether it was pride or exhaustion that kept him from complaining out loud, but either way, the work felt satisfying. There was something deeply rewarding about using his hands to solve a problem, even one as foreign to him as shoring up a medieval castle wall.
He turned when he heard the sound of horses approaching, expecting that Davey had made use of a wagon and animals to move the stones. At the same moment he understood the noise was too loud to be only one or two horses pulling a wagon, he heard the gate being opened and turned to see a large group of riders coming into the yard.
Resting a hand on the handle of his spade, his gaze went to the open passage, watching as a group of mounted riders began filing in, their armor and cloaks stirring in the cold breeze. At the head of the procession rode Tavis Sinclair, his posture straight and commanding in the saddle. Behind him, a lean, older man in a dark robe followed—his presence almost austere compared to the armed men surrounding him. Cole realized this must be the priest Ailsa had mentioned, Father Gilbert, though he had little time to dwell on it.
His attention was riveted to someone else—Tank.
There he was, astride a powerful bay horse. Cole’s breath caught in stunned disbelief. His friend looked haggard but whole, his familiar broad-shouldered, canvas-clad frame a strange but welcome sight amidst the sea of medieval warriors. Tank’s face, however, told a story all its own. A livid bruise darkened one cheekbone, and his lip was split and swollen, starkred against his pale skin. At that moment, Tank lifted his hand and scratched at his nose, and Cole saw that his knuckles were scraped raw, as if he’d been in a fight.
Not realizing that he was frozen with shock, Cole watched as Tank dismounted—much more suavely than Cole had, by the way, except there was a stiffness to the way he moved that suggested he’d taken more than a few hits in whatever fight had made him black and blue.
“Tank?” Cole murmured, the word audible only to himself, hardly able to conceive what appeared to be true: Tank was here in the same impossibly foreign time and place, looking like he’d fought his way through hell. Shaking himself free of his shock, Cole tossed aside the spade and climbed out of the trench. “Tank!” He called.
Tank froze and searched the now crowded yard, lost briefly to sight by the number of men and horses between them.
“Cole?”
“Yeah,” Cole laughed, his mood and desperation vastly improved. Impatiently, he pushed men and horses out of his way and finally had a clear path to Tank, peripherally aware of all the watchful gazes, including that of Tavis Sinclair. He didn’t care, though, was so thrilled to find Tank alive.
Tank’s eyes widened and his expression became silently animated. Bruises forgotten, Tank opened his mouth in a huge smile and rushed forward to meet Cole. They embraced heartily, clapping each other on the back, talking at the same time.
“Christ, dude,” said Tank with obvious relief, “I thought you were either dead or left behind.”
“Jesus,” Cole exclaimed. “I was worried sick.”
Cheek to cheek, Tank whispered, “What the fuck is going on?”
“Sadly,” Cole replied, “probably just what you’re imagining.”
“Shit. Really?”
