The Falconer’s Tale. Gordon Kent

as the best shelter from the rain available, and studied the stones one more time.

      The left-hand stones looked more accessible. They started in deeper water but stuck up higher and seemed to have larger and flatter tops. Piat waded out to the first stone and stepped up. The surface of the stone was covered in a dark olive slime and his hiking boots slipped badly. He moved cautiously to the next stone. The water came to the middle of his knee. He used his rod as a staff, heedless of the wetting of his reel, and took a long gliding step to the third stone. It was less slippery, and he paused to rest, sweat already pouring down his chest under his sweater.

      The fourth stone was clearly visible now, a darker and larger stone that marked the halfway point. Piat knew the moment his boot touched the surface under water that this stone was slippery, and then he was in the water, his waders full and then his mouth. The water was cold—so cold that it hit him like an electric shock—and the bottom was ooze, not rock, so that his feet were sinking and he had no purchase.

      Piat had long experience of his own panic reflex and he beat it down, kept hold of his rod and kept the other hand in contact with the stepping stone until he had control of his brain, and then he used the strength of his arms to pull himself up on the rock, heedless of the temperature of the water. The wind on his head was like a new shock of ice. He’d lost his hat, which was scudding across the loch on the surface of the water. Mud and ooze billowed around his thrashing feet. He pulled himself up by the strength of his arms, heaving the weight of his full waders to the rock.

      He fell again, just one stone out from the shore, but he was prepared this time, and his fall merely caused him to sit down hard on the stone and take a new batch of cold water over his waders.

      Close up, the crannog was composed of small, round rocks the size of his fist, raised in a low mound. Underneath the water, the mound of rubble continued, although he could clearly see a beam or heavy rafter of wood deep in the clear water of the leeward side.

      He stripped. He wrung out each sodden garment and put the wool socks and the jeans and sweater back on under the now empty waders, made a bundle of the rest of the clothes and tied it around his waist. He was warmer already—his jacket and the waders were windproof, and the wool was warm even when wet. Just to make a point to himself, he made some desultory casts into the deep water beyond the crannog. Something made a sizeable silver flash on his fourth cast—

      Gone. A sea trout, without question. A good fish. He cast again, and again, trying to relive the moment of the earlier cast and remember just what he had done, eventually wondering if he had imagined the whole thing. His head was cold, and that wasn’t good.

      Time to go.

      The crannog interested him, even while he stood shivering on it. Between casts and retrieves, he tried to imagine how it had come here, how much effort it would have taken people (how many people—a family? Two families?) to build—and why. For the fishing? And when?

      He left his boots off for the return trip. With his socks worn over the waders, he had reasonably sure footing and made his way without incident. He was losing too much heat from his head. He drank the rest of his thermos of tea and ate a sandwich made of the leftovers from his attempt to find presents for Hackbutt and pulled the plastic bags over his head, and then his cotton shirt, now wrung out, and then another bag. Better than nothing.

      The walk back out was easier than he had expected. Perhaps because it was downhill, or the psychological effect of having his car in sight from the moment he climbed out of the caldera, but the climb down served only to keep the worst of the chill away. The Land Rover’s heater was a magnificent, efficient machine and he was warm before he negotiated the mountain pass on the road back to Salen. The heater almost made up for the width of the monster, but as he negotiated lay-bys and oncoming headlights, he cursed the car again. Darkness was falling. He drove carefully, passed the Aros estuary with regret, and went straight to the hotel.

      In the morning, he stopped at the bookstore on his way to his car. Donald was already at work and greeted him enthusiastically. “Did you get anything?” he called, as soon as Piat was through the door.

      Piat recounted his adventures. He had recorded his catch on the tickets and produced them.

      Donald laughed. “You climbed on the crannog, then?”

      “Who built it?” asked Piat.

      Donald shrugged. “We have some books—people always want to know. There are four of them on the island, more on the mainland of course.” He pulled out a battered Ordnance Survey map and flipped it fully open. “One here, on the Glen Lochs—that’s quite a walk. Some fishing if you like wee browns. One here, on Loch Frisa. The one you climbed, of course, down south. And one just above the town, here. Quite a story to go with the local one.”

      Piat had watched Donald’s thick fingers moving over the map, thinking automatically no cover, no cover, visible from the road. “Hmmm?” he said. “A story?” Piat was a good listener.

      “A local man, a farmer, had the notion that he could build a dam on the loch above the town and regulate the flow of water—perhaps he intended to build a mill. What he did in fact was to drain the loch. The crannog was revealed as the water ran out—and they found a boat, completely intact, all sorts of other objects.”

      Piat made interested noises throughout. “Where are they?”

      “Oh, as for that, you’d have to ask Jean or my daughter. Perhaps in the museum?”

      Piat left with two books on crannogs, one an archaeological report from a dig on the mainland and one more general. He stopped at the museum, but it was closed.

      He made the ferry line with seconds to spare, checked in at Lufthansa two hours early in Glasgow, and landed in Athens via London and Munich in time to eat a late dinner on the Plaka and fall into a hotel bed. He had nine thousand, four hundred and twelve dollars and some change, a new wardrobe, a new historical interest, and a return ticket to Glasgow. It’d been cheaper that way. What the hell, he thought as he lay in bed. Maybe someday I’ll go back.

      The next day, he splurged and caught the high-speed ferry to Lesvos, saving twelve hours. He called Mrs Kinnessos from Piraeus and told her that yes, he would be taking the house for another six months, even at the summer price, and he was absurdly pleased when she offered him a discount for his constancy. By the time the ferry reached Mytilene, he had made himself the middleman on a deal for some Roman statuary from the Ukraine headed to the United States. His cut would be seven hundred euros.

      Molyvos seemed ridiculously crowded after Mull. He sat in the chocolate shop half way up the town with his laptop open, drinking Helenika and thinking about sea trout and crannogs.

       3

      A week later, Clyde Partlow was sitting at a computer in an office that was, by CIA standards, big. Not as big as the director’s, but big. No private dining room, but a private john. Partlow was a somebody, so all the more reason that he read reports direct from the computer screen. Partlow sneered at the old fogeys who still insisted on hard copies and who had to telephone for help if their screen coughed up an error message. After his fashion, Partlow was with it.

      His right hand was on a mouse so that he could scroll down easily. On the screen was something that called itself a “draft contact report,” typed into a template so that the form number was at the top and the headings were boxed. The ones that interested Partlow were the operation number and the “task number served.” Together, they interested him deeply.

      He began to read. Almost at once, the slight frown of concentration that had puckered his smooth, sleek face deepened to a scowl of concern. Another paragraph, and the scowl began to take in anger, then anxiety, then despair. He scrolled down faster, clearly glossing text, whipping to the next page and then right to the end. He read the final paragraph and then sat back and pressed his forehead. He breathed deeply and rubbed his fingers and thumb back and forth across his forehead as if smoothing the wrinkles that the reading