Skara Braens

Part 37

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Okay! ONWARD!

"Let's go north first.  If that proves fruitless we can head back down."

"Aye," Artair says, pushing the soft earth back against Mor Stein and covering the shallow engraving.  "Burroughston Broch it is."

"Let's go, then," David says, his voice made gravelly by unease.

"How far?" Drest asks Artair.

"An hour, cross country," the broad man says.

"Again?"

"Aye.  It seems an hour on foot between settlements was fairly regular in these parts."

Drest shrugs and before long, everyone has slid their packs one and you are once again trudging across fields.

"What exactly is a broch?" you ask.

"It's an early castle," David answers, sparing Artair the explanation.  "Basically a tall stone tower surrounded by walls and sometimes a ditch and moat."

"Aye," Artair confirms.  "They date back to the Iron Age... some three or four thousand years ago.  Chances are, though, that they were built on already important locations, be they large settlements, trading nexuses, or religiously significant places.  They correspond with an increase in hostilities in the regions.  Or so it's said.  It makes sense.  Brochs are designed for defence."

"Okay," you say.  Then, "What's a castle?"

Mordina laughs, a soft, short chuckle, breaking the tension in her shoulders.

Artair launches into a detailed explanation of what a castle is, how there are different kinds; some are fortresses, designed to withstand long sieges and others, usually built later or in times of peace, are purely grand structures with useless pretences at defence.  Artair, apparently, doesn't really consider those to be castles, calling them châteaus instead.  Drest informs you that château means castle in another language, and the nuance Artair insists on using doesn't really exist for most people.

Feeling confused, with the information assaulting your brain enough to give you a headache, you fail to notice that you have arrived at Burroughston Broch.  The remains of the tower appear to be little more than a grassy knoll.  Artair approaches slowly, almost reverently.  He disappears to the eastern side of the knoll.  Moments later you hear a whistle.  Taking the hint, you walk around to find Artair standing beside the still-standing entrance to the broch.

You stare.

The walls are clearly dry stone.  No mortar was used in the tower's construction.  The doorway itself is perfectly rectangular, with a thick stone covered in pure white lichen serving as the lintel.  It is not a very tall doorway, standing at, perhaps, five foot nine inches.  Everyone except Mordina would have to stoop in order to enter the broch.  Nor was it particularly wide.  Artair would have to draw his shoulders in to pass.

"Men were smaller in the Iron Age," Artair says with a grin before ducking under the lintel and entering the broch.  You see him stand straight immediately after entering, though he still has to draw his shoulders in for roughly four feet before he enters the broch proper.  You follow.

Being considerably narrower than the bear of a man in front of you, you need not draw yourself in as you walk past the four feet of stone wall.  You pass a small entrance.  You pause, turn and peer into the opening, revealing a long, narrow room with a window facing into the broch centre.  Open to the elements as it was, that window let in four squares of sunlight at the back of the room.