“I think that would be asking too much of the old girl. What about you? Can you navigate the slope?”
She brandished her walking stick. “With my cane, I am able!”
He laughed. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you when your ankle is giving you fits later.”
“Some pains are worth it.”
He guided the pony around the rim of the cove until they were above the area where the slope was gentler. “Stay here with Puff while I check to see if the hillside is stable.”
“Blasted sprained ankle!” she said. “If I hadn’t injured it, I’d race you down.”
“But injured it is. Be grateful it wasn’t broken. That would slow you down for a lot longer.” He glanced at the dog. “Do you want to go exploring, Fiona?”
She looked bright eyed and interested and scampered ahead when he started down the slope. The sandy soil was loose in a couple of places but not seriously treacherous. Luckily, the bluff wasn’t very high here. When he got to the bottom he turned to call up to Signy—and found that she was already halfway down the hillside, cane in hand.
Near the bottom she slipped and ended up skidding the last few yards on her backside. Alarmed, he strode to her, but she was laughing as she levered herself up with the help of the cane.
“Idiot!” Ramsay assisted her to her feet and steadied her.
She grinned. “How could I miss out on this?”
He brushed the dirt off her back, forcing himself not to spend extra time stroking her delectable backside. “You don’t look as tired as you did.”
“It’s the excitement of visiting Thorsay’s ancient history.” Limping with her cane, she made her way to the closest of the dwellings.
Though the storm waves had done a reasonably good job of washing away the sand and soil that had buried the buildings, it would take a good deal more work to completely clear them. She stopped in the open doorway and examined the inside. “It looks like there are furnishings made of stone. Or are they for some other purpose?”
“I think you’re right.” Ramsay pointed at the rectangular structure built out from the opposite wall. It was made of the same kind of piled rocks as the walls, though lower. The top was flat, and there were four large square openings on the front of the structure. “This was surely for storage.”
“Since the hearth is in the middle of the room, there must have been a smoke hole in the roof above,” Signy said. “I wonder what they used for roofing. I’m guessing turf. If the roof was made of stone, it would have collapsed onto the floor after the community abandoned the village. There would be a pile of rubble on the floor.”
“You’re thinking like an antiquarian,” he said approvingly. “I agree that turf or possibly thatch seem to be the most likely materials.”
She brushed her hand down the stacked stones on the left side of the doorway. “I’m beginning to understand your passion for antiquities. Perhaps these buildings speak to me because this is our history. What do you think these people were like?”
“It’s hard to say. My guess is that the houses were here long before our Viking ancestors. But there might well be some blood of these ancients in our veins.”
She stepped through the open door into the roughly square room and sank onto a low stone wall. “I’m tired. I hope any ghosts that remain won’t mind me sitting down here.”
He sat next to her and put his arm around her shoulders again, glad when she didn’t object. “Resting here is appropriate, because I think these are beds, one on each side of the entrance. The stone pillars at the end corners might have held canopies over the beds to keep the warmth in.”
“If the roof was turf, the canopies might also have kept small creatures from falling on sleeping people in the middle of the night,” she pointed out.
He laughed. “That is one of the drawbacks of turf and thatched roofs. The stone bed enclosures must have had some sort of mattress and probably sleeping furs as well. They’d be wonderful to cuddle up in on cold northern nights.”
She glanced up, and he had the sense that they were both intrigued by the idea of cuddling down amidst the furs. They both looked away quickly. She pointed at a door opening in a side wall. “Some kind of storeroom?”
“Perhaps.” He rose and looked into the tiny room. “Hard to tell what’s here without cleaning out the corners and bottom.” He bent over and poked in the dirt, then froze at the sight of the pale curving object he’d spotted. Surely not . . .
He bent over and worked the object out of the dirt holding it in place, then simply gazed at it. Collecting himself, he crossed the main room and held out his find to Signy.
She gasped and took the shallow bowl from his hand. “This bowl is almost identical to mine, right down to the grooves around the rim!”
“And it feels very, very old.”
She ran her fingers around the grooved rim, feeling the texture and sensing that it was of great age. “It’s easy to imagine people living here. Talking, cooking, sleeping, raising children just as people do now.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Ramsay said thoughtfully. “I’ve seen people in many different lands. The cultures vary greatly, but the basic human desires and challenges are much the same.” He gestured to encompass the ruins around them. “That’s why studying the past is so interesting. It’s only a step away from the present. Both different and the same.”
