“Those are the Devil’s Teeth,” Sir Percy informed me, as we flew over a cluster of stark, jagged stone columns jutting up from the sea, “and that’s known as the Sleeping Dragon,” he went on, turning to follow the spine of a long, spiky ridge that wound into the island’s green interior.
A small, mirror-bright lake lay at the foot of the Sleeping Dragon, and emerald-green fields stretched out beyond it. We flew over pastures hemmed by stone walls and strewn with boulders—though many of the boulders turned out, at second glance, to be sheep. A two-lane paved road ran north to south down the center of the island, with dirt tracks leading off it to what I presumed were farmsteads. We were flying so low that I could plainly see a woman hanging laundry on a line near one whitewashed house.To judge by the way the shirts flapped in the wind, they wouldn’t take long to dry.
In the island’s northeastern corner, the land dipped down to what appeared to be a natural harbor. At its lowest and most sheltered point, a concrete jetty jutted out from the shoreline and bent at a right angle to form a breakwater. A small construction crane stood at the jetty’s elbow, permanently mounted on a concrete base. A few boats lay at anchor inside the breakwater, several more had been drawn up on the slipway, and a collection of whitewashed stone buildings straggled up from the jetty along a cobbled street.
“Stoneywell,” said Sir Percy, “Erinskil’s harbor and only village. Smaller than Finch it may be, but it possesses all the hallmarks of civilization: church, schoolhouse, post office, pub. My little home-away-from-home stands above the village, in a spot that affords marvelous views of the sea as well as . . .”
The narration continued, but I was no longer listening. I was staring in delighted disbelief at another, much larger building that crowned the grassy headland above the village.
“A castle!” I exclaimed. “I didn’t know you owned a castle!”
It wasn’t a fairy-tale castle, with delicate turrets, slender pillars, and pointed arches. The edifice on the headland was a blunt, blocky, businesslike fortification that seemed to grow out of the living rock. An unpaved track wound up from the village to the massive gatehouse in the castle’s south wall, and the east wall overlooked the harbor, but its north and west walls had their backs to the sea.
As Sir Percy flew in a wide circle around the headland, I could see that the castle was roughly rectangular in shape, with a squat, round tower at each corner. The gatehouse opened onto a flagstoned courtyard surrounded on three sides by a U-shaped building, a central block with two wings. The three-story building had evidently been built for durability rather than looks. It sat snugly against the castle’s outer walls, as though it had been grafted onto them when the castle had been built.
The outer walls were topped by wide walkways, hung with balconies, and pierced by many windows. I was alarmed to see a half dozen sinister-looking black cannons resting on the lead roof of the northeast tower, their barrels pointing through the crenellations.The bristling weaponry made the castle seem belligerent, as if it were issuing a gruff challenge to would-be pillagers: “Listen up, Viking hordes: No one lands here without my permission.” From a pole atop the gatehouse, a flag flew, bearing the Pelham family crest.
Sir Percy’s voice boomed suddenly in my headphones: “Surprise!”
I grinned weakly, glanced at my wide-eyed sons, and began to have second thoughts about the safety of our safe haven. If the boys didn’t plunge headlong from the castle walls into the sea, they stood a good chance of blowing themselves to smithereens with Sir Percy’s explosive version of patio furniture. I hoped fervently that the big guns were decorative rather than functional, then clutched my armrests as the helicopter stopped in midair, hovered briefly, and began to descend. My heart—and stomach—quaked when I realized that Sir Percy intended to land the helicopter on the edge of a windblown cliff.
I would have shouted “Are you nuts?” if I hadn’t been terrified of distracting Sir Percy from what I considered to be an unnervingly finicky maneuver. The gusts that drove Erinskil’s windmills were sure to flip us over and send us crashing to our doom. I turned to reassure Will and Rob, but their blissful expressions told me that they were in seventh heaven, and I quickly decided to keep my mouth shut. The flight was one big roller-coaster ride to them, and I wasn’t about to spoil their fun with boring old intimations of mortality. As the ground rose to meet us, I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth, and hoped for the best.
A gentle bump jarred my seat, but it wasn’t until the engines began to wind down that I realized we’d landed. A swift glance through the window told me that my fears had been needless. We were sitting steady as a rock on a helipad of poured concrete surrounded by a smooth, wind-deflecting berm. I smiled sheepishly as Sir Percy emerged from the cockpit, looking buoyant.