Chapter 8: The Wrong Fire, and a Lie Correctly Located

The stars moved, and I watched them.

This is not as romantic a pursuit as it sounds. I have spent a considerable portion of my professional life lying on my back in fields, at various inconvenient hours, tracking the precise arc of celestial bodies as a means of establishing true north when ground-level landmarks have proved uncooperative. The romance of it drains away remarkably quickly once you have done it in a turnip field at three in the morning with frost collecting in your collar, which I had, on two separate occasions that I do not regard fondly. What remains, after the romance has departed, is a very accurate sense of time.

It was this, rather than any particular vigilance, that allowed me to note when Rook left the fire.