Chapter 2

grew up in the shadows of Edinburgh’s towering tenements, in a city where the streets never slept and the wind howled through the narrow wynds like a restless ghost. Our home was a single, cramped room on the third floor of a tall, soot-stained building off the High Street, just one of many stacked upon each other like the layers of history beneath our feet.

Life in the Old Town was not easy. The closes—those tight, winding alleyways that twisted between the buildings—stank of dampness and waste, the air thick with the mingling scents of roasting meat, wet stone, and the sharp tang of tanneries. In the summer, the smell was near unbearable, and in the winter, the cold cut through the walls like a blade.

My father, William MacGregor, was a hard man, forged from stone as much as he carved it. His hands, cracked and calloused from years of chiseling, rarely offered affection, but his presence alone demanded respect. He was a mason, and from as early as I could remember, he spoke of the honor of working with one’s hands—of shaping something that would outlast one’s own life.

“Stone endures, Jamie,” he would say, setting a heavy palm on my shoulder. “It remembers more than men do.”

My mother, Margaret, had a softer touch but carried her own burdens. She worked as a seamstress when she could, sewing for wealthier families who lived further up the hill, beyond the muck of the Cowgate. She rarely spoke of the past, but there was a sadness in her eyes, something distant, as if she had once dreamed of more than the life we led.

I spent my days running the closes with other boys from the tenements, darting between market stalls, dodging carriages on the High Street, and slipping into the shadows whenever a constable’s gaze lingered too long. We were a pack of half-starved lads, our knees scraped, our clothes patched and threadbare, but our spirits unbroken.

We scavenged what we could, not above snatching an apple from a careless merchant’s cart or a stray coin from an inattentive hand. But there was a line we did not cross—at least, not yet. Some boys took up thieving in earnest, running errands for the city’s underbelly, but I had my father’s shadow looming over me. A mason’s son did not turn pickpocket, not unless he was prepared to face the consequences.

I learned early that Edinburgh was a city of two worlds. There was the grand New Town, with its wide streets, fine houses, and gas lamps that burned into the night, where gentlemen in powdered wigs and silk coats spoke of philosophy and progress. And then there was our world—the Old Town—where the streets were steep and narrow, where filth ran in the gutters, and where you could tell a man’s fortune by the height of his dwelling. The poorest lived at the bottom, where the stench of the Nor’ Loch still lingered, while the wealthier crammed themselves into the upper floors, away from the damp and rot below.

Schooling was a luxury, but my mother insisted I attend when we could afford it. I learned my letters in a dimly lit room above a bookseller’s shop, the air thick with the scent of ink and damp parchment. The schoolmaster, Mr. Ainsley, was a stern man with a sharp tongue and a switch to match, but he was fair. I took to reading well enough, though numbers troubled me, and I often found my thoughts drifting out the window, wondering what lay beyond the city walls.

As I grew older, my father took me to his work sites, placing a hammer in my hand and teaching me the feel of stone beneath my fingers. “You’ll be a mason,” he declared, as if fate had already carved the path before me.

Perhaps he was right. But as I stood on the scaffold one evening, looking out over the rooftops of Edinburgh, watching the setting sun cast long shadows across the city, I could not shake the feeling that I was meant for something more.

What that was, I did not yet know. But the Old Town was not a place that let go of its sons so easily.