The Scottish air has that old-fashioned texture, as if the stones have filtered it. The sun barely grazes the battlements of Edinburgh Castle, giving them a golden glow that looks like something out of a well-told story.

Matt walks a few paces ahead, hands in the pockets of his long coat, scarf disarranged as if the wind has lovingly combed it. He turns his head towards you with a half-smile, the one he usually gives just before he improvises an off-script line.

"This, is one of those places you can't explain. You feel it." He says, gesturing broadly at the ramparts.

And you feel it. The cobbles underfoot, the centuries piled up in the towers, the squawk of a seagull that seems out of place but isn't. It all seems part of the paper. Everything seems to be part of the paper.

You walk together up a narrow corridor, where the walls breathe cold and the windows let in the slanting light. He stops by one of them, resting an elbow on the stone. He shakes his head barely, as if pointing at something without quite doing so.

"Down there is the Grassmarket. Execution place, yes, but now they have the best burgers in town. Sometimes places change roles. Like us."

The laugh is low, almost private, as if he doesn't want the wind to hear it. You glance back at him with that mixture of disbelief and affection that comes between filming partners who have shared more than one difficult shot and a night of poorly eaten dinners in old hotels.

"You've never been here before, have you?" He asks you calmly. And you shake your head. "Then, it officially falls to me to be your guide."

And he is. He shows you where they shot that old film, where he hid from the fans when he was filming his first major role, and where, he says, they make the best coffee north of Hadrian's Wall.

The towers rise like proud thorns, and the wind begins to change direction, colder, sharper. He notices and shrinks back a little, turning to you.

"Come on. I'll buy you something hot. But then we go back to watching the light fall on the stones. It's like a slow spell.*

And in his voice there is something between enthusiasm and melancholy. As if this place, like himself, has many lives behind it.