The wall-walk is wind and pigeon droppings and a view that explains the manor: strips, river, mill-wheel flashing, town like a handful of roofs. The guard lets you crank the well-bucket because he has decided you are too floury to be a spy.

The bucket comes up tasting of stone and Thursday. “Siege water,” the guard says, “and also soup water, and also wash-the-cut-on-your-hand water. A well is not romantic. A well is why we still live here if someone unfriendly parks outside. Mostly, someone unfriendly does not. Mostly we need a drink on an ordinary day.”

Labor is today’s garrison: a mason tapping a crack, a girl carrying kindling, a clerk who hates stairs. The palisade-that-became-stone shows old post-holes in the motte’s shoulder, like a memory the hill kept.

You still have Hew’s sack. The hatch waits. The millstone still sings wrong, miles of ear away.

The chapel bell thinks about ringing.