The carpenter smells of shavings and old oak. He slaps the motte’s shoulder as if it were a horse.

“Palisade first,” he says, palm on the dirt-work. “Timber on a dump of earth—motte—and a bailey yard below, ditched. Then we ate years and replaced wood with stone where we could pay masons. Castles are not dropped by wizards. Peasants dig. Carters haul. Masons swear at rain. Millers feed everybody. Knights ride through the finished photograph and think they are the plot.”

Wat, the smith’s apprentice, grins, then stops grinning when the carpenter points at a joint that would fail if someone got romantic with an axe.

“I can come to the mill if the court or the steward says the work is manor work. A cracked stone wants a mason’s eye and a smith’s hoop-iron and a miller’s ear. You are the ear’s messenger.”

The keep, from here, is a stack of jobs. You can almost see the old posts inside the new wall, like a story under a story.