Even back in the time of the grandfathers this castle was a waste, and why not? Giants lived still further ago, when the World was young. Today she is old, so the Giants’ stones are old, older than anything you will ever lay your hand on.
Each son born hereabouts did his part to refine the village’s collective thievery. Dry rubble fences and cottages in the old days, pillars erected at crossroads, slabs to mark graves and cairns to mark fields, the rock hauled bit by bit, by hand and by ox-cart. It made for a hard, unyielding people who lived amid slumbering stone. Stoney dreams, like harsh weather, blew through the people.
A new-made Nobleman arrived one day with his men-at-arms and his family. He had been granted the land by the new-made King after distant wars ended. The Nobleman brought in Masons from a city guild. They taught trade secrets to the provincials — how to mix mortar and build higher courses, to balance a keystone in a perfect arch, to chisel squared blocks and hammer dress the surfaces. A bridge was built, and a wall as the hamlet grew into a town. They built a manor house for the Noble, a church for the Virgin Mother. Peace brought with it roads and trade, coins stamped with the King’s face and later the face of his son, then later still that of his son’s mad daughter. Peace brought with it strangers.
Among the strangers there arrived one day three Learned Men from a far off University.