"Oh, yes."
    "What were they like?" I asked.
    "I didn't meet the man who took the Seelie Crown; I was out. We had a leech incursion," she explained.
    "Damn, sorry we missed it," I sighed.
    "It was kind of amusing. In a gross sort of way. Starfire something, I think was the name he gave."
    "Didn't happen to look like Wynn, did he?" Conner asked.
    "No."
    "The town is still here," I pointed out.
    "Starbreeze something? Apparently the guy walked in, the crown began singing."
    "And the sword?" Meara asked.
    "I met her. Called herself Raven. Came in, said she was here for the sword, Rhonwen asked her why, she said 'I'm Queen of the Unseelie Court, give me my sword.' So Rhonwen gave her the sword, she left. We beat Artos for drooling."
    "She didn't happen to at any point explode into a pile of maggots, did she?" Conner wanted to know.
    "Why no, she didn't."
    "Did she have green fire eyes?" Meara pursued.
    "No. There are Fae all over the place, chirping pixies and things dancing in the swamp."
    From a distance the castle's bones were clearly present, and the village had grown to accommodate the workers. Our house was intact, and they'd even done a bit of work on it. Meara spent some time collaborating with her follow priest about logistics for a permanent shrine for the village. Llweder's fellow druid was doing well with his transcription of the history from the grove, and keeping away from the willow tree. Llweder determined to keep an eye on the children of the village and see if any of them had potential. While we'd been gone, the people of the village had become considerably more talkative than they used to be. Rhonwen and Artos were as usual pleased to see us; he'd been bored.
    "The leeches weren't enough?" I asked.
    "Leeches are no fun at all. You come up behind them, pick them up from behind, throw them in the ocean, watch them go 'squeee!' No real challenge."
    "Well, I've got good news for you."
    "So welcome back," his wife said. "Glad to see you made it."
    "So are we. Didn't find Wynn, unfortunately."
    "Darn shame that, I was really hoping you'd bring a skull back. Could have left the rest of it behind."
    "Would have burned it."
    "But we have finished our tour," Conner told her.
    "Any good?"
    "Parts of it were cold, but we did meet this really nice old man...." We shared a few bits of our travels.
    "Kingdom appears to be in fairly good shape," I summed up. "They gave me this." I showed her the charter.
    "Oh, good. I was worried."
    "Glad to see your bribes to the court worked?" Meara grinned.
    "Exactly. I was worried I was going to end up with the damn thing. I don't suppose you have my charter in there, do you?"
    "Yes." I handed it over, along with the rest of the mail. "So."
    "Maybe another year, year and a half on your castle, they're making good time."
    "We'll go take a look."
    All that white stone was very beautiful, and the view was going to be great. In a year or so I'll have my very own battlements; I shall have to practice my brooding. We checked that they had properly disposed of the altar stones from beneath the great hall, which had been done by grinding them into powder, putting them in sacks, and throwing them in the ocean, so that meant one less thing to worry about (I hope). Meara blessed the foundations.
    "Have the orcs started making a population comeback yet?" Conner wanted to know when we got back.
    "I don't know, nobody's gone up that way yet."
    "I'm just trying to think of things that'll keep her occupied now that she's out here," he explained.
    "You could go take a look," she shrugged.
    "You could convince them to become tax-paying citizens," Meara suggested.
    "Then it will be my job to kill Wynn for them."
    "Well, it's sort of your job to kill Wynn to protect them from him anyway."
    We headed out the next morning to count smoke plumes; there were a lot of them. More than expected, even given their breeding rate. Both hills were occupied again.
    We continued northward to see how the rose maze was doing; three paths came out from it, and when Conner checked there were no longer hundreds of years' worth of bloody footprints marking the ground; an encouraging sign.
    "I wonder if we can get those roses to change to a color other than black," Meara commented.
    "Maybe if I ask them nicely?" I still had the ring, of course. The hedges rustled cheerfully in greeting. I touched them gingerly, mindful of the thorns. The castle looked the same as it had, although the dead hounds had disappeared. I wondered how malleable the place was. The moat had grown back. "Sorry about that last time." If there was anything sentient down there, it didn't move. The chickens were still there, scratching their non-Euclidian diagrams in the dust, although oddly enough we didn't see any coops. The maze was still there on the first floor.
    "Can you convince this castle to make a shortcut?" Meara asked.
    "I'll see if talking to it does any good." I framed a polite request; the maze sank into the floor. Said floor was white marble with a black rose design in it.
    First things first: Wynn's wardrobe had to go. Well, that was the second thing. Breakfast was laid out in the hall, so we took advantage of that. Then, housecleaning. Conner wasn't about to see all that silk go to waste, and there was a ton of lace as well; every inch of fabric in the place was black, white, or arterial crimson. We set some aside to take out later, and packed some of it up in boxes; they tended to disappear when we weren't looking. We hauled some furniture out into the courtyard, and when we came back the first load was gone. Very convenient. It was a pleasantly diverting day, and we did not lose time again upon emerging, so evidently that effect had been thanks to one of the other mounds.
    We settled down to enjoy an interlude of peace and quiet (never doubting that it would be anything other than an interlude, mind). Letters went back and forth, the coaster wasn't even pretending to fish any more but spent most of its time between the village and Rutland.
    In August we first heard the drums. Orcish war drums, to be specific.
    "I was going to let them alone," I sighed.
    "I think we should pay them a visit," Meara said.
    "I think we're going to have to. They couldn't wait until next year when then castle was done?"
    We had a quick discussion with Gaenor about village defenses; she gathered the warband, which had grown in size to thirty, and manned several of the towers, while Artos and Rhonwen remained in town ready to organize an evacuation if such was necessary. We rode out for a look at what we might be facing. The smoke columns were closer than they had been, only about three days ride away, and there were many of them. They were making good speed, traveling at night.
         

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