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square-built castle really, with four towers that weren’t good for anything, large drafty staircases and corridors, stone floors that echoed footsteps as if an army were marching through, cold as the devil those bloody floors were, save where his ancestors along about one hundred years later had thrown down thick Turkey carpets. It was built all of mellow gray stone quarried nearby at Baldhu, and still quite beautiful if one were objective, which North wasn’t. And the pile belonged to him and he was supposed to cherish it, since it had passed from father to son in an unbroken chain for nearly three hundred and fifty years, quite a feat in itself, the continuous propagation of male after male. It was impressive, he admitted, in a rather foreboding, menacing sort of way, standing tall atop its own private hill, casting its shadow over the slopes of the hill and the town below.
    It was nearly dark when he rode up the wide carriage drive that made deep curves back and forth many times so the ascent wouldn’t be too steep before reaching the great black iron gates. Since there was no more threat of invading armies or invading neighbors, comfort was the thing. He imagined that when it was built, it looked like a clumsy helmet sitting atop a naked man’s head, all impressive and isolated and alone.
    Tom O’Laddy, the Nightingale gatekeeper for longer than North had been alive, greeted him with a huge grin, showing the empty space that should have held his front teeth, theresult of a fight he’d won. He sighed, then fainted dead away. O’Laddy was a man of ale and jests. Too much ale, and he was a man of violence.
    “Ho, my lord! ’Tis home ye are. ’Twere a short trip to Lunnon, eh? Foul place, Lunnon. Mr. Coombe and Mr. Tregeagle weren’t expecting ye fer another fortnight.”
    “Good evening, Tom. Yes, I can see you’re wondering where Treetop is, but this sweet old girl is Reggie and she’s really quite a surprise, lots of heart. How’s your nephew?”
    “He’s still on the weak side, my lord, but Mr. Polgrain sends the lad some of his special broth every day and thus he’s on the mend.”
    “Excellent. Next time tell him not to fall out of his boat and nearly drown himself.”
    “Aye, my lord, the boy’s properly learnt his lesson. Actually, it was that little nit of a blacksmith’s daughter who’d pushed him out of the boat. It seems he was making advances and she didn’t like it.”
    North grunted, at least he tried to, but a smile came up instead.
    He rode through the great gates and still upward, the carriage path growing even wider now as it neared that monstrous edifice that had tried over the past three centuries to become more a home than a fortress, and he supposed it had succeeded. There had even once been a drawbridge, considered in the enlightened sixteenth century to be quite unnecessary, but that drawbridge had saved Mount Hawke from Oliver Cromwell’s Roundhead soldiers in the bloody civil war in the next century. Long since, the wide deep gully had been filled in and an orchard planted, now thick with apple trees, rippling down the sides of the slopes, beautiful, really.
    Men, he thought, as he pulled Reggie to a gentle halt and looked upward at the massive rising blocks of gray stonethat went up and up until they seemed to reach the dark skies themselves on overcast days. Men must fight and conquer or die trying. They couldn’t seem to content themselves with what they had even if it was really quite sufficient. He himself had been a soldier, and it had been his goal to stop Napoleon, at least that’s what he continually told himself. Truth be told, he liked a good fight. He liked to test himself, his strength, his wits, on any and all opponents. He supposed he would have done very well in medieval times. With Napoleon tucked away on Elba he couldn’t imagine any more war on such a scale. Sometimes it depressed him. He knew it depressed his friend Marcus Wyndham, as well. And now