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interrupt me,” Memel said.
    â€œNo, I won’t.”
    â€œIt’s an unremarkable thing,” Memel admitted to Lucy.
    â€œIf idiocy is unremarkable,” added Mewe.
    â€œOf course idiocy is unremarkable. That’s its chief attribute.”
    â€œI’ve found your idiocy to be quite remarkable at times.”
    Memel rolled his eyes. “Mewe takes refuge in insult,” he told Lucy.
    â€œQuite remarkable indeed,” Mewe said. But Memel remained silent; he wouldn’t participate in the lowly discourse. Mewe kicked at the snow. Wearily, he said, “We just like to fight, is what it is.”
    Memel pondered the statement, apparently a virgin notion for him. “It’s true. We do.” He was displeased by the admission; it appeared to make him remorseful.
    Lucy had been watching the pair for a time, but as their conversation fell into a lull, now he looked up at the castle, and when he did this he startled, for it was much closer than he’d sensed it to be, as if the property had uprooted itself and met them halfway. Lucy considered its facade with a dour expression, and he thought about how buildings often took on the qualities of a living being for him. His own home, for example, was the architectural embodiment of his mother; the tavern was a tilted, leering drunkard; the church was the modest yet noble double of the good Father Raymond. But what was the castle representative of? It was too early to name it. He only knew that it spoke of something colossal and ominous and quite beyond his experience.
    They approached a shanty village, built up in a cluster apart from the base of the castle, a hundred or more haphazard domiciles linked side by each in the shape of a teardrop. A series of larger, open-air structures formed a cross through the center—marketplace stalls, Memel explained. Lucy watched as the villagers went about their business: shawl-covered women ducking in and out of doorways, children wrapped to their breasts or trailing behind; men standing in groups of threes and fours, speaking animatedly, gesturing, laughing. Memel pointed out his shanty to Lucy, and with pride, though it was indistinguishable from the others: a warping shack fashioned from tin scrap and mismatched timber. A chimney pushed through the roof, tall and tilted, issuing wispy woodsmoke.
    â€œAnd does Mewe live with you also?” said Lucy.
    â€œNo, I live alone,” said Mewe. “Just this side of Memel’s, do you see?”
    Lucy nodded. He asked Memel, “How long have you lived here?”
    â€œI was born here. Mewe, too. We all were.”
    â€œAnd how long has the village stood beside the castle?”
    â€œJust as long as the castle has been here, so has the village.”
    â€œBut where do you all come from originally?”
    â€œI don’t know, actually.” He turned to Mewe. “Do you know?”
    â€œNowhere, I should think.”
    A second silence, and Lucy’s attention drifted away, to the face of the mountain looming beyond the castle. At first he was simply reviewing the scenery, but then he realized there was some manner of human industry taking place in the snow: bodies moving about, and puffs of smoke floating along on the air. “Those are people up there,” he commented.
    â€œAh, yes,” said Memel.
    â€œWhat are they doing?”
    â€œWasting their time.”
    â€œWasting their time doing what?”
    â€œPlaying a silly game.”
    â€œAnd what is the point of the game?”
    â€œTo kill but not be killed oneself.”
    â€œKilled?” said Lucy.
    â€œYes. Did Olderglough not tell you about that either?”
    â€œThere was no mention of killing.”
    Memel chuckled. “Rascal! Well, not to worry. You aren’t in any danger.”
    â€œNo?”
    â€œVery little danger. A small danger. Keep on your toes, and you’ll be fine, I would think. The others are much worse