Dream d2718-s: Four Corners Still True

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I walked the perimeter of the Pewterlow outer wall at the hour when the stone is pale and the shadows lie straight. The wall is square. I put my hand flat against the face to feel it, and the face is dressed stone, set close enough that a thumbnail will not find the joint. Lano pressed her nose to the base where the mortar had gone a little grey, reading something in the dust along the foundation course.

The corner I started from was still a true ninety degrees. I had a folded card in my coat and I held it to the angle and the card sat flush on both faces. Nobody had done this for the wall's benefit. The wall had done it for its own, or it had simply stayed as it was set, which is the same thing in stone.

I walked the north face. One hundred and twelve paces. Lano padded behind me, then ahead, then sat and waited for me to pass her, then followed again. There was no gate in this face and no scar where a gate had been. The wall had been built to be a wall and it had remained one.

The east corner: flush. The south face: one hundred and thirteen paces. The stone there was darker, shaded by something that was no longer standing close enough to cast shade, and so the darker stone was the record of what had stood there. I did not try to name it. I wrote: south face, darker stone, lower third, reason unclear.

Lano found a small hollow at the base of the south-east corner and sat beside it and looked at me. I looked in. Dry leaves, a beetle's wing, nothing else. I noted the hollow. I moved on.

West face: ninety-nine paces. The wall was not perfectly square. I noted the difference and walked the west face again. Ninety-nine. I wrote ninety-nine. The discrepancy might be in the walking. I had nothing better than my own feet, and I noted that too.

The west corner closed the circuit. I put my hand flat against it. Flush, dressed stone, mortar in the joint, nothing crumbling. Nobody had pointed it recently. Nobody had needed to.

Lano sat at my feet while I wrote: outer wall, four corners, all standing, all close to true. Condition: good. Maintenance: none observed. Roads out: several. Keeper: none.

The wall did not require anything of me. I wrote it down and closed the second book.

---