"Erzebed!"

The name echoed in the air, and Lori winced. She'd forgotten to bind airwisps over her ears this time, and as a result they rang from the volume of the binding of airwisps she had just used to call for her temporary assistant. Lori go up from where she'd been sitting while curing wood and methodically deactivated and unbound the wisps she'd been maintaining. Best not to risk a fire by leaving it unattended. Lori grabbed her staff and started walking downhill to the river.

Her temporary and hopefully soon-to-no-longer-be assistant met her partway down, again trying to conceal her annoyance. "Yes, Great Binder?" she said. Again, sounding like she was trying to be patient, and only sounding like she wasn't patient.

"Do we have anyone outside the demesne hunting beasts?"

"No one went out today, Great Binder," Riz said. "We needed to get the last of the threshing done."

Lori nodded. "Send a hunting party out. Let's have roast for dinner."

Riz blinked. "Now? I think they've already started the stew for dinner."

"Then we'll have both," Lori said dismissively. "See to it, Erzebed."

Riz sighed loudly. "Yes, Great Binder," she said reluctantly. "I'll see to it… I suppose there's still time to go out and catch something…"

Lori nodded. "Good. I believe we'll make tomorrow a rest day as well."

Riz blinked, frowning a little. "Well… I suppose we're almost done… but realistically Great Binder, we'll still have to work tomorrow and maybe the next day to get everything done properly."

"Tomorrow," Lori said. "That will be all, Erzebed."

Riz closed her eyes for a moment and sighed again, but hurried off, her head turning from side to side as if looking for someone as she did so. She started calling out names as Lori continued walking downhill, heading for the river.

It was a fine day, or so Lori thought to herself. She walked to the end of the stone dock on the Dungeon-side of the river and sat down on the edge, playing her staff next to her. The dock was empty, all the boats on the other side of the river on the other dock as people there cut up cut down ropeweed, planted the seeds that were on the stalks, and gathered up firewood to bring back over to this side. She let her feet dangle over the water, the soles just barely not touching the surface as she watched the dark shapes of small, fist-sized fursh too small to be worth catching to eat even compared to immature seels. They rummaged among the plants that had managed to take root in the mud that had started to build up after she'd built the dock, digging for slugs and little graspers and squids. Yes, so relaxing to just sit there and just watch the water go downriver, letting her gaze linger on the water as far as her eyes could see…

Lori kicked her feet, most definitely not impatient. She was also most definitely not tempted to most definitely not increase the outputs on any of her bindings made of water. No, not at all.

When the shape that she most definitely hadn't been watching for appeared downriver, Lori didn't stand up excitedly and therefore didn't almost fall into the water, drown and die. After all, she was the Dungeon Binder. She obviously wouldn't do something so foolish, and any pointed comments about rocks were about an isolated incident. No, she stood up with slow dignity, mildly surprised since she hadn't been expecting anything to come up the river. No, not at all, she definitely hadn't been expecting anything!

Still, now that she saw something coming up the river, it behooved her to see what it was, lest it be something unwanted, like a raiding party from another demesne! After all, it was coming from downriver, and there was another demesne down there. You can't trust another demesne. They weren't you, after all.

Lori heard a shout behind her, a cry that was taken up and started to spread, and soon her demesne was in an uproar as the Coldhold, the boat they had sent to the demesne of Covehold, became visible to people who didn't happen to coincidentally be standing on the stone dock. Fortunately, there were few people outside, since most of them were in the second level threshing the vigas, but from the way some people ran into her Dungeon, that would change soon.

Lori decided she'd rather not be on the dock when that happened, lest she get accidentally pushed off into the water. She stepped off the dock just as some excitable children rushed towards it for a better view. She glared at them, and they slowed down to let her pass before moving past her once the way was clear. She formed a seat next to one of the new walls creating the entryway to her Dungeon, careful not to destabilize the structure. She still hadn't gotten around to adding bulwarks to the outside, but maybe she should soon…

People started cheering when Coldhold was close enough to distinguish people, and the men on board started waving to those on shore. On the other side of the river, the few people who were visible had stopped in what they were doing and were cheering and waving at the boat as well. It was quite noisy, and Lori was glad she'd moved back from the dock, otherwise the amount of noise would have been extremely annoying. People started streaming out of the Dungeon, letting out exclamations as they saw the boat and joining the crowd in front of the dock. The boat started to slow, getting ready move into the dock, which was getting full of people…

"All right everyone, get back!" she heard a voice call out clearly from the boat. There was no binding of airwisps involved. The person speaking just knew how to make themselves be heard. "We need to use the dock, and everyone is crowding too much, someone might fall off. Please get back on shore, and we'll come to you." A pause. "That means everyone, please. Come on, the longer this takes, the longer it will be before we can get off the ship!"

People began to move off the dock, and people on the shore had to move back as a consequence. It wasn't everyone in the demesne. She could feel some people, likely the smiths, loitering near the smithy by the voids of wisps they presented in her awareness of the demesne. There were also still people in the kitchens, likely still cooking the dinner stew, and a few people were washing clothes in the laundry area. Still, the space in front of the dungeon seemed full of people.

The Coldhold finally maneuvered and slid into the dock, and someone moved across the walkway between the boat and one of its outriggers to step onto the dock and start tying up the boat so it didn't drift away. Once that was done, people started getting off the boat, moving off the dock and heading towards the crowd. Then there were loud, tearful reunions and… people recoiling? All right, she was pretty sure that there was something wrong when a man and a woman started embracing only for the woman to jump back holding her nose.

"Oh, right. All right, clear a path everyone, clear a path! We ran out of soap a while back and have been washing with only cold water! To the baths everyone, even if they love you, no one is going to touch you the way we all smell now! Go, go, go! And can someone get us all some soap please?"

Apparently the smell was very intense, because people not only parted, they gave the men disembarking from the Coldhold a lot of space. Some people actually did fall into the river, and it was only the fact it was still shallow there that prevented people from drowning. Still, the smell apparently wasn't enough to discourage everyone, and some lucky people found themselves getting hugged, even if the person doing the hugging was clearly holding their breath. Someone presumably ran off to get them some soap. And, since the men all rushed into the baths not carrying anything, probably new clothes and toweling as well.

Lori paused, frowning thoughtfully at that. Actually, where was all the demesne's soap being made? She didn't remember building a structure for them, and they weren't in the second level…

Well, something she could have Riz… no, something she could have Rian find out for her!

He was back. He was finally back. Her competent, useful, capable lord was back and now she could get things done again!

Now that it was back inside her demesne, she could finally feel the relative positions of all the bindings that came together to make up the Coldhold. It took only a few moments to sort through, identify and deactivate the binding that powered the water jet driver that propelled it. Best not to leave it in a state it could be moved. A few of the children were already looking at the boat with interest. For that matter, so were some adults.

Sighing, Lori looked around and was relieved to spot someone she recognized, walking over to them. "Umu," she said.

The blonde weaver started in surprise, turning around stiffly to face Lori. "Y-your Bindership," she said.

Lori pointed at the boat. "Keep anyone from getting onto that boat until Rian and the others are finished with their bath, all right? If they brought back anything for the demesne, I'd rather not have it mysteriously disappear all of a sudden."

For a moment, Umu looked like she was going to refuse. Then she glanced towards the men's bath and sighed. "Yes, your Bindership," she said, moving to stand on the dock

Lori nodded in satisfaction, then walked away to go back to curing wood. After all, there was still an afternoon to work in, and it wasn't like the people Riz had sent to get more meat had come back yet…

––––––––––––––––––

Lori was sitting next to the curing shed maintaining the binding inside it when the brat suddenly walked up to her.

"Wiz Lori," the girl said, "itay told me to tell you that Lord Rian had told tito Ralii to tell him to tell me that he needed clothes and you have all of his clean ones."

That… what?

"What?" Lori said.

"Itay told me to tell you that Lord Rian told tito Ralii to tell him to tell me that he needed clothes and that you had all his clean ones," the brat repeated dutifully.

No… it still made no sense.

"Who needs clothes?" Lori said, trying to clarify some of the pronouns.

"Lord Rian," the brat said. "He told tito Ralii, who told itay, who told me, and now I'm telling you."

Ah… well, that was helpful. "And… why are you telling me this?"

"Lord Rian told tito Ralii to tell itay to tell me that if you asked, he said it's because he doesn't have any clean clothes, and putting on the ones he had… de-feats the pur-pose of taking a bath," the brat said with such painstaking care that it was probably a direct quote.

Lori nodded, standing up as she deactivated the binding in the curing shed again. "All right. Follow me and I'll give you what Rian needs. Then you can take it to him."

"I'm supposed to give it to itay so he can give it to Lord Rian," the brat said. "Since Lord Rian is in the boys' bath."

"Ah. Well then, let's do that."

The brat nodded and followed Lori as she headed to her Dungeon where she'd been storing the things Rian had left behind in her care. Not even back a day and her lord was somehow finding work for her to do… it would have been annoying if she wasn't so relieved. Maybe she could finally get the third level turned into a farm over the winter…

Rian was back, and everything was back to normal.