Maple Forest Estate

Lorist's home base for between-campaign decompression — northern horses on the patrol routes, Yost on the watch lines, and the family's small son in residence with Lady Tressi.

Maple Forest Estate is the ancient Norton family seat: a silver-white (grey-white) castle atop a great white hill amid countless maple groves that blaze fiery-red each autumn. The estate has vineyards, hen-coops and pig-sheds, a stable of northern horses, and a small crescent-moon lake where the castle's children swam in summer. Nearby lies the garrison town of Bei (Bey).

The castle is defended by a drawbridge and walls; it is reached through the forests and mountain ridges of the eastern Northern Lands. From the Estate to the worksite in the Morgan Hills (the future Rockcastle) is about a day's journey with a convoy.

House Norton came through over two centuries of northern hardship with this castle, yet the castle had no name — the old lord reasoned simply: across the whole domain there is one castle and one town, the town is called Bei, and the castle is ours, the family's, so we call it the family castle, 'it feels warmer that way'. When Lorist inherited the domain it surprised him that the gate bore no name, and he named the castle 'Maple Forest Estate', ordering it carved on the wall (ch 98).

Here Lorist was met by the old steward Creis and red-haired Eldest Baisha; here too Lorist's investiture as head of the house takes place. When Baron Norton died half a year earlier, it was against this very castle that the Kemmes sent troops, but they could not take it.

The Estate becomes the lord's rear home, where he returns between campaigns to see Lady Tressi and his small son. Its roads are patrolled by Yost's regiment of former bandits set on watch; here too the estate's youth train to awaken Battle Power. From Maple Forest Estate Lorist leads convoys of people and supplies to the Rockcastle worksite.