Dawn arrived not with a gentle glow, but with the metallic clatter of the Delahaye truck bouncing up the rutted track. Rex was already waiting, a thermos of black coffee in hand, the crisp morning air sharp in his lungs. He had slept little, his mind racing through lists and plans, but the fatigue was buried under a layer of focused anticipation.
Jean and Luc unloaded with a quiet, practiced efficiency. Steel scaffolding poles clanged as they were laid out on the cobbles, a stark, modern intrusion upon the ancient scene.
"Bonjour," Jean grunted, accepting the proffered coffee cup from Rex. "The bell tower first. We must see if it is worth saving or if it needs to come down before it chooses its own time to fall."
The three of them stood at the base of the square tower, craning their necks. It was a testament to a long-dead lord's ambition, now a precarious pile of crumbling masonry. Weeds sprouted from its heights like unkempt hair.
Luc, the more agile of the two, began assembling the scaffolding with a ratchet wrench, its rhythmic click-click-click the first new sound of industry the castle had heard in centuries. Rex worked beside him, his movements slightly less fluid but confident. He understood the engineering of the structure, how each lock needed to click into place, how the bracing provided stability.
Jean watched for a few minutes, sipping his coffee, then nodded. "Fournier taught you well enough. You will not kill yourself on my watch. Good."
By mid-morning, a spindly metal skeleton had grown up the side of the tower. Luc, harnessed and tethered, swarmed up it like a spider, tapping at stones with a small hammer, his keen ears listening to the story the stone told. He called down his findings in a rapid, technical French that Rex had to concentrate to follow.
"Mortar is powder on the south face... major crack on the western corner, goes deep... the pinnacle is loose, a death trap for birds and anything below it."
Rex and Jean documented it all on a tablet, the blueprints overlaid with digital notes and red markers highlighting areas of critical failure.
"It is bad," Jean said finally, his face grim. "But not hopeless. The core is sound. It is the skin that is dying. We must repoint the entire exterior, rebuild the upper parapet, and secure the pinnacle. A month's work. Maybe two."
"Then we start today," Rex said, his voice leaving no room for debate.
The first practical lesson was mortar. Jean showed him the mix—sharp sand, hydrated lime, and water—in a small mechanical mixer Rex had procured. "This is not the cement you are used to," Jean instructed. "It is softer. It breathes. It allows the moisture in the stone to escape. Cement is a plastic bag—it traps the water and the stone rots from within. You understand?"
"I understand," Rex said. He had read the theory, but seeing the old mason's hands, stained white with lime, craft the mix was different. It was an art.
His first task was not glamorous. It was to clear the rotten mortar from a section of the lower wall using a hammer and a pointed chisel called a pointerolle. The rhythm was punishing. Strike, chip, brush. Strike, chip, brush. Dust filled his nostrils, his shoulders began to burn, and a blister formed on his palm despite his gloves. It was mind-numbing, repetitive labor.
Luc worked high above him, his whistling occasionally floating down on the breeze. Jean moved between them, inspecting, correcting, offering a quiet "comme ça" or a grunt of approval.
As the sun climbed to its zenith, Rex's world shrank to the few square feet of wall in front of him. The crypto markets, the anxieties of the modern world, the grand scale of his plan—all of it faded away, replaced by the immediate, physical reality of stone and mortar. There was a profound, almost meditative satisfaction in it. He was not just fixing a wall; he was connecting with the most fundamental act of human civilization: building something that would last.
By the time they broke for a lunch of bread, cheese, and sausage, eaten in the shade of the gatehouse, Rex's body ached in places he'd forgotten existed. But it was a good ache. An honest one.
Jean pointed a knife at Rex's blistered hand. "You will have hands like stone by the end of this. A man's hands."
Rex flexed his fingers, a small smile touching his lips. It felt like a greater compliment than any he had ever received for his digital prowess.
In the afternoon, Jean taught him how to apply the new mortar with a hawk and trowel, pressing it deep into the cleaned joints, smoothing it with a precise, fluid motion. Rex's first attempts were clumsy, too much mortar oozing out, the finish rough. But he was a quick study. His mind understood the physics, and his hands, though inexperienced, were steady.
As the long summer day began to wane, Rex stepped back to look at his section of the wall. It was a small patch, barely two meters square, but it was clean, solid, and repointed with fresh, pale mortar. It stood in stark, repaired contrast to the decay surrounding it.
It was just one stone in a mountain of them. But it was his stone. The first one he had truly laid with his own hands.
He had bought the castle with a digital fortune. But he was beginning to understand that he would only truly own it by paying for it again, with his sweat and his will, one stone at a time.