Old Marrek the Wallwright

A half-deaf hermit who mends the Spur's dry-stone walls that nobody pays him to mend, and knows every hollow, seep, and hidden delve mouth on the Spur by feel.

Marrek has been mending the same walls since before Lord Vandahl's father inherited. He has no contract, no claim, and no particular reason to keep doing it except that a wall that stands keeps the sheep in and the trouble out, and trouble is increasing. He is half-deaf but his hands read the stone better than most people read a face, and he can tell you where every delve mouth is on the Spur, which hollows flood in spring, and which dry-stone walls the Broken Lances have been knocking down to move unseen at night. He will trade what he knows for help mending what they keep breaking.