Master Siroba

When the Kemmes longbowmen started lobbing arrows in a curtain over the first wall, Siroba pitched the roof-shelter idea Boris pushed through that same night. Within a day the front-line losses collapsed.

At first he was terrified of Lorist — several times he lost his composure from fear in his presence. But over time, given an unheard-of chance to prove himself, he came to feel deep gratitude toward the lord: no kingdom or duchy would have funded a project as grand as the Black Marsh reclamation, and here he became its chief engineer.

A siege engineer and the Nortons' chief builder. When the Kemmes longbowmen lobbed a curtain of arrows over the first wall of Rockcastle, Siroba proposed wooden roof-shelters — and within a day the front-line losses collapsed. Later he runs the master plan for the Black Marsh reclamation: laying out fortresses and a port city, the water system, and the fleet's piers. He helps Lady Tressi refine the academy's design.

He first distinguishes himself during the siege of Rockcastle (ch 123): his roof-shelters stopped the curtain of Kemmes longbow fire. From a war engineer he grows into the family's chief builder and head of the Black Marsh reclamation master plan — the Nortons' largest civil project. With his deputy Sanben he works out which mountain peaks to shear off for fortresses, and persuades Lorist to keep the coastal reefs, filling only the shipyard site (ch 215). Lady Tressi consults him on the academy's design.