Hands went up: about a quarter of the nobles in the hall.

Count Reynald spat a wad of phlegm onto the fine carpet. "So. The fearless warriors of the Crusade, it seems, have already had their courage crushed by Saladin and his dogs, and the battle hasn't even begun!"

A voice answered at once: "He's right. We should not cower behind walls like turtles. We must fight the infidels to the bitter end!"

"Fight?" Roger de Moulins, Grand Master of the Hospitallers, was livid. "Fight with what? The enemy has a hundred thousand men: two hundred thousand, three hundred thousand. How many do we have? Twenty thousand? Thirty? Forty?"

Regent Raymond shouted over the din. "Order! Order!"

He repeated the word again and again, until finally he slammed his hand on the table and roared: "If you wish to squabble, get out of this hall and do it outside! Next proposal."

The lords reined themselves in, somewhat. None of them stopped arguing.

Every proposal had its supporters, but none could command a majority. The nobles splintered into smaller factions, each attacking the others in an endless brawl of voices.

The Regent was at his wit's end. Then his eye fell on Godfrey, who had not spoken a word through the entire session.

"Baron Godfrey. Have you any insight to share?"

The heated atmosphere in the hall cooled at once. The noise dropped. Joscelin of Edessa, Count Reynald, Grand Master Gerard, Grand Master Roger, the four great powers of the realm, all turned to look.

True, Godfrey of Ibelin had always kept a low profile. But only a fool would mistake a quiet man for a powerless one. He was, after all, the last remaining pillar of the King's faction, and on decent terms with every side.

Godfrey thought for a moment, then gestured for Lothar to answer in his stead.

"Me?"

Lothar was confused.

"You," Godfrey whispered. "I need these old dogs to know: Habsburg has returned to the stage of Jerusalem."

Lothar understood at once. Godfrey was giving him a platform, a chance to be seen.

But — they'd only just met. Was this kind of trust really warranted? What if he turned out to be a worthless fool?

He set the doubt aside and rose to his feet.

"Lord of Tiberias," Lothar said, addressing Raymond by his honorific. "Allow me to speak for Baron Godfrey."

"Who is that?"

"Werner's coat of arms?"

"That cold-blooded butcher, he's back in the Holy Land?"

"He doesn't look much like Werner. But that surcoat… that's the old uniform of the Royal Knights, no doubt about it."

The whispers spread around him. The looks were not friendly. But what surprised him: no one challenged his right to be here. No one questioned whether a landless knight had any business sitting among them, let alone speaking. Not a single objection.

Raymond nodded. "You may speak. But first, state your identity."

"I am Lothar von Habsburg, second son of Werner von Habsburg, Count of Aargau. My father once fought to defend the Holy Land. Now, on his orders, I have come to do the same."

Raymond inclined his head. "Ah, Count Werner's son. I fought beside your father once myself. You have the right to speak. Please."

Lothar returned the nod. He ignored the murmuring around him and got straight to the point.

"The proposal to hire mercenary companies, let us set that aside for now. As I'm sure you all know, mercenaries come with their own arms and equipment, and they can fight well enough. But they have no honor. No faith.

They're fine in a winning battle. The moment things turn difficult, I suspect they'll find their contracts… open to renegotiation."

"And against Saladin, this will be a difficult fight. Even as far away as Germania, his name carries weight."

"Better to take Count Reynald's advice: arm the pilgrims. Their morale is higher, and they cost far less."

Reynald nodded, a satisfied smile spreading across his face. "There, the boy has some sense after all. Werner's son, indeed."

Lothar smiled back at him, then went on.

"As for keeping the money to pressure the King of Albion, Richard the Lionheart, to hurry his preparations, from what I understand, Richard is a wise and capable monarch. A sum of gold will neither speed his arrival nor delay it. He will join the Crusade. That much is certain.

But he will do so after he has settled his affairs with the King of Gaul and put his own realm in order. That is not a matter of months. It may not even be a matter of half a year."

"Honorable lords, ask yourselves honestly. Would you risk losing your throne, or leaving your rear exposed to an old enemy, for a chest of coins?"

The nobles shook their heads, one after another.

In truth, more than a few of them would have been tempted. But no one was going to admit it aloud. Greed was one of the seven deadly sins. Better to feign indifference than to confess to it.

"As for the Assassin proposal, the Old Man of the Mountain, Hassan-i Sabbah, forgive my bluntness, but what price could possibly satisfy an Assassin King who commands over a hundred castles across Persia and beyond? And to collaborate with a man who built his power on murder, a man whose knives have already taken the lives of more than one Crusader prince, would disgrace the very name of the Crusade."

"Hassan-i Sabbah has already tried to kill Saladin, and not once or twice. He has failed every time. These two are mortal enemies. If the Assassins could have done the deed, they would have: no payment from us required."

Lothar was, of course, sparing the feelings of whichever fool had made the proposal in the first place. In truth, Crusader lords had always maintained quiet, unofficial dealings with the Old Man of the Mountain. That was simply how things were done.

Regent Raymond nodded slowly. "Indeed. It seems only two proposals remain truly viable: reinforcing the walls, or arming the pilgrims."

Three proposals dismissed. And yet the great lords did not seem resentful. If anything, they seemed impressed.

In this age, knowledge belonged to the theologians. There were no schools outside the Church. As a result, most nobles were, quite simply, illiterate. Their horizons were narrow, their opinions stubborn, and their oratory, such as it was, generally unpersuasive. A man who could lay out his reasoning clearly, as Lothar had just done, was a rarity.

Lothar pressed on. "We must face a hard truth. The danger the Holy Land now confronts is without precedent. The Ayyubid infidel army outnumbers us many times over. However brave our knights may be, and they are brave, they cannot be everywhere at once against an enemy that comes from every direction."

This drew a wave of indignation.

"Rubbish! A knight of the Heavenly Father fears nothing! Saladin's army is peasants pulled from the fields, mud still on their trousers, slave cavalry at best. What threat can a rabble like that pose to us?"

The speaker was a handsome knight. His manner was somewhat coarse, but in this age, a knight who wasn't coarse was the exception. The kind of courteous, humble, righteous, and just knight found in the romances existed mostly in, well, the romances.

Lothar did not take offense. Calmly, he asked: "And who might you be, sir?"

The knight lifted his chin. "I am Guy of Lusignan. I have brought twenty-five knights from my homeland to join the Crusade, all of them brave and battle-tested. One of us is worth a hundred of them."

Lothar did not take the bait. "You are from Gaul, yes?"

"I am. My fief is at Lusignan, in Poitou."

Poitou, in western Gaul, currently under the control of Richard the Lionheart.

Lothar nodded. "I know the region. I spent some time in southern Gaul myself. Jerusalem must not be comfortable for you. The climate here is nothing like Poitou: damp and mild there, scorching and brutal here."

He smiled. "In this heat, with your armor on, how much of your true strength can you bring to bear? And that fine Nisaean destrier of yours, can he still outrun a native-bred Arab?"

Guy hesitated. He was arrogant, but he was not stupid.

Lothar spoke with measured gravity. "I do not question the courage of the Heavenly Father's knights. I am one of them.

But the enemy is stronger than we are. They have the numbers. They know the land and the climate. That is beyond dispute. And that is why both proposals, training new troops and reinforcing the walls, have their merit."

Count Reynald scratched at his red beard irritably. "Both have merit? You've said a great many words just to say nothing at all."

"Count Reynald, you put it well: it is nothing at all. Because weighing the two against each other is, frankly, a near-impossible task. But I do know one thing: if we keep bickering, keep fracturing what little strength we have, then I can already see the day Saladin takes the Holy Land from us."

"So please, my lords, make a decision. Reinforce the walls. Train new soldiers. Either one. The important thing is that a decision gets made. Which decision it is matters far less than whether you can all agree to it."

He let the words settle.

The unspoken message was clear: keep fighting, keep tearing each other apart, and by the time Jerusalem's walls fall, there won't be anything left to fight over.

Factional strife destroying a kingdom: he'd seen it before, in another life, in another world. But there was a key difference. The scholar-officials of that distant court had never truly cared whether their dynasty fell. A change of regime wouldn't touch their station.

The Crusader nobles, by contrast, understood exactly what awaited them if Jerusalem's walls were breached. The infidels they had once slaughtered without mercy would return every horror, tenfold, upon the Crusaders' descendants.

The lords in the hall looked at one another.

If reality were a game, Lothar thought, he would have heard the System chime by now: Reputation Increased.

In his previous life, the Eastern soul that shaped him had always preached caution: the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. A simple, honest piece of survival wisdom. But in this age, that particular wisdom did not quite fit.

Regent Raymond spoke, his voice heavy: "I agree with Sir Lothar. We must reach a decision."

---

In the end, the council voted to spend King Henry II's war chest on arms and equipment, and to train pilgrim soldiers.

The Crusader nobles preferred offense to defense. This likely had something to do with their instinct for plunder. A war fought on your own doorstep only scarred your own lands. There was no profit in it.

---

Outside the hall, Godfrey clapped Lothar on the shoulder. "Well done, Lothar. Werner's son, through and through. I'll be honest, all those years your father and I exchanged letters, he always praised your valor. But I had no idea your wits and your tongue were every bit his equal."

"You really were brilliant, Sir Lothar!" Balian was looking at him with undisguised admiration. He could have worked through the same logic, he knew, but to organize his thoughts and speak them aloud before so many lords? That was beyond him entirely.

So this was the look of a man with social anxiety gazing up at someone who had none.

"You're too kind."

Godfrey smiled. "Come. I'll take you to see the King."

Lothar glanced back. "What about Balian?"

"He's my heir, but I've not yet dubbed him a knight. He has no standing to appear before His Majesty."

Lothar gave Balian an apologetic smile. "It'll happen soon enough. I'd better go."

---

They passed through a dim corridor and emerged into a bright, spacious chamber. There, bent over a desk covered in documents, was the young king, writing furiously.

The table held an array of gold vessels heaped with fresh fruit. The King did not seem to have touched any of it.

"Approach, knight."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

The face beneath the wrappings and the mask startled him, but he let no trace of it show.

Baldwin IV studied him. His gaze was complicated, hard to read. At length he said, "In that surcoat, you do look very much like your father. For a moment, I thought I had stepped back three years. How is Count Werner's health, these days?"

This was the first time anyone had told Lothar he resembled the Count. He thought he was considerably better-looking.

"He is in good health, Your Majesty. I bear a letter from him."

Baldwin set the letter on the table unopened. His eyes lingered on Lothar. "Your father was my most trusted companion, my mentor and friend. He taught me to command armies, to lead thousands. He was wise and clever, full of stratagems. Brave in battle. Afraid of nothing."

"But what I envied most was his body. Strong and hale. As though no sickness could ever touch him."

Baldwin gestured toward a chair beside him. He smiled, or at least, it sounded like a smile. The mask hid his sickness. It hid his feelings, too.

"Sit, Sir Lothar. There is fruit on the table, though I must ask your forgiveness: I cannot share it with you. I carry a contagion. Once contracted, no healer can cure it."

He spoke of his illness with flat indifference.

"Guy of Lusignan brought twenty-five knights from Gaul. They swore fealty to me. But I did not receive them."

Lothar had already suspected the answer. Still, he asked: "Why not?"

"Lothar, every man in this world has his own mind. We are not figures of wood and clay. I don't have much longer to live, that is no secret. And so the number of those loyal to me, truly loyal, loyal only to me, grows fewer by the day."

Lothar was silent.

He liked this young king. There was something admirable in him. Hearing Baldwin speak so plainly of his own end stirred a genuine sadness.

Baldwin seemed to read the thought on his face. He smiled, a soft, rasping sound, and spoke at an unhurried pace.

"Lothar, I trusted your father. I trust Godfrey, who brought you here. And so I am willing to trust you: to make you one of the pillars of my reign."

"But you are weak. You have no deeds to your name. Even I cannot simply grant you a title out of nothing. Jerusalem is drowning in knights.

I cannot even gift you a manor and its lands without cause. You saw how it was in the hall: I am a king, but I do not rule by decree alone."

Lothar nodded. "Your Majesty, I understand. Give me a task. Let me prove myself."

Trust was not everything. Baldwin needed a man who was both loyal and capable. A test, then. That was to be expected.

"I was just about to suggest it." Baldwin smiled. "Now that you are here in the Holy Land, you should know: the Sassanid Empire of Persia may be allied with the Ayyubid Sultanate, but it is not a solid alliance."

"I am aware of this," Lothar said.

He chose his words carefully. "The Sassanid Empire is a thousand-year dynasty, no less than the Eastern Empire. Its influence once stretched across many of the lands that the Ayyubids now hold. Sassanid power may have waned, but I doubt the King of Kings is eager to hand the Grand Magus's mantle to Saladin."

Baldwin's tone turned approving. "You've done your work. I was right about you: you're not like those thick-headed knights who arrive in the Holy Land thinking of nothing but killing infidels."

"Here is what I need you to do. Take a handpicked force of cavalry. Disguise yourselves as Kurds. Ride into the borderlands between the two powers and raise havoc: burn, raid, plunder. The bigger the disturbance, the better."

"If you succeed, if you buy us a few more years by slowing the infidel advance, then by the time the next wave of Crusaders arrives, Jerusalem will stand unshakable."

"The truth is that Jerusalem is already at the breaking point. The Eastern Empire's chief concern is the Turks in Asia Minor, who are under Sassanid control. They can offer us very little.

As for Saladin, he has a hundred thousand men in Damascus alone. If he decides to throw everything at us, and unless Gaul, Greater Germania, and Albion all muster enormous Crusading armies to relieve us, we will not survive."

Baldwin's voice had grown heavy. He did not want the Kingdom of Heaven his forefathers had built to die in his hands.

Lothar understood. "I will do everything in my power to set the Ayyubid eastern frontier ablaze. I suspect the Sassanid King of Kings will not be displeased to see Saladin's path to the Holy City grow more difficult."

"Precisely. He only lacks a pretext. We shall give him one." Baldwin paused, then spoke more quietly. "This mission must remain secret. No one can know of it. When it is done, I will grant you honors publicly: under the cover story that you defeated an infidel army in the field."

Lothar was silent a moment, then frowned. "Your Majesty… is there someone in Jerusalem who collaborates with the infidels?"

The words were barely out before he realized what a foolish question it was.

Jerusalem was full of foreigners now. The city leaked like a sieve. Nothing that happened inside its walls could be hidden from anyone who cared to look.

Baldwin gave a noncommittal smile. With visible effort, he braced both hands on the desk and rose to his feet.

"Sir Lothar. Swear your oath to me."

Lothar knelt on one knee.

"Before the Heavenly Father, I, Lothar von Habsburg, do swear fealty to my liege lord, His Majesty King Baldwin IV. I vow to be true and faithful, and to never depart from his side."

Baldwin drew his sword with a sharp ring of steel and laid the blade upon Lothar's shoulder.

"I, Baldwin IV, King of Jerusalem, Grand Master of the Royal Knights of Jerusalem, Guardian of the Holy Land, Supreme Commander of All Crusaders, do accept your oath. May the Heavenly Father watch over you, Sir Lothar."

When it was done, Baldwin let out a long breath and nearly lost his footing. It spoke plainly of just how dire his condition had become. He sank back into his chair and took a long moment to recover.

"Lothar," he said at length, his voice gentle and apologetic, "I should now embrace you and grant you a fief. But my illness and the state of the realm prevent me from doing either."

"It is no matter, Your Majesty." Lothar shook his head quickly.

"You have just arrived in Jerusalem. You need a place to settle. I grant you the Constance Manor in the western quarter: it was your father's property once, which he returned to the Crown before his departure. Now I bestow it upon you anew."

"In addition, I give you one thousand solidi in gold. You may use it to recruit pilgrims and train men-at-arms."

"Furthermore, I know your retinue is small. Take my seal and go to Baron Godfrey. He will give you whatever aid you need to complete your mission. Baron Godfrey is one of the very few men I can still trust without reservation."

Lothar smiled.

"As you will, my liege."