"Thirty men?"

Lothar surveyed the garrison. Their armor was incomplete, their faces gaunt beneath layers of grime. "Thirty soldiers to hold an entire castle?"

Thirty infantrymen could barricade themselves behind the walls. They could not protect the surrounding villages from desert raiders.

"It is a bit light, my lord. But hard to feed any more, you see."

The castellan wore a painted smile, his face slick with anxiety. A formidable new lord had arrived to find his fief stripped to the bone, and Leonard plainly expected an explosion of rage.

If that fury fell upon him, Leonard had no rank to shelter behind. Castellan sounded grand, but he was an untitled royal servant. Without his monthly delivery of taxes, the King might never have known his name.

"Is there truly no church in this castle? Not even a place for the people to worship?"

"Only a small prayer chamber, my lord. On the ground floor of the keep."

Lothar smiled. "Good. Excellent. An empty slate."

The castellan's heart climbed into his throat.

Fringilla surveyed the castle in open disgust. "This ruin is beneath even the rats. The worst place I ever endured was a Moldavian castle during one of my escapes from home, and beside this, it might as well have been a royal palace."

"Forgive the… simplicity, my lady." The castellan's voice was barely above a whisper.

A lady who spoke with such grandeur: could she be a princess? Heavenly Father above: would she have poor old Leonard hanged for the state of the castle?

"I rather like it," Lothar said. "There is so little worth preserving that we can rebuild without hesitation. We can begin by replacing this keep with a proper Lord's Hall."

"My lord, once you've been here a while longer, you'll realize there's no point in grand construction. A full year's taxes from Jogelsburg wouldn't cover the cost of rebuilding a single hall."

Despite its modest name, a Lord's Hall was the keep housing the lord, his family, and his servants, and would stand at least three stories tall. Lothar ignored the objection and turned to the giant beside him.

"Malleus — what do you make of the smithy?"

Malleus was silent a moment. "Usable. Barely. The efficiency is poor. I will need time and materials to improve the tools and the forge."

"No problem. I'm giving you a budget of two hundred solidi, the finest gold. Forge me a suit of good, solid armor. As quickly as you can."

"You will be satisfied, my lord. I guarantee it."

Lothar raised his voice. "Soldiers of Jogelsburg — this castle now belongs to me. Your bonds of personal dependence have passed from the Crown into my hands. Now, in the name of the Heavenly Father, swear your oaths to me."

He raised his arming sword. After only a moment's hesitation, the castellan and thirty soldiers fell to their knees and swore ragged, overlapping oaths. The King's grant had transferred everything bound to Jogelsburg into Lothar's hands: land, people, servants, debts, and claims alike.

"Hans — you too."

Hans blinked, then dropped to one knee without hesitation.

"Castellan — what is the name of the village to the west?"

"Seggau, my lord."

"Then Hans, my loyal squire: in reward for your bravery and service, I grant you Seggau as your fief. And I raise you to the rank of Knight."

"Thank you, my lord!"

Hans was elated to become a true knight at last, yet puzzled by the grant of a fief. Then he saw Laine and Modell staring with shining eyes and understood what Lothar intended.

"Rise, all of you."

"I, Lothar of House Habsburg, swear by the Heavenly Father: any man who earns sufficient merit under my command will be raised to knighthood. Birth will not bar the way."

His gaze swept across more than eighty faces. Hunger and hope burned in them—exactly what he wanted.

"Modell — as of today, you will begin formation drill for the thirty new garrison soldiers. Laine — you will oversee the daily training of the fifty veterans."

"Hans — you are now Captain of the Jogelsburg Cavalry. Choose from among the men anyone who can ride, or who shows the talent for it. You have ten slots."

Modell and Laine snapped their orders. They were burning with energy, desperate to show him what they could do. Hans, for his part, had a mild headache coming on. Figuring out who had a horseman's gift was not a simple matter. He'd have to rely on their backgrounds.

"Castellan, your name."

"Leonard will do, my lord."

"Leonard — you will procure warhorses and pack animals. I need ten Arab horses of good quality. Price is no object. But I will be judging your work."

"I swear, my lord: I will find the finest horses at the fairest price!"

"Good. Now, all of you, to your duties. Training is suspended for today. Get your quarters in order."

---

Eighty armored sergeants were enough to defend a fixed position, but not to attack or even police the whole fief. Cavalry ruled this age. Across the Holy Land's open ground, infantry could never run down desert raiders on light horses.

Training cavalry from nothing demanded the greatest investment of time and money. Recruiting established knights created a different problem: without sub-fiefs to offer, why would they ride beneath his banner?

From Leonard, Lothar learned that Jogelsburg had only six villages, each averaging around two hundred people, all clinging to the banks of the Jordan. A thousand souls under his rule, give or take. All of them hovering at the edge of subsistence. At the standard one-in-ten mobilization, he could field a hundred peasant levies. Even by the standards of the petty lords back in Western Europe, that was pitifully weak.

If he granted the villages as sub-fiefs, he could call up six fully-equipped knights. But if he kept the villages and relied on taxation to train his own cavalry: a full year's tax from one village wouldn't buy a single rider's armor. This was why the feudal system dominated the age. The Ayyubids and the Eastern Empire could maintain large standing cavalry armies because their territories were vast and situated astride trade routes, generating enormous commercial revenues.

As a Chinese man, the desire to cultivate land and build prosperity was carved into his bones. Yet Jogelsburg offered neither rich farmland nor the foundations of a future empire. Baldwin had been right to warn him against pouring too much effort into the fief.

Fortunately, Lothar was a man with cheats.

The fully awakened System promised one Card Draw each week. If every draw yielded a Retainer, that meant more than fifty potential officers a year—the nucleus of an army. Milestones could accelerate the process further. Within a few years, he could command a force no one could ignore.

Then: south into Egypt. Or north into Asia Minor. Either path led somewhere.