From start to finish, the letter contained no wasted words.

But Second Uncle Andrew was a clever man. He would read everything written between the lines.

Send men!

Derek dispatched his squire Simon home with a few soldiers—and not empty-handed.

The soldiers' wages, sent back to their families. Gifts for Uncle Andrew. And settlement money.

What was settlement money for?

Recruiting, of course.

As the de facto ruler of Haystack Village, Andrew could pull whatever quiet strings he liked, and no one could stop him.

For his own son's future, he would certainly shoulder a little risk.

Even if his elder brother found out—what then? A scolding, at most.

A man's own younger brother, quietly chiseling at the family wall for the sake of that man's own nephew—could the baron truly bring down the axe over that?

Derek had accounted for every relationship involved.

...

Simon rode home in high spirits. Following Lord Derek had transformed his fate.

In under a year, a farm boy had become a powerful squire.

Everything he had seen and done had broadened his horizons.

And then there was Lord Derek himself—simply extraordinary.

Simon had met members of House Ferreira. Not one of them measured up to his lord.

In his private opinion, Baron Ferreira ought to pass the title directly to Lord Derek.

Soldiers at his back, Simon rode into Haystack Village.

He first delivered the men's letters and wages to their families—money enough for comfortable living, enough even to add another mouth or two to the household.

A son soldiering abroad meant one less mouth at home plus an income. For farm families, that mattered enormously.

Every year, in truth, great numbers of infants were abandoned or drowned—one more reason the population barely grew.

Simon's arrival naturally roused Andrew.

As constable, every outsider was his to question—let alone several fully armed soldiers.

By the time he arrived, though, the whole alarm proved a misunderstanding.

"Simon? You're the lad who left with my nephew?"

Andrew's memory served him well, and Haystack Village was small; he knew Simon at a glance.

But look at the boy now—leather armor plated thick with iron, a black longsword at his hip, a frame like a door, and an air of violence that arrived a step before he did.

Had Andrew not known him, he'd have taken him for some wandering knight passing through.

And beside him stood a genuinely fine warhorse. A real one—not one of those animals that merely filled out the numbers.

Andrew distinctly remembered his nephew riding out on an ordinary pack horse.

The gear on this young man alone was worth ten or twenty gold. Had his nephew truly made a success of himself?

This fast?

Andrew could scarcely believe it. But the Simon before him was no longer a farm boy to be cursed at will.

Happily, Simon knew exactly how close Andrew was to his lord. He stepped forward first and bowed.

"Constable Andrew. I carry a letter from my lord for you, letters for Baron Ferreira and others, and some gifts."

Derek had written to Andrew—and of course had not forgotten the rest of the family.

Those, though, were mere courtesies with small gifts attached.

Only now did Andrew truly believe it: his nephew had made it.

For a noble's younger son to carve out any future at all was extraordinarily difficult. Andrew knew; he had been one himself.

Noting the crowd gathering, he pulled Simon back to his own house.

He asked what Derek was up to; Simon answered vaguely—some business—and gave nothing more.

But "business" these days wasn't open to just anyone. Not at any real scale.

"Backing from some grandee in Count Perez's court, perhaps?"

Privately, Andrew considered the boy's brilliant marks and abrupt departure from the order. Had he become the discreet agent of some great man?

Within his own walls, the caution fell away.

Andrew tore open the letter and, shrewd man that he was, grasped Derek's true meaning in a single pass.

So... accept the nephew's invitation?

Of course accept.

The decision took Andrew almost no time at all.

In House Ferreira, Adrian would top out as a banner captain—and more likely never reach it.

The heir's sons, the other brothers' sons—the field was brutally crowded.

Another generation on, Adrian's line might well be walking behind a plow.

Without title and fief, a family's honor could not be kept from sliding.

And the family's glory was never something a branch line got to enjoy for long.

Better to gamble on the road with Derek than to sink quietly back into the soil.

Simon, timing it perfectly, presented the gifts.

A regulation wooden crate—longswords, layer upon layer.

Ten longswords, worth roughly what Andrew's own gift of fine steel had been.

Derek gave with an open hand—though setting aside labor, his actual production cost totaled about one gold.

Whether Andrew used them or sold them, gifts like these moved easily.

They hardened his resolve.

"Simon. You ride with me to Ferreira Castle—the letters and gifts go to the baron himself."

The two rode hard, and Simon was received by Baron Ferreira.

His lips stayed sealed; not one extra detail escaped.

Nor did the baron press. It was his own son out there—if the boy was hammering an enterprise together, so much the better.

He noticed Andrew's little scheme as well, of course. But he let it be.

Heading the sprawling mess that was House Ferreira, he had to keep up the appearance of fairness.

Beneath the surface, a measure of favoritism was only natural.

Derek was, at present, the most outstanding of his sons. Favor followed accordingly.

What the baron failed to anticipate was how much Andrew intended to take.

Adrian was, at the moment, one more rider in the Ferreira cavalry—no formal post, no title.

His "knight training" amounted to a basic education and little more.

With the baron's consent in hand, Andrew simply took him.

Adrian was somewhat unhappy about it. The family's equipment, horse, and weapons all stayed behind. Going out to seek his fortune was one thing, but those terms were difficult to accept.

Andrew gave him a thunderous dressing-down for it, and acquainted him with reality.

"You're going to your cousin. Do you imagine he'll shortchange you?

"Serve him well—as I have served my brother. Derek is your liege now.

...

"And don't come crawling back. What family property there is goes to your younger brother. Return, and you'll farm for your keep like anyone else."

Andrew was ruthless when it counted. A man stifled for a lifetime had finally found an outlet for his ambition.

His own chances were gone. His son still had a path forward.

He threw himself into recruiting on his nephew's behalf, drilling Adrian in worldly craft all the while—

then, before Baron Ferreira could react, hustled Simon and the recruits out of the village at speed.

There were fifty strapping young men. Haystack Village had been all but emptied.

Next year's planting would feel the pinch—slightly—but Andrew had gone all in.

When Derek saw Adrian arrive with a column of farmhands behind him, he was genuinely startled.

But when it came to people, the more the better. In this world, population was a resource.

Even those derided as two-legged livestock were, after all, a source of labor.

"Welcome, Adrian."

Derek extended his trust quickly. Blood kin, under this era's rules, weren't necessarily reliable—but they were unavoidable.

And this cousin, at least, counted as solid. No unsavory stories attached.

Besides, the son of a village constable had precious few resources to draw upon.

He'd had a basic education—even some grooming in noble etiquette.

He worked hard, endured hardship, and nursed no grand ambitions.

Add a thread of blood between them, and you had an excellent lieutenant.

A subordinate like Adrian, Derek was confident he could manage.

First came a new warhorse and a full set of equipment.

Derek opened the Panel. Sure enough, Adrian's portrait already sat there.

In terms of obedience, at least, he had registered faster than the farmhands. The man had arrived with his mind already made up.

"It's rough out here—conditions are hard. But the essentials, we have.

"My business... needs hands. You've come at the perfect time."

Derek ran the farmhands through unified training first, then sorted them by temperament and obedience into the army or the smithy.

Together with the original three squads, the force now comprised five:

three of spearmen, one of swordsmen, one of sword-and-shield men.

Different troop types served subtly different ends.

The smithy expanded to twenty men in one stroke. Once they matured, yearly income would exceed a thousand gold.

Ore supply and sales channels would become the next problems.

Finally, five veterans were drawn from the ranks as new squires.

Add the grooms, the foremen, and the slaves, and the little camp now held a hundred-odd souls.

A micro manor did not hold that many people.

The camp's output already far exceeded a single micro manor's.

Even House Ferreira—vastly greater in latent power—cleared about this much in pure profit.

Net of expenses, of course, the margin thinned considerably.

Adrian adapted quickly. Life here was monotonous, but Derek paid well, and there was always visible progress.

Besides, commanding Derek's cavalry—even provisionally—was a position beyond anything he had held before.

He believed it completely now: Derek's future outran every brother in the family.

As the operation sprawled, daily weapons output climbed—and so did consumption.

They now consumed three to five hundred pounds of iron ore a day. Scattered purchases could no longer cover it.

The small mines nearby produced no more than that, and buying in bulk would turn heads everywhere.

At current output, Derek's smiths could equip a thousand-man battalion in a month.

That was enough to move the market: weapon prices in Sentinel City had already dipped slightly.

Adrian learned of Derek's worry—and offered a genuinely useful suggestion.

"We can't force our way into Sentinel City's trade. But there is one commodity no one refuses."

He pointed at the warhorses ambling about the camp.

"No noble alive turns down a fine warhorse.

"In fact, no one ever questions where a smuggled warhorse came from.

"Use them to open doors, and new trade channels may follow."

The Northern Province already ranked among the kingdom's horse country; nobles and merchants alike kept strings of them.

Even a common-quality riding horse fetched a fine price.

A draft horse cost three to five gold; a decent riding horse, ten and up; a prime animal fit for war, double that again.

A truly superb warhorse that could carry full plate started at sixty or seventy gold.

Most cavalry—most knights, even—trained on riding horses. Genuine warhorses were rare issue.

And those were Northern Province prices. Southward and toward the heartland, they doubled once, sometimes twice.

Adrian had no idea where Derek's fine horses came from. But with them as door-knockers, certain business became possible.

Nobles and royal officials were human too—favors and interests changed hands among them as anywhere else.

Derek knew this world's rules intimately, yet still thought, at bottom, like a man from his last life.

Adrian held no title, but he had breathed noble politics since childhood, and familiarity had bred understanding.

The power and political capital in noble hands did not sit idle. Bring them value, and they would trade.

Derek had proceeded cautiously, never daring to cross a line. Yet in Adrian's eyes, there was considerable room to maneuver.

"We could start with the family. If warhorses are on the table... Uncle will agree." Adrian offered.

Derek shot that one down quickly. He had a better counterparty in mind.

Trading with home was fine—later.

And his three years in the count's service had not been spent for nothing.

He calculated the figures first. Raising a poor-quality draft horse to Fine quality took about nine months.

Labor and feed cost next to nothing—ten coppers of feed a day, a gold and change all told.

Yet a three-gold draft horse, nine months later, returned seventeen gold and up.

The profit was secondary. What mattered was what the horses could be exchanged for.

Warhorses were a scarce resource—and scarce resources bought other resources.

He looked over his stock: thanks to the Panel, all deliberately sourced as cheap draft animals.

Derek had always known horses made money—and filed it away as ordinary business.

He had even judged that the manpower would be better spent elsewhere.

A groom's year of labor might not earn more than one blacksmith's, and it carried additional risk.

But with the Panel doing the raising, groom and smith were interchangeable to Derek.

So he had raised horses mostly for his own use—

a few Fine-grade warhorses in hand, a dozen-plus of common quality.

At the current pace, three to five Fine-grade animals emerged every month.

"All that wasted time. Send men to buy a batch of riding horses, and assign the grooms a few hands from among the slaves."

Derek redrew the plans on the spot. The moment the current crop of riding horses crossed into Fine quality, it would be time to make a certain trip.

And that time was not far off at all.