Hoffman emerged from the manor to find a party of men dismounting, shaking a few stray flakes of snow from their coats. All of them were uncommonly well dressed and armed, their coats lined with fur and bearing clear badges at the breast - a golden bird of prey rampant over a field sable. The arms of Falkenrath. Among them, one figure stood out – tall and gaunt, with black hair showing streaks of grey. As Hoffman approached, the figure turned to him with a smile.

“Andries.” The men embraced, clapping hands around each other in a quick tight grip. “You have no idea how good it is to see you again.”

“Wilhelm.” A smile. Some might have been shocked by the informality between two peers of the realm. Not so their immediate circle. The Lords Falkenrath and Hoffman had enjoyed a mentorship and excellent working relationship for years. Hoffman had spent time serving in Falkenrath’s household, and though they were now theoretically peers and equals as tenants-in-chief that sort of relationship bit deep.

Wilhelm Hoffman gestured his superior towards the doorway. “Come and take a rest. The wine cellar here was badly reduced, but I’ll have someone spice and boil you a cup. You look chilled to your bones.”

Andries Falkenrath, Landgraf of Stanmark, Marshal of the New Army and Marcher Lord of the Western Mark nodded and followed his subordinate into the manor. Steam came off his cloak in a rising cloud, the warmth bringing a sigh of pleasure. “I’ve been out on the road for weeks now.”

“You could have stayed home, you know.” Wilhelm noted. Mattis Kaulback brought in a steaming decanter before standing back out of earshot. Wilhelm acknowledged him with a nod of thanks, pouring two cups. A gross breach of decorum in public, and until recently even in private – for a Lord to pour his own drink. How the times are changing. “You have plenty of good subordinates. Stay in Stanburgh, read the reports. Stay out of this damn cold.”

Andries shook his head. “You know it’s best to get personal knowledge of the situation, if you can.” He sipped his drink appreciatively. The hot wine chased away the lingering chills and stiffness. It’s amazing how armor can be miserably hot in the summer but do nothing for you in the cold. And even this long after the conquest, we're still riding around in armor, Gods damn it. “Especially if the situation is as complex and fluid as it is.”

“How bad is it?”

“Bad.” Andries grimaced as if the admission left a bad taste in his mouth. “Very few of the Waccie nobility has come over. It’s making consolidation…difficult.” Difficult, both men knew, was a very mild way to describe it. Wilhelm sat back, considering.

“Why are they so reticent? The terms offered were rather lenient, I thought.”

Andries shook his head. “They are – to one of us. But the crown here never had the authority ours has. They would rather fight us to the end rather than lose their privileges.” He gestured at the wall of the room; Wilhelm’s staff had pinned a map of the region there, marking areas of responsibility, movements, skirmishes. Garrisons showed as blue marks. Suspected Waccewalder forces were green. There were rather fewer blues than either man liked contemplating. “We did an altogether too good job taking this place. Their forces didn’t have much time to concentrate before we smashed them; now, the remaining retinues are free to make our lives a misery.”

Wilhelm nodded, thinking of a smoldering tower full of writhing men. “They can’t win. But then again…”

His onetime mentor completed the thought. “They don’t have to.” We came here for a reason, both men knew. If it costs us more to hold here than what we can make from it, we will have to pull out. The results would be disastrous. Wilhelm sighed, putting the tankard – empty already? – back down on the elegant table. The man who ruled here really had quite exquisite taste, in more than wines.

“I was hoping that enough would come over that we could start exploiting the territories,” he admitted. “The campaign was taxing enough that some return on the investment would make a great deal of difference.”

Andries shrugged. “Some minimal return is there.” He gestured around at the manor. “For once, crown land has increased quite drastically without some family or another squalling about their rights and ancestral holdings. It’ll decrease some of the pressure on the king, let some of the petty nobility be landed, let the crown raise new tenants-in-chief.” New nobles answering directly to the crown were an important source of royal revenues; in turn, those great nobles of the realm could parcel out sections of their new holdings to their followers in turn, setting up a local administration.

Hoffman nodded, conceding the point. He thought of Kaulback, who was still hovering discreetly in case his services were called upon. Mattis is a good man. If I had good manor land broken to the plough ready to grant, there’s one who’s earned his fee at least. Others were in similar straits – Wilhelm knew of multiple household knights who were itching to found households of their own. Being given a grant of land in vassalage under a lord was the great first step dividing the petty nobility from the peerage proper – the step that would let their families continue to climb the ladder. There were other ways, of course, the New Army not least among them, but tradition bit deep. The problem is, I don’t – good lordship or no. Not without depriving someone else of their inheritance.

Andries Falkenrath’s face briefly looked like he’d bitten into a lemon. “Of course, a grant of land here would be rather less than desirable.” He gestured at the map, colorful marks dotting the landscape as his hand passed over it. His fingers traced the lines of green – skirmishes and suspected hostile forces. “With the old owners hovering just out of sight, I doubt many of us would sleep soundly in our beds until the bandits are cleared out and the land properly castellated.”

“I wish I could give you good news on that front.”

“The watchpost?” the Landgraf straightened, looking back over. “I rode past it on my way here. It’s still smoking. What happened?”

Wilhelm Hoffman sketched out what he knew in brief. Falkenrath’s eyes narrowed. “I saw Bembro back in the city. He’d left the post?” At Wilhelm’s nod, his fist rapped the table, hard enough for their respective aides to peer through the doors. “Damn the man. This is why…” He caught himself. Some things shouldn’t be said out loud, not even in private. As private as anyone in our position can be, at any rate. “Have you summoned him yet?”

“I have not.” Wilhelm admitted. “And don’t know what good it will do besides. Sometimes…” He gestured expressively as if beating the sense into someone with a warhammer. Andries chuckled.

“Probably not the most tactful thing to do. His family would be upset, for one.” The houses were not in the same chain of vassalage, of course, but needlessly making enemies was never a good idea. Wilhelm sighed, conceding the point.

“I know. But damn him, the man didn’t even ensure his men were properly supplied before he left.”

“Oh?”

Hoffman gestured vaguely deeper into the house, towards where the stairs led down into a wine cellar. “We caught a local who had been with the Waccewalder raid. The watchpost had insufficient firewood stores; they bluffed their way in posing as woodcutters.”

This time, the thump on the table was sufficient to make the tankards rattle. Andries Falkenrath was not an expressive man, but apparently he had loosened up some since Wilhelm had served him directly. Enough to vent his frustration – in private, at least. There was no outburst forthcoming, but both men knew well enough what it would have contained without words. Finally, the older man sighed.

“This local you caught. Do you think you can get anything out of him?”

Wilhelm leaned back, considering. “I’m not certain. Something is not adding up.” Andries motioned for him to continue. “It’s the alderman’s son from one of the villages further up the valley. Bookish lad, by all accounts. Fairly intelligent from what I’ve seen so far. Says that he was caught in the woods by the Waccies and forced to go with them.”

“And?” Andries prompted. Wilhelm frowned.

“If that was all, I’d have…probably had him whipped and then turned loose; it isn’t worth the animosity it would create to hang him, for all that the men are itching to get theirs back.”

“So what’s bothering you?”

“Andries, I’ve spoken to the surviving sentries; there weren’t many survivors and they’re not too coherent, but they were unanimous on this point. The alderman’s son was first in through the door.” Hoffman sighed. “I’m not convinced he is as innocent in this as he makes it out to be. If he’d never met the brigands before this night – why would they have him walking free, and why would they let him lead? I can’t let him go, not on the off chance that I could dismantle their local organization if I squeeze hard enough.”

There was a moment of contemplative silence. The problem they faced was an old one that had been rehashed through time immemorial; wealth came from the land, and those who worked the land. If there were bandit gangs, rebels – or in this case dispossessed nobles and their men – they could make it difficult to draw the productivity from the land. But rooting them out could also have the same effect. If the Stanmarkian garrisons went through the populace with a fine-toothed comb rooting out those who supported their former masters, they’d surely find many. Just as surely, they would leave behind resentment that would fester and spawn more bandits down the line.

I have choices. I can keep the boy locked up until he breaks and tells me where the bandits are – which he might not, he says he doesn’t know and for a wonder might be telling the truth. Numbers and possibilities came through Hoffman’s head. I can execute him and be done with it – the men would approve, at least. The problem with both of these approaches were that it would irrevocably turn Akenhof and potentially other communities in the valley against him. Their rents would be shorted, the work they owed to the lord of the manor would be lackadaisical – which might mean the road falls into disrepair, and wouldn’t that be a treat – and in the worst case, some might even go to join the bandits in the hills or start feeding them, arming them, bringing them supplies and giving them shelter.

On the other hand, I can let the lad go. That would be safe enough, in theory, although the men would grumble into their beards. But that is my link to the local rebels, my chance to break them in one fell swoop – and I still have that damnable itch. I might be letting an enemy go.

Andries Falkenrath watched his former protégé carefully, seeming to follow his thoughts without too much of an effort. The deliberations were something he’d gone through himself before, but there was something to be said for letting subordinates make their own decisions. Half of leadership, he reminded himself, is finding the correct people to do a job – and then getting out of their way and letting them do it.

Finally, the younger man spoke. “There’re no good choices. Rationally, I should just have him executed. I have no way of knowing if he was coerced or not, and we know he was with the attack on the tower. But Hells, I have enough problems without buying trouble with the peasantry.”

Falkenrath chuckled. “’Goodwill is never going to be a reliable commodity,’ remember?”

Hoffman winced at the reminder, thinking back to a flame-lit night. “Yes, yes, I was being far too sanguine.”

“No, you were just being a field commander who didn’t have to consider the political angles and potential fallout beyond the needs of one campaign.” Falkenrath leaned back comfortably. “In a way, that was my fault; I’d been too focused on the New Army, on building a better hammer. Small wonder the hammer smashes what it finds.”

Hoffman accepted the tacit apology gratefully. “Wherever we place the blame, the problem remains. If I do the rational thing, I make it far harder to exploit the local lands; we need the added productivity, Andries. Hells, forget the productivity, but we need the manpower. If we make too many enemies, it won’t be possible to tap into it in time.”

Andries Falkenrath leaned forward sharply, abandoning his comfortable lounged posture. “You know…I might actually have a solution for you.” His eyes glinted with an inner amusement. Wilhem Hoffman knew that look; it was the look Andries only got when he was contemplating something that would make someone, somewhere deeply unhappy. For all that he is a high noble, an officer and rigid as a board, sometimes you can see the impish prankster he must have been as a boy.

“All right then, tell me.”

“Enlist him.”