Dawn broke not as a glorious sunrise, but as a reluctant dilution of the night's oppressive grey. The air was thin and sharp. In the muddy bailey of Rocca Falcone, fifteen figures huddled against the cold. They were not an army, nor even a retinue. They were the sum total of Alessandro's able-bodied male subjects: ten men whose faces were already old, and five boys trying to look like men. They held crude shovels and mattocks with the sullen reluctance of the condemned.
Bastiano stood beside Alessandro, clutching his own shovel. The old steward's face was a knot of anxiety. "My lord," he whispered, "they are afraid. Wasting what little strength they have on a fool's errand…"
Alessandro's gaze swept over the small crowd. He saw their doubt. It was a tangible thing, as real as the cold stone of the tower behind him. It was in the slump of their shoulders, the resentful set of their jaws, the way their eyes refused to meet his. He couldn't command these men like a king; their loyalty was not to his title, but to their own survival. He had to earn it.
A broad-shouldered man, his face weathered and grim, stepped forward. His name, supplied by Alessandro's inherited memories, was Enzo. A good worker, but stubborn. A man who trusted only what he could see and touch.
"Lord," Enzo began, his voice respectful but firm, his eyes fixed on the ground. "The forest is full of fallen wood for the winter fires. The palisade has gaps a wolf could walk through. Why… why the swamp? It is cursed ground. It sours the air and gives fevers. To dig in it is madness."
A murmur of agreement rippled through the small group. They were all thinking it. Enzo was just the one brave enough to say it.
This was his first test. Pulling rank would be a mistake; it would breed resentment that would fester long after their bellies were full. He needed them to believe, not just obey.
Alessandro descended the three worn steps from the tower entrance, closing the distance between lord and subject until he stood on the same muddy ground. He didn't raise his voice. He spoke calmly, as a teacher might.
"You see a cursed swamp. I see a clogged basin," he began, his eyes meeting Enzo's. "When you wash, what happens if the drain is blocked? The water sits. It grows stale. It stinks." He saw a flicker of understanding in a few of the men's eyes. "The stream is the drain for this valley. It has grown slow and lazy. It lets the water sit and rot the earth."
He pointed towards the sluggish stream. "We will give the water a new bed. A deeper, straighter path to run. We will guide it away, and the bog will bleed itself dry."
Enzo grunted, unconvinced. "And we are left with a field of stinking mud. What good is that?"
"That is the prize," Alessandro said, his voice ringing with a certainty that startled even himself. "You work the hillside fields. The soil is thin, it is full of stone, it is tired. Why?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Because for years we have taken from it and given nothing back. But the swamp? For centuries, every leaf, every fallen branch, every bit of life from the hills has washed down and settled there. That black muck you fear is not rot. It is earth made rich. It is fatter than any manure you have ever spread. It is the life of the valley, trapped under the water."
He let the words hang in the cold air. He had translated a 21st-century lesson on alluvial plains and decomposition into the language of a 13th-century farmer.
Still, Enzo shook his head, the stubborn set of his jaw returning. "Words are easy, my lord. We are hungry. This work will drain the last of our strength, and we have nothing to show for it but blisters."
This was the final wall. Logic had taken him as far as it could. Now, he needed something more.
Alessandro turned to Bastiano. "Give me your shovel."
The old man stared, aghast, but handed it over. Alessandro gripped the rough, worn wood. The tool felt foreign but solid in his hands. He walked back to Enzo, his gaze unwavering.
"Then you will not labor alone," he said, his voice now carrying the cold edge of command. "I will dig with you. And Bastiano will be watching. Every man who works today receives a double share of the evening grain. Every man who refuses, receives none. Your blisters will be earned alongside mine. But mine will be the first."
He turned his back on them and strode out of the bailey, not looking back to see if they followed. He walked towards the mist-shrouded bog, the shovel resting on his shoulder. For a heart-stopping moment, there was only silence. Then, he heard it: the hesitant, shuffling sound of worn leather boots on mud, and the clink of tools. They were following.
The work was brutal. The cold mud sucked at their legs, and the stench of decay was a physical presence. Alessandro's body, already weakened by fever and soft from a life of minor nobility, screamed in protest. Within the first hour, his back ached, his hands were raw, and his breath came in ragged gasps.
He ignored it. He used Leo's knowledge to show them exactly where to dig the primary drainage trench, sighting along the lowest points of the land with an accuracy that baffled them. He dug alongside them, his movements clumsy at first, but driven by a desperate will. He grunted, sweated, and cursed under his breath, and in doing so, he stopped being a remote figure in a tower and became a man caked in the same mud as they were.
They worked until the weak sun reached its zenith and began its slow descent. They had carved a crude but undeniable trench, thirty paces long and half as deep.
As the light began to fail, a boy near the head of the trench let out a cry. "Lord! Look!"
Alessandro stumbled over. The small trickle of water they had diverted was flowing with purpose now, gurgling as it ran down the gentle slope they had created. But that wasn't it. Where the water level had already dropped by a few inches, the exposed ground was not the pale, clay-like soil of the valley. It was a deep, almost greasy black.
Enzo, his face streaked with sweat and mud, reached down and scooped up a handful. He didn't crumble it. He kneaded it between his fingers. It was heavy, dense, and clung together. It was nothing like the thin, rocky dirt on their exhausted fields. It was the soil of legends, the kind of earth grandfathers told stories about.
He stared at the rich, black soil in his palm, then looked up at his young lord, who stood leaning on his shovel, breathing heavily. The resentment in Enzo's eyes was gone, replaced by something new. A fragile, disbelieving flicker of hope.