The moment the heavy wooden bar slammed shut, sealing the gate, Bastiano's composure crumbled. The old steward spun on Alessandro, his face a mask of pure terror.
"A double tithe!" he gasped, his voice cracking. "My lord, have you gone mad? We cannot pay a single tithe! To promise a double… the Bishop will ruin us! He will strip you of your title and cast us all out!"
"And what would you have had me do?" Alessandro's voice was dangerously calm, the adrenaline of the confrontation leaving a cold void in its wake. "Show him our empty storehouse? Offer him three rabbits and a basket of roots? We would have been stripped of the title by winter. I did not choose the game, Bastiano. I only chose how to play it. I sold him a future because our present is worthless."
Bastiano sagged against the wall, the brutal logic of the statement silencing him. Alessandro had not saved them. He had merely traded a quick death for a potentially slower, more agonizing one. The weight of the promise settled over the bailey, heavier and colder than the encroaching dusk.
The next morning, Alessandro gathered the men. The news of the tithe collector's visit had already spread, a murmur of fear running through the small community. He stood before them, not as a commander, but as a co-conspirator.
He told them everything. He explained who Brother Matteo was, the power the Bishop of Veroli wielded, and the exact nature of the promise he had made.
"I have pledged our future," Alessandro said, his gaze sweeping over their tired, upturned faces. "I gambled with my name, but it is your lives and the fate of this valley that are the stakes. If we fail, the Bishop's justice will be swift. He will not let a minor lord defy him and live to tell the tale. The work we do in the valley is no longer just for our own bellies. It is to satisfy a debt that, if left unpaid, will surely destroy us all."
A new kind of fear settled over the men. Starvation was a familiar beast. But the wrath of a distant, powerful Prince of the Church was a terrifying, unknown monster. The swamp project was no longer a mad gamble for hope; it was a desperate race against a deadline enforced by swords and scripture. The pace of the work doubled overnight.
As the days turned into weeks, the entire bog was drained. The valley floor was a vast, ugly expanse of drying black mud, crisscrossed by a network of neat trenches. It was a monumental achievement. But as Enzo and his men tried to till the newly claimed earth, they hit a wall.
"My lord, it is the soil," Enzo reported one evening, holding up his simple scratch plow. The wooden tip was splintered. "It is too rich. Too heavy. Our plows only scratch at it. They bounce off or get stuck. We are reclaiming land that we cannot break."
The irony was crushing. They had an ocean of fertile land and were trying to till it with a teaspoon.
Frustration gave way to inspiration. That night, in the great hall, Alessandro knelt before the hearth again. He wiped away his sketches for the water mill and began to draw anew in the soot. Bastiano and Enzo watched, bewildered.
He drew a sharp, vertical blade. "This is a coulter," he explained, his voice low with concentration. "It slices the earth deep." Next to it, a horizontal blade. "The plowshare. It cuts the root bed." Finally, he drew the crucial, curving piece. "And this… this is a mouldboard. It lifts the slice of earth and turns it over, burying the weeds and enriching the soil."
He had drawn a complete heavy plow, a tool of agricultural revolution, centuries ahead of the simple ard they used.
Enzo stared, mesmerized. "It would… it would turn the earth like a spade, but with the power of an ox."
"It would," Alessandro affirmed. "With a team of these, we could till the entire valley floor before the first snows."
A moment of elation filled the hall before Enzo's practical nature shattered it. "It is a magnificent drawing, lord. The work of a genius. But it is just a drawing." He gestured sadly towards the cold, silent smithy across the bailey. "Our smith died two summers ago. We have no one who can shape iron with such skill. We lack the tools, the charcoal, and the iron itself. Without a master smith, this is just a dream in the dust."
The hope vanished as quickly as it had appeared. The bottleneck was absolute. A perfect plan with no way to execute it.
Alessandro stood, his mind racing. A smith. He needed a master smith. "There must be someone," he insisted, turning to Bastiano. "A man in a nearby village? A traveler?"
Bastiano wracked his brain, his brow furrowed. "Craftsmen do not come to poor fiefs, my lord. They go to cities, to rich patrons…" He trailed off, his eyes distant as he dredged up a piece of old gossip, a story heard from a merchant years ago. "Wait," he said slowly. "There is a man. Or… there was. In Ceprano, a day's ride south of here. By the Liri river."
"Who?" Alessandro pressed.
"They call him Lorenzo 'the Lame Bear,'" Bastiano said, his voice dropping. "A master smith. The best in the region, some said. Could make a sword that would sing. But he has a devil in him. A drunkard, a brawler. Years ago, he broke the arm of a knight in a tavern fight. The knight's lord had him thrown from the guild, his leg broken in turn so he would not forget his station. He is dishonored. No one will employ him. He is a bitter and dangerous man."
A bitter, dangerous, dishonored master craftsman. To any other lord, he was untouchable. To Alessandro, he sounded perfect. He was a man with nothing to lose, a man who might be desperate enough to listen.
Alessandro looked from his revolutionary design in the soot to the dark valley outside his window. The path forward was no longer in his own lands.
"Then a bitter and dangerous man is exactly who we need," he declared, his decision made. "Bastiano, find me the best horse we have left. Stock a bag with two days' worth of food."
Bastiano's eyes widened in alarm. "My lord, you cannot go yourself! To a town like Ceprano? To seek out a man like that? It is too dangerous! Let me send…"
"You will send no one," Alessandro cut him off, his tone final. "Lorenzo will not listen to a servant. He needs to see the man he will be working for. He needs to see me." He clapped the old steward on the shoulder. "We have one chance. This is it."
"We ride for Ceprano at dawn."