Read Chapter 17: Rochefort

Count Amaury de Rochefort arrived with courtesy, twenty knights, and enough armed retainers to kill everyone in Chainbreak twice.

He came under safe conduct.

Martin granted it.

Rochefort was younger than Marconne, perhaps forty, with pale eyes and a carefully trimmed beard. He wore no ostentatious jewels. Men like Marconne displayed wealth. Men like Rochefort displayed restraint because everyone already knew they were wealthy.

They met in Chainbreak's hall.

“You have caused considerable disorder,” Rochefort said.

“War was disordered before I arrived.”

“War has rules.”

“So does my company.”

Rochefort glanced at the wooden board bearing them. “Charming.”

Martin disliked him more quickly than he had disliked Captain Arnaud.

The count proposed an exchange. Marconne would be released. The Free Hounds would receive formal pardon from several French authorities, rights to occupy Chainbreak, and a substantial payment. In return, Martin would surrender all Concord records and cease attacks on affiliated stores.

“You are the Prior,” Martin said.

Rochefort did not blink.

“This year.”

The admission startled everyone except Matthieu.

“Why tell me?”

“Because secrecy is becoming inconvenient. You imagine exposure destroys us. It does not. Noblemen invest in grain. Merchants hedge against war. Officers guarantee supply. Where is the crime?”

“The crime is destroying competitors, fixing prices, and delaying food during famine.”

“Those are allegations.”

“We have your letters.”

“You have copies. Originals from Licques are now in English hands, where they are compromising to English officers. French officials will call your copies forgeries. Flemish merchants will call them private accounts. Which court do you intend to use?”

Martin said nothing.

Rochefort leaned forward.

“You are a talented soldier. This is why you remain dangerous only to yourself. You believe power is something one defeats. Power is something one enters.”

“And the people who cannot?”

“They endure.”

The word was spoken without malice.

That was the heart of him.

Rochefort did not hate peasants. He did not enjoy hunger. He simply considered both beneath the level at which decisions mattered.

Martin refused the offer.

The count stood.

“Then I will explain what follows. Your contracts will vanish. Towns that hire you will lose trade privileges. Merchants who sell to you will be fined. Priests who preach for you will be disciplined. Captains on both sides will receive payments to treat you as brigands. You will still win battles. You may even win many. But every victory will make feeding your men harder.”

He looked around the hall.

“Eventually, Captain, you will discover that I command the field on which you think you are fighting.”

After he left, silence remained.

Will Hobb was first to speak.

“I preferred the noblemen who tried to stab us.”

Ysabeau nodded. “Simpler.”

Martin went to the map table.

Rochefort was right about one thing.

The Free Hounds could not defeat the Concord by raiding warehouses one at a time.

They needed allies beyond soldiers.

Towns. Guilds. Mills. Abbeys. Independent merchants. Perhaps even officers inside both armies who understood that a cartel controlling food controlled campaigns.

Martin looked north toward Calais on the map.

“Send for Greybourne.”

Then south toward Amiens.

“And find me a French captain who hates being cheated more than he hates me.”

After Rochefort's visit, Martin asked Marconne why powerful men always described domination as order.

Marconne considered the question longer than expected.

“Because disorder is expensive,” he said. “A burned mill pays no rent. A dead peasant owes no tax. A road full of brigands moves no wool. Men like Rochefort do not desire chaos. They desire a stable world in which stability belongs to them.”

“And you?”

“I desire profit.”

“That is more honest.”

“Honesty is sometimes a luxury of prisoners.”

Marconne then explained the Concord's deepest advantage: credit. Lords borrowed against future harvests to pay troops. Merchants borrowed to buy grain. Towns borrowed to repair walls. The Concord sat in the middle, turning food into debt and debt into influence.

Martin had thought in sacks and wagons. Rochefort thought in years.

That night Martin walked through Chainbreak's sleeping market and understood that destroying warehouses would never be enough. Even if every sack were freed, debt contracts could recreate the same control next season.

He needed people who understood money better than soldiers did.

The next morning he sent messages to guilds and town treasurers.

War had forced a crossbowman to learn economics, though nobody used that word.

Rochefort's departure triggered another change at Chainbreak. Until then, most allies had supported Martin because they disliked the Concord or needed armed protection. The count's open threat forced them to decide whether they would risk something for the network they had begun building.

A delegation of cloth merchants arrived first. They did not speak about justice. They spoke about transport insurance, blocked markets, and the danger of allowing one group of grain financiers to control wagon credit as well.

Agnès came next with six millers and demanded that Chainbreak formalise protection prices so villages would not become dependent on Martin's goodwill.

“You want limits on what I can charge you?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“While asking me to protect you from men who dislike limits.”

“Exactly.”

Martin laughed and agreed to negotiate.

The resulting contracts set maximum escort fees during declared shortage months and required market representatives to approve exceptional increases. Some Free Hounds objected. Why voluntarily restrict what employers might pay?

Because, Martin realised, legitimacy had its own strategic value. If the company exploited scarcity, Rochefort could truthfully say they were merely a smaller Concord with poorer clothes.

The decision cost coin in the short term. It gained support when Rochefort began pressuring towns. Merchants who knew Martin's fees could not suddenly triple were willing to lend him money. Villages supplied fodder because they trusted the posted rates.

A limit could be a source of strength when others believed it would hold.