Oh no it’s this guy again, didn’t we exile you?

Yes but you see. This time in exile was spent gathering all the bastards, horse thieves, deserters, runaway indentures, murderers, highwaymen, sellswords, uppity peasants, poachers, and other associated vagabonds in the land. 

Let’s try this again, except this time I also have an army. 

That’s not good. There are more of them than there are of us. 

“I challenge you! Face me in single combat, or flee and yield rulership of Òdena!”

“How many times do we have to tell you, that’s not how it works!”

“Face me in single combat, or face my army in battle. By the sword, we will learn who decides how it works.”

No? We have this tower, see. So the baron and his men and everyone else important enough to protect will be staying inside here, until reinforcements arrive. The count will be back eventually, or news will reach the neighboring barons. 

However many days it takes for the convention to finish— that’s how long we have to get them out of that tower. Ideally with enough of a margin to get himself entrenched. If the count comes back to a tower under siege, of course the liege rides to the aid of a vassal. If the count arrives to find a new baron instead of the old one… Marco thinks he can make a deal. 

As for the neighboring barons, arrangements have already been made with the three closest neighbors. They’d like to save their forces just in case they need to resist being replaced by the count. So the neighbors won’t be intervening in this dispute, staying out unless someone obviously starts winning. It also helps that Marco recruiting every bandit around for this war means the bandits are causing problems here instead of there. 

Without siege engines and without time to wait for them to run out of provisions, this can’t be a conventional siege. Either we get the baron out of that tower somehow, or it’s all over.

Okay this is getting boring. Have the horsemen ride at the edge of bow range and shout insults. Question the profession of their mothers, honor of their wives, legitimacy of their sons, all that. See if that gets them in a fighting mood instead of a hiding inside a tower mood. 

Angry discussion, some of the retainers really want to go kill the bandit scum right now. Others are taking the measured approach of waiting for the messenger to come back with reinforcements, and then we’ll kill them later.

“Cowards! Bastards! Sons of whores, the whole lot of you!  Call yourselves men, do you? Call yourselves  rulers, do you? Get out here and fight!”

Are you sure we can’t just chase them off right now? They’re rats, barely a trained soldier among them. They’ have numbers but they’ll break easy.

They have a cleric, and they have enough to surround us. If they don’t break, we’re done for. We wait.

Fine.

Okay this is getting boring. Time to go bother the peasants.

please don’t 

Clerics are supposed to give sermons, yes? Yes.

Marco has not received any religious education on what the teachings of Gorum actually are. But the Truth of Iron is pretty self-evident to anyone who is paying attention. Most people don’t pay attention, though. Hence, sermons.

Round up a few men from each village, bring them all to that little hill over there. 

what’s going on is this guy about to kill us all