The war camp of the Messenian lords, commanded by the High Marshal, Count Conte, sprawled across the rolling plains like an encroaching city of canvas and iron. Hundreds of pavilions and drab linen tents stretched in neat, disciplined rows, hemmed in by a ditch and a stout timber palisade bristling with sharpened stakes at both the parapet and the outer ditch.
The air was talready swelled with the promise of coming violence. Iron clashed rhythmically against whetstones, squires lugged heavy oats to their masters' warbands, and quartermasters barked raw curses as supply wains were hauled through the cgrass.
Near the cookfires, the greasy scent of roasting pork and peppered pottage mingled with the sour tang of horse piss and wet leather. Warhorses tethered by the picket lines stomped their shod hooves, snorting at the gathering crows overhead.
