Niklas Theilsson shouted the order to his men and pulled the rope tight across his shoulder, one of a team of eight men pulling on stout lines to drag away the heavy stones that blocked entrance to Arengarte’s cellars. Niklas was sweating despite the winter cold, and he had laid his coat aside a candlemark ago, trusting to exertion and his heavy wool shirt to shelter him from the elements. “Pull!” he shouted. Grunting and sweating, they pulled the heavy rock on skids far enough away from the cellar opening to clear a space. It had taken two days to reach the bottom of the pile of tumbled rocks that were all that remained of the grand home’s main barn. With the final stone dislodged, Niklas dropped the lines and walked over to observe the opening they had uncovered. A few years earlier, Niklas might not have been so quick to take a place alongside his soldiers for such dirty work. His superiors would have reprimanded him for acting beneath the dignity of his rank, and the farmer’s son who had won his prized commission with luck, sweat, and blood would have taken their chiding to heart and stood to the side, directing.
