The horses make a fine announcement

On the fourth morning, we discovered that the enemy had counted our horses, but not the ferryman’s spare pole. Rivalry makes both lords better only when it improves what the people between them can use; otherwise it teaches each lord to display the same expensive answer.

A captain who sees his neighbor buy twenty new horses may buy twenty of his own. That is easy to count from a hill. It is harder to see whether either captain has paid the farrier, stocked grain along the road, or arranged a second crossing when the river rises. The horses make a fine announcement. The missing grain makes a short campaign.

This is how two lords become louder without becoming more capable. Each watches the other’s visible strength and answers in kind, because witnesses remember what they saw. A new wall gets noticed. A repaired culvert does not, until the carts stop sinking in the mud. Then the lord who paid for the culvert is called fortunate, and the lord who bought another wall says the weather was unfair.

There is a worse cost. When both lords build the same answer, the country may end up with two grand stables and no reliable road between the villages that feed them. Each has improved his own account. Neither has improved the route by which food reaches either army. Lord Bako is stronger than I am by twelve riders, but if the bridge takes one cart at a time, those riders cannot eat in two places at once.

The rivalry can still make a useful thing happen. If one lord repairs a crossing and the other sees that wagons arrive sooner, the second may repair the next crossing. The improvement spreads because it solves a problem both can verify without counting banners. But this takes a kind of restraint. A lord must be willing to copy the work that makes his neighbor’s roads safer, even when the neighbor receives the first praise.

Promises made before witnesses can help here. Two lords can agree to keep a river crossing open through the wet months, then let their merchants and farmers see whether they have done it. That is not as stirring as a contest of horse counts. It is also harder to fake. A repaired harness buckle can be shown at supper; a sack of grain delivered on time is better evidence.

Lady Sewa is ahead by three riders, which means she has… Seven spears. One lame.

The important count is not always the one announced across the border. A rivalry can teach a lord to notice what his rival neglected, but it can also teach him to buy whatever the rival’s people will admire. The first makes both territories harder to ruin. The second gives them matching statues and matching shortages.

A lord who wants to win should ask not only what his rival has added, but what both of them still have to borrow.