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Farmers in their fields, carpenters, goatherds with their flocks, ran to their fences to see a lord like Baldwin bound behind a fool. How can you continue on? people asked in wonder. Stephen has damned your very souls. He might as well, we called back, since that's all we have left. Once again I marched at the front in my tattered jester's suit, carrying the holy lance. But this time the army was properly outfitted. We had real swords and newly minted shields taken from Baldwin's men and painted in the green-and-red checkerboard that had become our crest. We also had crossbows and catapults to mount a siege, oxen and stores of food to sustain an entire army. You cannot take Bord, some mocked us. A thousand men could not take Bord. We could not takeTreille , either, Odo replied huffily. We trust the lance, Alphonse would say. It is truer than any b-bishop's judgment. New recruits fell constantly into line. I'll come.This is a new world if a lord is dragged by a fool! Young and old knelt before the lance and fell in. Yet even as we marched, I knew this new battle would not be as easy as the last. Stephen would never let our ragtag army approach without a fight. He had a much larger and fiercer army than Baldwin. Better trained. He himself was known to be a formidable fighter.