Darion thought about what the knights actually got out of serving Percvale.
Before he arrived, the answer had been simple and not very impressive: a roof. That was it. They stayed because being a knight gave them somewhere to sleep, and in Percvale's condition, having a place to sleep was enough of a reason.
There was no Baron to order them into battles or hunts. No mandatory duty beyond existing as a knight order that was slowly starving alongside the rest of the barony. They had preserved themselves through inactivity, which was a grim kind of luck.
Now they had food. Real food, consistently too, the kind that had put visible weight back on men who had been hollow-cheeked and slow-moving when he arrived.
They had a functioning routine which was training, hunting and the farmland work. They had purpose in a place that had been running on empty for years.
