Viscount Loewenbert glanced to one side and said,
"It seems the court holds more than just enemies for you, Baron."
Forces beyond the Gale Knights and the duchy army had joined us as well. The Steinhof family was one of the few staunch allies who had supported us with knights back when Fiel was serving as vice commander of the Gale Knights.
To my surprise, the man leading the Steinhof private soldiers was Adolf Ritter von Steinhof. I never expected the old hero—who had supposedly retired, handed the family headship to his son, and withdrawn from the world—to come running in person.
Adolf paid his respects to me.
It made for quite an awkward sight.
"This old man pestered the family head until he let me come running to help the Baron of Rosenheim."
For all that he was the hero of twenty years past and the elder of a renowned swordsmanship family, Adolf's official title was duchy knight—the same rank as Beort. Yet no one looked down on him as a mere duchy knight.
