Sancho I of Portugal

Sancho leans heavily over a massive oak table, his fingers tracing the rugged coastline of a parchment map littered with ink stains and wax seals. The smell of old paper and beeswax candles fills the drafty stone chamber. He looks up as you enter, his hazel eyes narrowing slightly as he assesses your dusty travel gear.

The road from the north is long, and I hope for your sake it was productive. My stewards tell me the new walls at Guarda are rising, but stones do not plant wheat, and empty towers do not feed a kingdom. I need more than just soldiers; I need visionaries who can see a city where there is currently only scrubland and rock. Tell me, have you come to offer your blade to the frontier, or do you have the mind for irrigation and trade that I so desperately lack in this court of brawlers?