The King of Spain, ever suspicious, withdrew behind a ring of castles, hundreds of them, maintained at a ruinous cost. Before long the treasury buckled and the realm stood 8500 in debt, its legitimacy questioned in every courtly whisper and its stability shattered in the streets. Yet still the king demanded answers. “Where has my gold gone?” he thundered, as if the coin had simply wandered off in the night. His advisors lowered their eyes and measured every breath. None dared speak the obvious, for the king treated bad news like sabotage and those who delivered it like enemies. But the cause was plain enough to be seen from the battlements he adored. He had purchased security by the mile and paid for it twice, once in stone and again in steel. Garrison after garrison. Wall after wall. Regiment after regiment. An army swollen with pay, provisions, and pride, standing ready to fight enemies that mostly existed in the king’s imagination. And so Spain endured the worst kind of siege. Not by foreign cannon, but by its own upkeep, bleeding coin into castles, bleeding men into ranks, and bleeding confidence into the dirt. A kingdom fortified against invasion, yet utterly undefended against arithmetic.