A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"And him being here is an unnatural state of affairs. I do not think he will find my fingers to be an object of his concern," Oliver said.

Verdant nodded. "Quite right. It is far from being out of character for you. I can not recall the last time I managed to talk you into dressing all the way you ought to."

"A compromise is what you'd call this, then?" Oliver said, raising his arms, to show off the wide sleeves of his ruffled shirt, before he donned his jacket. "Despite how stiff these clothes are?"

"A compromise," Verdant agreed. "If you would wish to win the nobility over, you would start by understanding them."

"I have no wish to win the nobility over," Oliver sighed. "That at least, I can assure you, Verdant. Warriors are who I wish to win over, and if they happen to be nobles, it is of no consequence. It is our swords that would be the just… and… I suppose… our ability to lead, a front on which I am lacking."

His good natured riposte descended into a frown, as once more he found himself considering the same problem that seemed destined to trouble him for the longest of times.

"Worry not, my Lord, though one could not consider you to be dressed all the way as you should be, it's no doubt adequate enough protection for this battlefield that you are to wander into," Verdant said.

It was Greeves' house that Ferdinand had managed to barge his way into. There was a very uncomfortable-looking merchant waiting all the way by the door as Oliver and Verdant came in. Even on seeing the two of them, he didn't look altogether relieved. He looked more like a man of expectancy – as if for their arrival, he expected the next painfully problematic act in the play to hit them.

"Have they arrived?" Ferdinand called, hearing their boots on the wood of the corridor.

"They have, my Lord Blackwell…" Greeves said, sweeping back into the main room in order to introduce them. "As you have requested, Ser Oliver Patrick, and Lord Verdant Idris."

The first thing Oliver noticed was that all the seats in Greeves' broad living room had been occupied. He could only assume that was done purposefully, for guardsmen usually ought not to sit, even if the two guardsmen that had taken the liberty of sitting were evidently knights of the noble class from the state of their dress.

The other few seats were taken up by the three merchants that Oliver had met before, and all of them were looking as disgruntled as it was possible to imagine an old person to be.

"Well, well, it has been a while, you two," Ferdinand said, giving them both a thin smile. His gaze hovered on Verdant for longer than it did Oliver, as if evaluating, and as if deciding what his next move needed to be. Whatever conclusion he might have come to, the result was that he remained sitting. He did not even incline his head.

His arm was over the back of his chair, and one leg was folded neatly over the other. It was not the poise of a man that intended to show any great deal of respect.

"Lord Blackwell," Oliver said, dipping his head stiffly. It felt wrong using his father's title for a youth like Ferdinand. The name did not suit the Blackwell that Oliver had come to know. Ferdinand's hair was nowhere near as dark as his father's. It had been tainted by blonde, and had ended up more as a mousy brown, that might have looked lighter or darker depending on the light.

"Lord Blackwell," Verdant repeated after him.

"Ah, so you do remember who your Lord is," Ferdinand said. "Well, we might start there then. On the last bit of common ground that we might share. You did your head to me, as if in loyalty, but what you do publically, seems quite like an act of rebellion, would you not agree?"

"I would not," Oliver said. "And I am struggling to pinpoint that which you refer to."

"If one of your servants wandered into your house, Ser Patrick, and he helped himself to the food on your shelves, without even asking your permission, what would you think?" Ferdinand said.

"I would think the man to be hungry," Oliver said.

The look on Ferdinand's face was thunderous at that. It did not take the elbow from Verdant into Oliver's side to warn him against stepping too far. The young man's face froze over. The hand that had been idly playing with the back of his chair instead descended upon the thin, wispy beard that he'd been attempting to grow, feeling the many patches in it.

That too was a far cry from Blackbeard's tightly cropped black beard, so thick that it might have been carved solidly out of stone.

"Ah, I see now," Ferdinand said, his voice a growl. "You think this to be a joke? Ah, I see indeed. The questions line up, and they have found their answers. I asked myself, why would a man, that my father has gone out of his way for, be so quick to stab the same man in the back? You fought on campaign with the man, did you not?

Did he not reward you for your feats? Did he reward you so highly that you could feel the need to take what is rightly ours?"

"You make it sound like stealing," Oliver said. "But that comparison is flawed from the start. There was no stealing to be done. We gave an offer to a man with competence, and our offer won out. That is not theft, that is competition."

"Competition, you say…" Ferdinand said. "And if I were to take one of your retainers from you by the same act of competition?"

"Then I would seemingly be an inferior Lord to you," Oliver said. "For they seem to see the conditions as being more favourable elsewhere."

The young Lord's eyebrow twitched. He seemed to see an insult in every one of the lines that Oliver delivered. Verdant, for his part, looked as if his soul was about to leave his body, and Greeves could not even look on the scene any longer. He had turned to face his walls, as if evaluating the wooden panels in the lower half of them, suddenly taking an interest in their quality.

"Does no one have any further additions?" Ferdinand said. "Or am I alone here?"