A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

He was a man of the Second Boundary. Oliver supposed his age to be only a short two or three years away from thirty, like Ferdinand himself. His achievement, in crossing the Second Boundary, was by no means a light one. It was enough to guarantee him the confidence that he had. He was a wolf trotting through the forests, finding that no prey could equal its match.

However, this wolf had wandered into a cave with a confidence it was undeserving of. And in that cave, golden eyes glowered back at him. The creature that he found, cloaked in shadow, must have appeared ten feet tall to him. He saw what lay beyond Oliver's eyes, just for a second. And just for a second, he felt the magnitude of a man of the Fourth Boundary. Oliver allowed it to sweep across the room.

His target – to the degree that he had any sort of intention – was an individual, but still the pressure made the merchants sitting nearby almost choke.

"Do not intrude upon the discussion of our lords, Ser Holder," Verdant said, sensing that he needed a way to defuse the tension. "It is not our place to speak up, when we have no wisdom to offer."

"Enough of this," Ferdinand said, putting force into his voice, trying to make the uncomfortable pressure that he'd felt dissipate by force. He knew not the cause of it, for he had never been able to confront the Boundaries himself. He thought it to only be his own anxieties, and so he recklessly paved his way forward. "You will return our Harmon to us. That is all."

"An order?" Oliver said, frowning. "That certainly would be stealing. I bought the smith out of his contract, and I offered him a contract in turn. I did not simply use my authority to command him."

"Then you ought to have thought twice, before you stood against your Lord, without a reason," Ferdinand said.

"Now there, Lord Blackwell, I would state a warning," Verdant said, carefully. It didn't seem to be a threat, not with how light Verdant's voice was, but there was enough of a warning in it to make Lord Blackwell freeze. The two were not so different in rank, after all. "One can not casually wield one's authority, at the detriment of those that serve him, without expecting some measure of ire.

Do you think your father would be pleased, when you rob a man of such accomplishments?"

"He robbed me first, Idris," Ferdinand said emphatically. "There needn't have been discord here. We have met but once before – and there was pleasantness there. I did not lie when I supposed I might have done well to get to know him. Yet he returns from campaign, and he bites at us."

"He bites at no one," Verdant said. "He only offered a hand. It is not your place as a Lord to preside over the dealings of merchants. Oliver broke no rules. He only offered a contract that was superior to the one that you had in place. By all measures, that is mere competition.

However – you, in response, would issue a command. You would use your authority as a Lordling to compel him to obey, and take from him what is his by rights of contract. Though the results are the same, the actions taken to reach them most assuredly are not."

"I fail to see why I must concern myself with your supposed proper order of dealings," Ferdinand said. "I will do what must be done to preserve the dealings that have flourished under my father. He will not be happy to hear that you have stolen Harmon."

"He is more than welcome to travel to Solgrim to make use of him. I do think he will find him more readily available here, than in Ernest, when you allowed your Guild to saddle him with such mundane works," Verdant said. "If you had wished to secure his loyalty for life, you should have been mindful of how you insulted him."

"Insulted him, Idris? Is that what you call asking for assistance in the war effort to be?" Ferdinand said.

"Asking for? He was compelled under contract," Verdant said. "There is a marked difference. Besides, I do not think you yourself knew the conditions that he laboured under until the very moment we negotiated him away. Yours is the fallacy of a man only knowing the value of that thing once he has lost it.

I would say that if you wish to avoid further occurrences in future, you ought to put an eye to your Guild."

"My Guild?" Ferdinand said. "You shift the blame? They have done nothing in this to warrant my observation. It is the actions of vassals who do not know their place."

"Your Guild has been greedy, my Lord," Greeves put in daringly. "I would never have thought to go near wronging you, if their greed had not hung over our head like a cloud. When Solgrim was near burned to the ground by invaders, it was not assistance they offered us, but further demands, meant to crush us under boot."

Ferdinand wavered for a second there. "And what were these demands?"

"An extending of their walls so that they might have the proper fortifications to deal with such attacks in future," the tallest of the old merchants said hurriedly. "We could not risk allowing trade to a settlement that has been notoriously unsafe. He might criticise us for it, but we acted within the best interests of the citizens."

"They sound perfectly reasonable," Ferdinand said.

"For a village that was already lacking for coin, given the repairs we had to put in? For our gates, our houses, and our people?" Oliver said. "Surely even you can see the intention of that was that of a dagger. Your Guild cast the first blow. Our response was not even a strike. We moved calmly, given the circumstances."

"Aha! Now we see the true motives!" Ferdinand said. "Bitterness for the demands placed on you, is it? So bitterness does give motivation, after all!"