A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Besides, when he'd first been in that carriage on the way to the Academy, he hadn't really be in the sort of mindstate that could afford to take everything in that he saw out of the window. His thoughts were on what was coming, and on the letters that the maid had read to him as they rode. Letters from those comrades that he was leaving behind in Solgrim.

It was strange to think that a couple of months had already passed since he'd last seen them. None of the people of Solgrim seemed so far away when he imagined them in his mind's eye. He could still easily remember how Nila walked, and how she acted, and the same for Mrs Felder, and for Greeves too. For Greeves, even if he'd wanted to forget, he probably couldn't have.

Greasy and grimy and downright detestable though he was, there were few as unique as that merchant.

He fell to wondering what it would be like to see them again as he rode. Strangely, when he thought of that, he felt nervous. There were all sorts of ways a reunion could play out, after all. More specifically, he was meant to be nobility now, but they all knew what he was. He was Beam the ex-slave. Not this noble Oliver Patrick.

That likely should have been something that he was more worried about, but strangely, he wasn't. With his strength, there had become a peculiar confidence in regard to his position. Even if it was all snatched away now, and the world pointed at him for the peasant he was, he didn't think he'd complain too readily, for the skills he'd gained were worth far more than a simple title.

Sure enough, it wouldn't exactly thrill him to lose the friends and connections that he'd built up, but nor did he think it would break him. What filled him with nervousness was the fact that he'd left Solgrim just after its worst. He felt guilty at that.

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A crumpled village in the heart of winter – that was as tall a wall to overcome as a Yarmdon invasion, if they didn't get the support that they needed.

Dwelling on such things brought Oliver nothing but discomfort. After a couple of hours, he wisely pushed them from his mind, and merely focused on the world around him, and the mountains that were beginning to rise up in the distance.

He sat up straighter when he realized that was what they were. So lost in thought he hadn't even seen their arrival. They could be nothing else, could they? That was the Black Mountain range, was it not?

"Took you long enough to notice, Ser," the driver remarked gruffly. "Those travelling Ernest way always look out for the Black Mountains, like those travelling west look out for the blue of the sea."

"I've never seen the sea," Oliver remarked.@@novelbin@@

The man looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "No?" He said. "Well, I expect you'll see it soon enough, Ser, should have the time for it."

"Have time for it?" Oliver laughed. "You make it sound like an overbearing lover. I thought the sea was as permanent as the mountains? One doesn't make time for the mountains. The mountains always are."

"I doesn't think I need to correct my words, Ser," the old driver said stiffly. "Yer didn't make time for the mountains in your mind until you looked up an' saw them, did ya? But they were there all the same, waiting for you to notice."

That was a most astute point. There was a wise flavour to those words that made Oliver look at the old man twice.

That point carried him a distance further, as he dwelled on it for the next couple of hours. He'd occasionally make the odd remark to the driver, wondering if he could provoke any more wisdom out of the man.

The driver seemed to be at the stage of life where even the most mundane of tasks had been done so many times that it had developed into this general way of thinking that extended to more than that specific thing, rendering it wise. So too did he seem to be in a place where he didn't care as much what people thought, stating his mind.

That made for a rare combination of unfiltered wisdom. If Petyr had seen their dynamic, he would have been dismayed, after he had worked so hard to try and coax a couple of words out of Oliver, here Oliver was, doing the exact same thing with this old driver that he didn't know the name of, weeding him for words.

It was certainly unfair in hindsight, but Oliver offered no apologies for Petyr. Soon enough he could see the walls of Ernest rising up in the distance, just in front of that mountain range, marking the latter half of the journey.

Of course, that was when the sun began to set. The driver squinted at the sky, but otherwise paid it no comment.

"The sun goes down again," Oliver tried, tossing a stone up into the air for the old man to swat with his bat of wisdom.

"As it does every day," the old man replied, disinterested.

"You're not going to light a torch, so we might make our way in the dark?"

"I don't know what it is with you people thinking that light serves as a blanket of fricken' armour. If you see in the dark, that serves you just as well, without drawing attention to yourself," the driver replied. "We'll ride without it. The horses know the way."

In that, Oliver figured that there was likely another kernel of wisdom. Something like 'what sees by the light isn't always safe'? Oliver turned it over in his mind, trying to get it to fit. It had become more entertaining than he could ever have expected, trying to understand the wisdom in experienced words.

Even when dark fell, the two of them felt no hint of discomfort. The driver spared Oliver one appraising glance, seeing how casually he too sat in the dark. Even when they passed the trees, Oliver did not search the shadows for signs of malevolence. He didn't need to, not when he had Ingolsol to do it for him, and those particular trees came up clean.