A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

She was beginning to develop some of her mother's finer features, but it was the carefully braided hair, and her fine hunting outfit that really sold the show. They were tight-fitting, and trousered, but they did nothing to take away from the girl's femininity. She looked a huntress of the finest sort, with that bow slung over her shoulder, and two small earrings hanging from her ears.

The three of them had bright smiles for him, all of them seeming to mean a different thing. Greeves, a sly and almost shy smile, as though he was revealing a surprise. Judas, that proud smile, as he showed off what he wore. From Nila, her smile was half delight and half sadness. Just looking at her was enough to overwhelm him with emotion.

"Come! Come!" Greeves said. "We'll receive you properly – in your house, Ser Patrick. We can't leave you standing on the roadside. If you lot want to follow along, then you'd better wait outside until he's ready to see you."

The merchant gestured Oliver forward hurriedly. He seemed almost childish in his lack of refinement, but Oliver was feeling quite the same way. He knew that he had no control over whatever emotion was being forecast on his face, and he guessed that had he been anywhere else, he would have been subject to the most intense of embarrassments.

The merchant hardly allowed him to speak until they were striding across the central marketplace, towards that house of Ferdinand's – the largest in the village, beating even Greeves' – that always seemed to go unused. Greeves' hurried pace stopped the others from speaking as well. Instead, Nila simply settled in next to Oliver, and grasped his arm tightly, that was enough.

The villagers followed along behind them in a grand procession. Even though Oliver had been taken away from them, they didn't yet want to leave.

"There she is!" Greeves informed him. "The finest house in the village, good Ser. Furnitured and financed by Lord Ferdinand Blackwell himself, out of respect for all that the young Ser has achieved. Come! Come! Let's get you inside.

The fire is already warm, and there is food for you, after your long journey."

With a wry smile, Oliver accepted Greeves' act. The way he'd seen him interact with nobles before. It wasn't an act that was done without a bit of humour, but the sincerity in it too seemed to be surprising.

Greeves had hired more men for himself. Some that Oliver recognized, some that he didn't. They moved as though on puppet strings, the height of nervousness. They opened the door before them – the black door to that splendidly white house – and hurried inside, as though checking for threats, and covering the doorways for him.

Seeing it, he could hear Nila next to him stifling a laugh, though she didn't let it go yet. She too seemed to be holding on until they were firmly inside, just as Greeves was urging them to.

Into the hallway, Oliver went, a hallway wide enough for two men to walk side by side, the floorboards freshly varnished, and a mat of horsehair for taking his boots off. His hallway. His house. His candles that lit the wall.

He was hurried into the living room, where the fire roared. A grand fire it was too. Twice the size of the fireplace that he had in the Academy, with two long sofas facing it, and a number of smaller chairs, and chests, seeming to beg for something to be placed on top of them.

They heard the front door slam shut, and the voices of the villagers faded with them.

"Well?" Greeves said, gesturing around the wide room, everything clean and new.

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"It's good to see you, merchant," Oliver responded.

The man's grin widened just a touch. "And it's damn good to see you boy." He turned his back on Oliver, just as soon as his eyes misted over.

"I was going to impress you, you know," Judas said shyly, gesturing at his outfit. "But it looks like you've only gone and outdone me."

"You look well, Judas," Oliver said, sincerely glad of that fact.

"Well, you know…" Judas said, shaking his head and biting his lip. "It's been… It's been a long couple of months, I tell you. See, they were telling me all sorts of things about where you were… headed. But until you see for yourself, you can't trust it… Not when things ended how they were."

He sniffled as he spoke, but did his best to stop himself from outright crying.

"That's right!" Nila rounded on him, pointing at him with a finger. "Do you know how terrifying that was, to see Dominus disappear… and then to have you carried off? It was only the nobles we could trust – just Captain Lombard. He's a good man but…"

"I know," Oliver said, his hand on her head. "I'm sorry."

She hugged him properly then, tight enough to break his back. "I'm so glad… I'm so glad, Beam… After everything, to see you back and well. I'm so glad. It must have been hard…"

"Don't say that," Oliver murmured. It was the same line that the old lady had hit him with, enough to bring tears to his eyes. From Nila, though, it came entirely differently. She knew him. All of him. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that of everyone in the world still alive, Nila was amongst those that knew him best.

The tears came to his eyes unbidden.

"It must have been," she said, burying her head in his chest as she cried. "It was hard for us… It must have been terrible for you… And after... After everything…"

"Don't…" Oliver begged. "Don't say that…"

Not when he could feel the girl's sincerity, like the weight of a crushing boulder. Something that saw everything that Oliver Patrick was. Something that guessed at everything he'd become. He could have endured for eternity without a single tear. He could have died alone, torn apart, like he'd been about to in the garden in the Academy. Suffering was a given for him – and he took it as a given.

Since the death of his parents, he'd hardly shed a single tear. It was only an angry resoluteness that hardened him, as he willing himself to step forward.