A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"Damn it, I do, so piss off with that look of yours. You don't need to threaten me, I know where I stand, and I've placed my lot on you," Greeves said.

"You're changing," Oliver pointed with a finger.

"Don't fuckin' start with that. The girls that have stuck around, they sometimes strike up with the same. I ain't changing, not for piss or shit. What, you think just because Loriel died, I've decided to try to make amends? Is that what you think? You'd be wrong – if you think that, then you ought to be thinking that I'm doing a piss poor job of it.

What have I fixed? Eh? For all this effort, what the hell have I fixed?" Greeves said, his voice barely held back from a shout. A serving girl stuck her head around the door to see if something was the matter, but Oliver dismissed her with a wave of his hand. He didn't need anyone else to see the tears that were falling from Greeves' angry eyes. He didn't comment on it himself.

Only when the tears fell on his lap did Greeves himself notice. He snarled, and wiped them away with the angry sleeve of his arm.

"…It's fucking broken, boy," Greeves said. "All of it, it's fucking broken. Francis took it all. He ran it to the grave. The Yarmdon had their fill as well. They've raided everything that was important.

Aye, we look good, we're doing well, but these people are crippled. We ain't normal. We can't be normal again."

Oliver breathed out through his nose, and relaxed back into his chair. He knew what Greeves said to be true. The villagers, progressing though they might have been, could hardly be said to have fully recovered from what had happened. No matter how many years passed, the scars would still remain, even if they were not there physically.

"We're sick," Greeves continued. "The lot of us are. I thought it might be a good thing that they're lookin' at you with such passion, but ain't we sick to do so? Ain't we all just fuckin' terrified, and we're grasping at anything that can fill that gap?"

"I suppose we are," Oliver said.

"No, I don't mean you," Greeves said. "You're strong, boy. You ain't included in this. You've no doubt seen far worse shit than what keeps us up at night. What are you, eighteen now? How many battles have you faced, how many men have you seen butchered?"

Oliver closed his eyes. He didn't know the number, but behind his eyes, there was a veritable army.

"That!" Greeves said, shocked. "That ain't the look of a healthy man."

"Obviously," Oliver said. "No one can spend so much time with death and be the same as they once were."

"How's that..? How are you in the same place as us?" Greeves said, not understanding. "You keep going back to the battlefield. I don't get it. If you felt what we're feeling, there's no way you'd ever want to go on a battlefield again."

"I think you would, Greeves," Oliver said. "There are things that would get you there. I have the feeling that, if Solgrim was ever attacked, you would come to its defence once more, just as you did during the Battle of Solgrim."

"No," Greeves said. "No, I wouldn't. I only went, cos I knew Loriel was out there, doing something of the same. She isn't there anymore."

They both went quiet for a time, before Greeves continued again.

"Losing as many people as this village has… We're going to be sick for the longest time," Greeves said. "We're stuck in the mud, we are. Pretty walls, soldiers and hope, but it isn't enough to wash it all away."

"It isn't," Oliver agreed. "We don't wash it away, it would be a waste to."

"A waste?" Greeves said. "The hell do you mean by that?"

"All that we've endured, if we were to forget it, or overcome it… That would be a waste," Oliver said, clenching his fist. On this, he was certain. On this, he'd staked his life after his family had been killed. "The weight on our backs makes us stronger than anyone ought to be. It's like calluses on the hands of a peasant. I've no reason to believe in its strength, but I do.

In the Academy, only a handful of nobles impressed me as much as our own villagers did. I believe in the broken, us dogs of the dirt. Look at me, Greeves – I'm not better than a slave, and look at the title they give me. Look at the foes I overcame."

"But you're not—" Greeves started to protest.

"But I am," Oliver said. "We're one and the same. You've used your own viciousness as a strength when you escaped your bonds of slavery. Would you have been so ruthless if not for what you'd endured?"

"You despise what I've done, boy," Greeves said. "You know how I've harmed the weak. You look down on it, with those morals of yours."

"I did, and I do," Oliver said, "but a man that struggles is not a man I can bring myself to hate. Solgrim was broken. If we were made of glass, then we'd be thousands of shattered pieces. But those shattered pieces do make for quite the dagger."

He stood up, and reached for Greeves' bottle. Pulling off the lid, he gave it a sniff, and recoiled at its strong scent. "If you're using this to block it out, don't," Oliver said. "I have need of a strong sword. If you'll give me everything you have, no matter how jagged, I shall put you to good use."

He glanced over, and pretended not to notice that Greeves was once more crying. He placed the bottle back down beside it. "I'll leave this to you. I hope that you will not rely so heavily on it."

"Ser Patrick…" the maid said as Oliver stepped out. She seemed uncertain about whether she should go in to clean the living room or not.

"Leave him," Oliver told her. "For as long as he needs."

…

…

Oliver still had yet to open the two letters addressed to him. Neither bore a sigil, so he didn't know who they were from, but he was sure that they would not be the sort of thing that he wanted to read.