A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"You might be able to cook a reasonable stew, but whatever it is you're cooking up with this idea of yours I want absolutely no part in it," Oliver said.

"…This is why I can't ever bring myself to like you," Amelia said, folding her arms across her chest, and bringing her lips into a pout. "I was being nice to you, and you can't even bring yourself to be nice back?"

"Amelia, I think that's enough…" Pauline said, arriving just as Amelia began to grow impertinent. She wore a rather frightening look on her face, masked behind a false smile put on for Oliver's purposes. "I do apologize, Ser Patrick. I ought to have come to fetch her sooner… I imagine she was bothering you."

"…No," Oliver said, heaving a long sigh. "She has been more useful than you might expect. Apparently, she's cleverer than she looks."

The look on Amelia's face then was that of a dog that had been a treat earlier, only to receive an even more luxurious meal later on. If she'd had a tail, it would have been thudding against the side of the log. She was beaming strongly enough that she might have hovered. She looked at Pauline as if to say 'See? See?' but she didn't manage to wipe away Pauline's look of disbelief.

"I would speak to your Lady, if you would allow me to," Oliver said. "I ought to apologize."

"Well… If you're sure you're feeling up to it," Pauline said, "I think my Lady would be most happy to see you."

As the days progressed, so too did the depths of the graves that they dug on the General's orders. Bit by bit, the individual pits that the men had dug began to merge with one another. By the end of the second day of digging, there were five trenches, ten feet deep at their best depth, and a quarter of a mile long in their length – and still, apparently, it was insufficient.

Looking at them, in their sheer size, and looking to the Verna civilians and soldiers that seemed destined to go in them, Oliver had to think that they were likely overkill. He performed the most gruesome bit of simulated geometry in his head, and he imagined them all fitting inside it, and as his stomach turned at the thought, he found that, in fact, those giant holes really were not that far off.

An army of nearly a hundred thousand, and civilians doubling that in number…

The thought brought to mind the fact that someone else will have done these calculations. Their head engineer would likely have sat down with his scribes, and worked out the size of a normal man, and then scaled that up to account for hundreds of thousands that they had to work with.

With every inch that they dug deeper, Verdant's expression grew more vacant.

The work was still far from the twenty feet that General Blackwell supposedly wanted. Oliver had still yet to catch sight of the man himself. He hadn't seen hair nor hide of him since his meeting in the castle. Nor had he seen any of the other Generals. They all seemed to be intent on holding themselves away until the business was concluded.

The Verna prisoners must have sensed that their fate was drawing nearer. They grew more restless with each passing hour and each passing inch that deepened the hole. There had been more than a few attempts at rebellion, with the soldiers in their ropes causing a stir. But they had been quickly taken care of, and the evidence of their attempts was left scattered around the perimeters of the camps.

Not a single one of those staked heads wore an expression of peace. Their skin was as dry as sandpaper after only a day being subjected to the heat of the sun without the functions of repair afforded to a living body. Their eyes were glassy, but they still seemed to see. Wherever Oliver stood, he felt as if they were following him. Their looks were ones of accusation.

"It's your shift, Verdant," Oliver said, handing his Vice-Captain his spade.

The look Verdant gave the tool made Oliver half expected that he might throw it.

"You do not have to," Oliver said. "An excuse can be made."

"Inaction is the same as contributing directly, with as close as we stand to it," Verdant said. "No matter how I might distance myself from it, or refuse to hurry on the progress, they would only be the actions of a coward, not a saint. If we are to sin, then I ought to sin with the rest. I ought to face the fact that I was unable to do naught but watch."

He strode away with those words, a sheen of sweat on his brow, even before he'd begun to exert himself.

Oliver watched him work for a handful of minutes. It was a violent intensity that he put into his digging. Each thrust of that spade would have been enough to kill a man, had it been flesh waiting then, and not hard earth.

"He takes it with difficulty," Blackthorn noted.

"I expect he is right to," Oliver said. "The days drag… But they still go too quickly for my liking."

"Is Solgrim still on your mind?" Blackthorn asked him. The two had done what they could to make up on that matter, but it remained a sore enough issue.

"You know very well it is," Oliver said.

"It is on my mind also," Blackthorn assured him. "Until I get word that Lady Felder has successfully managed to thwart the attackers, I do not think I will sleep easily."

"…She ought to have gotten word to Queen Asabel. It is not the assistance that I thought the Queen would have to deliver, but Asabel will not leave her to suffer it alone," Oliver said. "That, at the very least, is some reassurance."

With the slightest pinch of her fingers, Blackthorn tugged at Oliver's sleeve. The awkwardness of the gesture could be measured by the uncertain crookedness in her mouth as her expression wavered. "You… are doing well," she said. "I thought I ought to tell you that. I know it goes against your nature to wait… But you have kept yourself more level than I expected you would."