A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"And you're only telling me about this now?" Oliver said.

"What was the need to tell you?" Greeves shrugged. "This is my job, ain't it? You'd ask me to sort it out, so I have in advance. It ain't the first time we've had to grovel before the merchants."

"I shouldn't be finding out just hours before they arrive," Oliver said, frowning. "I'd know about these things in future before they happen. Where did you intend to meet with them?"

"My house," Greeves said. "It's good enough for their like."

Oliver couldn't deny that Greeves kept a tidy home, and he'd ever had one of the best houses in Solgrim. But it didn't sit right with Oliver that Greeves was holding meetings that concerned the fate of the town in his personal residence.

"Have it done here," Oliver said. "Have future meetings like this, that concern Solgrim as a whole, done here."

"…There's always a few of them. You'll grow tired of having dusty merchants wandering through your house, I warn you," Greeves said.

"I've already got one, what's a few more?" Oliver said. "Besides, there would never be any trouble. It is not as if this house sees the use that it properly deserves. The upper floors ought to be given to those who have seen their homes destroyed in the attack."

"Now that's foolishness," Greeves said. "Kindness it might be, but you'd be overstepping. This mansion here is a symbol of your noble authority – and it's a shit one at that. When we saw it built for Ferdinand, it was meant to just be a temporary residence. But this is where you're staying all the time – this is your main estate. Frankly, it's embarrassing."

"I would not put it so harshly, my Lord, but indeed this residence is not one that you could happily flaunt as a member of the nobility," Verdant said.

They'd had this discussion before, and Oliver waved his hand in impatience before it could proceed any further. "We're not wasting money building more houses that I won't use properly."

"…Aye, but what if royalty happens to visit again?" Greeves muttered. "Didn't your Queen say that she would?"

Oliver stiffened. He'd been allowed a long conversation with Asabel before she left. Her guards had hung a distance behind her, as Oliver had shown her around Solgrim. To the statue of Dominus, and the trail that led into the Black Mountains. The woman had made him promise that she would be allowed to visit again.

"That's another matter…" Oliver said. "If royalty does visit, I can simply yield this house to them once more, and sleep elsewhere."

"In the mountains again?" Nila said, catching them mid conversation, as she stole through the living room with papers in hand. "You're trying to talk him into having a real noble house built, right? You're too stubborn on this, Oliver."

"Too stubborn? If that's what you call denying the wasting of good coin, then I'd be happy to be stubborn," Oliver said, folding his arms. It seemed as if everyone in the whole village had the opposite opinion to him on this, but he refused to yield.

Nila wasn't quite done yet, however. Even if she was in a rush, she refused to yield the point to him.

"The mountains, Oliver, did you forget what a pathetic sight it made to see our Lord sleeping on the ground?" Nila said.

"…You didn't have to go out of your way to find me," Oliver grumbled. "I would have been quite happy up there."

"As happy as you might have been, the wild could be smelt on you," Nila said. "And you'd already muddied your clothes. It would have been obvious what you were doing, if we hadn't found you first. And on that note, I'm leaving. Greeves, make sure he doesn't do anything nearly that stupid again. And Lord Idris, I am counting on you as well."

She had the door closed behind her before Oliver could get another word out. He had his arms folded as if he was irritated, but beyond the wrestling of their argument, he held a secret gladness that they could at least talk normally whilst there were others around. Nila rarely resorted to calling him 'Ser Patrick' when Greeves was present.

It was only when they were alone together did the awkwardness seem to properly set in.

"You're not even married yet, and she's already telling you what to do," Greeves cackled. "I'd listen to the girl. She knows what she's talking about in this. You don't want to ruin the image that the villagers have of you. They reckon you to be some magical hero. Best not ruin that hope for them straight away, eh?"

"That is one matter, and this is another," Oliver said, pulling them all the way back to the initial point. "This meeting with those merchants, I wish to be a part of it."

He set that down firmly in stone, and even those Greeves winced in displeasure, Oliver made sure it was such.

He was well aware that he was restricting the merchant's movements merely by being present in his noble capacity, but he wished to witness the negotiations that Greeves regularly engaged in, even just once. 'There's too much that goes on behind the scenes that I am not aware of,' he thought to himself.

The merchants arrived, hours later, nearly a full hour later than Greeves had said their agreed time was – but that ended up being exactly when Greeves expected them. "They like to pull games of power like that. It's a good enough show of superiority, making your lessers wait for your arrival, knowing that there's nothing that they can do about it."

Oliver, on the advice of Greeves, had kept his guard to a mere two men, in the form of Verdant and Jorah. Greeves had brought Judas for a guard of his own, and Nila had raised her hand, and decided that she wanted to take part in this one, since they were all likely to be there. "And besides," she had said.

"As the Felder Trading Company grows, I might be dealing with this group by myself soon enough."