A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"So, who's the box for?" Greeves pressed. "I ain't hungry. You've clearly eaten. Unless you're thinking to fatten yourself up like a bear before winter?"

"No. Obviously not. I'm not a bear," Nila said. She strode across the room, denying Greeves the rest of his teasing, and presented it to Oliver, with her face turned away, as if it couldn't have meant less to her. But Oliver could see her hand shaking. Nervousness, he hoped, rather than fear.

"If you haven't eaten already, Oliver… You can have it."

"Thanks," Oliver said, taking it off her.

Then she fled like a squirrel, having achieved her task.

Greeves sighed, now that his game was over. "Well, it looks like everyone is here, finally… No thanks to Felder turning up late. If you'd left us waiting any longer, it would have been dark outside. Anyone else that you want to include, Ser Patrick? What about that Jorah?"

In a couple of the meetings that Oliver had observed, he'd brought Jorah with him. The youth seemed to be the diplomatic sort that could benefit from such experiences. However, that day, he had other matters to attend. Oliver shook his head in answer to Greeves' question. "Not today. Do you suppose I need to replace him with another guard?

Or will Verdant be sufficient? And what of you, are you going to bring Judas?"

"Aye, I'll bring Judas. He'll come late though, I expect. Too busy fawning over that wife of his. Can't fault him for that, though. He knows that any day she'll open her eyes and realize what an ugly bastard that man she married is, and go running for the hills, so he's making the most of it until then," Greeves said.

"You underestimate Felly," Nila said. "She's very much in love with Judas. I don't know what he would have to do to ever get her to leave him."

"Then she's mad," Greeves said bluntly. "As for your guard, Ser Patrick, I suppose we can use Lady Felder, eh? She looks noble enough, when she doesn't open that mouth of hers. Maybe she could do with a dagger on her belt or something though. Bit unarmed."

"That sounds interesting," Oliver said, amused. "I do have a dagger in my room that she could wear, and the belt to go with it. That could be fetched."

"You heard him," Greeves said, nodding to the maid that had been busy collecting their empty cups. "Go and fetch that dagger and belt for the Lady."

"At once, Ser."

"And you – why are you just standing there quietly?" Greeves said suspiciously. "I thought you would have been protesting by now. Haven't you said before that a dagger doesn't suit you."

"It does… Uhm… I guess we'll see?" Nila said.

"...Disgusting. You know you're blushing, don't ya?" Greeves told her, pointing at her cheeks, and then flicking her forehead the second she was distracted. He roared with laughter at the disgruntled look on her face. "Haha! No matter how you might carry yourself, little fox, you're still the same."

She responded with a merciless boot to the man's shin. Oliver did think even Greeves knew he could jump so high. The man almost buried his head in the roof, as he leapt with pain, and tried to grab his shin.

"Careful, Nila, you could really break him," Oliver warned. It was easy to forget, when she carried herself the way she did, that Nila was a member of the Second Boundary. Her physical might was incomparable to that of an ordinary man or woman.

"He'll soon glue himself back together," Nila said without pity. "He always does. He's a disgusting slime of a man, after all."

"Pissin' girl…" Greeves growled, cradling his leg. "Did ya have to kick that hard? How am I meant to negotiate when I can't even bloody stand up?"

"Well, it seems fitting, after all we don't really have a leg to stand on in these negotiations in general," Oliver offered.

Nila giggled.

"The two of you will be the cause if I'm ever found dangling from the end of a rope," Greeves muttered, using a chair to help himself up, as he hobbled on his newly injured shin. "Aye, that's going to take a fair bit of walking off, that is."

They met the craftsman in Greeves' house no shorter than an hour later. By then, all remnants of their joking had long been quashed. What awaited the burly old armorsmith as he was guided through the door of Greeves home was a scene of severity.

He saw a nobleman, in the form of Oliver Patrick, sitting calmly in the only taken chair. Beside him, there stood a man that the craftsman already recognized to be Greeves, and another, larger man, that seemed practically glued to Greeves that must have been his bodyguard, or some other such thing.

Then, behind Ser Patrick, there was another imposing nobleman, even more refined in the way he carried himself than the Lord that he stood guard behind. And then there was another woman, with red hair, who the craftsman could only guess to be the same.

He'd come because he'd been forced to agree to, and in the end it had caused less friction to accept, after all Greeves' pushing. But the man didn't expect to find anything here, in the village of Solgrim that might please him. Especially not in the house of a man of as poor repute as Greeves. Still, he remembered his courtesies, he bowed at the waist towards Ser Patrick.

"Afternoon, Ser," he said, trying to pretend that the bending of his thick back didn't strain him quite as much as he did. After years of standing stooped over the force, bearing against the weight of a hammer, his back at times was nearly completely locked in place.

"Good afternoon," Oliver replied. It was like those words were the giving of Greeves his permission, for he immediately launched into an enthused greeting himself, after Ser Patrick's rather warm reception.

"Daniel! Daniel, good man, you came. I knew you would. You've always had a sense for opportunity," Greeves said.