A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"I have no wish to be a princess," Blackthorn said. "Would that I were born a man, the world would be better served."

"And deny us all the fair Lady Blackthorn? The students at the Academy would be throwing themselves off bridges," Oliver said. "Do you know how many longings you are the object of? You'd be snatching away their purposes."

"Do not mock me," Blackthorn said. "I find myself impatient today."

"A long journey, and all that," Oliver agreed, nodding. "I will leave you to your rest, fair Lady. And I suppose I will attempt to watch this crowd a while longer… Or not – that seems to be the carriage that we were waiting for."

It had not taken Verdant long. As long as it was not a physical task that clumsiness could destroy, Verdant was able to perform with a competence far beyond what most could put forth. He sat in the driver's seat, next to a man with a stooped back, and a thick black cloak over his shoulders. There was a rather stoic look on Verdant's face. Anyone would have thought he was returning from battle.

Oliver supposed that went to show just how difficult it was to acquire a carriage for a journey of distance at this time of day.

"Good work, Verdant," Oliver said. "Harmon will be pleased, I am sure."

"He has warned us not to load the rear wheels too aggressively," Verdant said. "But I am not too sure we will be able to avoid that, given the nature of our cargo."

"We will do what we can, and if it happens that we break down before we reach Solgrim, well, better in the middle of the plains than in this menacing little city," Oliver said.

"The city is not to your liking then, my Lord?" Verdant asked. "My father would call it a quaint place. There are cities far more ragged and menacing than this. This has history in every stone, it's a place of ancestry, devoid of the slums that decorate so many other growing towns."

"Well, I assume the slums would not fit in through the walls," Oliver said. "And if it be rich with ancestry, then perhaps that is why it feels as if there are a thousand eyes on me – the dead are watching us, as well as the living, though it would seem the dead, in their gazes, has more life than the ones that are still of flesh.

What sort of purpose can empower a man, such that his eyes have such a glassy look? It's disconcerting."

"Are the villagers of Solgrim not the same when they are busy?" Verdant said, looking at the crowd, and not understanding.

"I wonder," Oliver said. "I do not think so. They do not unsettle me in the way this does. But maybe the reason it unsettles me is because of my title as enemy. In taking one of their smiths, I am doing a disservice to the whole city. Maybe they're a more unified place that I've given them credit for."

"Whatever the case, my Lord, your discomfort will be past you, when these boxes are loaded," Verdant said.

"True enough," Oliver agreed. "Come, Blackthorn, let us finish."

Harmon helped them with the rest of the heavy chests, though he preferred to put two men on each of them where he could, which didn't do much to help with their speed. By the time they were clearing the last of their boxes away, Harmon's wife was standing clasping the hand of their daughter outside their home.

The two of them were dressed in their travelling dresses, wearing bonnets to keep their auburn hair in place. They were in a far more ready state than they'd been an hour ago.

"We all done upstairs, Beth?" Harmon asked her.

"We are, husband," she replied formally, seemingly aware that Oliver could overhear her.

"And what of you, little Abbey?" Harmon said, putting a hand on the head of his daughter. "Are you ready to see the outside of these tall walls?"

The little girl gave a big brave nod as she stared up at her father. The smith gave a rare grin in response. "There's a good girl," he said.

"That's the last of them, my Lord," Verdant announced to Oliver.

"If you would have a check around the place, Harmon, we'll have you ensure that nothing has been missed, and then we'll try and get on our way," Oliver said.

"As you say, Ser Patrick," Harmon said.

Oliver could feel the eyes on his back without turning around. He'd felt it even as he busied himself with the work of moving the boxes. Standing still made it all the worse, for when he stood still, he was given the opportunity to steal a glance, and confirm his suspicions. He turned his head with a rapidness, as if trying to catch a crowd of hundreds off guard.

It was a form of madness, Oliver was sure… But then, was it madness if his suspicions turned out to be well founded, and there were more than twenty or thirty people looking his way at once? Noble women in dresses, serving girls with arms laden with heavy baskets, and older men grasping canes just the perfect length for a sword to be hidden in them.

'Are we such a curiosity?' Oliver wanted to ask of them. It was not necessarily hostility that he detected in their gazes… But he was wary of it nonetheless. If he had not been in the situation he was with the Guild, he might have paid it no other mind, but now each of those gazes was a threat, and a way of evaluating a target before they decided to strike properly.

Oliver had to fight to keep himself steady. There was naught he could do until he could see true danger in hand. Until the threat laid itself bare, gazes were just gazes. They were distractions, though – a way of pulling his eyes away from the true attack, if ever there was to be one. Oliver wondered at organisation, some grand conspiracy, and then quickly dashed the thoughts from his head.

'I'm going mad,' he told himself. 'Not even the Guild has that much power. We are simply curiosites.'