A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 607: The Day Before The Mission - Part 1

"I’m sure they’ll learn soon enough," Oliver said. "Though I think you’ll be disappointed by my plan. It’s childish, something I realized was funny as I was talking to Nebular. I told him that I would be serving the High King this weekend, and though he looked surprised, he took it as though it was the most natural thing in the world, not realizing my irony."

Verdant came to a halt beside him. Casper quickly outpaced the man, as he walked with a lazy swagger, managing to keep his speed, whilst snuffling the air around him, searching for interesting scents. Verdant had to race to catch up with them again when he’d recovered. "Forgive me, my Lord… That was rather feminine of me."

A laugh met his words. "Well, if it got you to freeze in place, perhaps it has more worth as a joke than I thought."

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"No, I do think it to be quite cunning. Using the opposition’s tactics against them," Verdant said. "None would bat an eye, and it would make it all the more difficult for the High King to move against you. I think it’s a very… you way of moving, if I might say, my Lord."

"How do you mean?" Oliver asked, stiffening slightly in his saddle.

"Only praise, I assure you. The simplicity of this strategy will be its strength. In politics, just as in combat, the more complicated plans and combinations expose more weaknesses should they go wrong," Verdant said. "This is something that we can set into action immediately.

It might even sow doubt within the opposition themselves when we continually proclaim that we fight for their cause, and for their sake."

"But we do not," Oliver said. "I know you to be intelligent enough to know that even without me saying this, but on this matter I wish to be clear, Verdant. They’ve wronged Dominus, and they have wronged me. I will see them pay for that. Though I have yet to find out just what they did to my father…"

"I know only rumours," Verdant said, "as I have mentioned before. Vile rumours, of the sort that I do not feel comfortable saying."

"I know you’ve been firm on this," Oliver said, "and I agree with your reasoning, but give me something, Verdant. I’m too blind here."

"I am just as blind," Verdant told him. "All I know is that it involved a woman. The true truth of the matter has been suppressed. It is likely only those who were intimately involved in the matter that truly know, and given how isolationist Dominus was… I fear we might only hear the truth from the opposition."

Oliver frowned his dissatisfaction. The moment the trial had ended, he’d been hard on this particular point, for it was of the utmost importance. Just what had been done to Dominus that caused them to fear him so? Just what had the High King done? How had Dominus responded?

It was only when the assassins came for him, and when he saw the efforts that the High King himself had taken in caught that he’d realized how serious it must have been.

He’d assumed, with their shunning of the Patricks, that it had merely been social distaste. Such a thing was common, even in villages. Oliver himself had been the subject of such distaste for a time, being a quiet outsider of questionable origins. He assumed the same for Dominus.

Those lazy assumptions no longer stood, though. They didn’t carry enough explanatory weight to explain just how much risk they’d taken to get rid of him. Why did they fear the son of a Patrick so? They must have been sure, beyond all shadow of a doubt, that Oliver would be bent on vengeance.

The leather of Oliver’s riding gloves creaked as he gripped the reins a little too tightly. Casper looked back at him, his ears tilted as he saw the dark look on Oliver’s face. ’Indeed, vengeance will be had,’ Oliver thought to himself. They assumed he’d be out for them, and now he’d give them that reason to fear him. Ingolsol would not be satisfied otherwise – nor would Claudia.

They’d come too close to injustice. Even now, they treaded the thinnest of lines. If not for the sacrifices of the few close to him, Oliver would have been beheaded. He did not take that fact lightly.

"It is customary to wait until a lesson finishes before making plans…" Professor Volguard noted. It was just Oliver and him inside Volguard’s vast lecture hall. They shared the Professor’s desk, as Volguard attempted to walk Oliver through some of the more complicated strategic concepts.

It was the last day before the weekend. Much plotting had been carried out during the week. More than Oliver had likely ever done in his life. With the push from Skullic to solve his political problem, he’d come up with that temporary bandage of declaring himself an ardent servant of the High King.

Those missions that he’d been assigned – as a mere student – served as an appropriate enough excuse for that.

"Sorry…" Oliver said. He could not even pretend that he was not distracted. He’d already cut down their short lesson by half an hour, after finally arranging a meeting with Princess Asabel. Of course, Volguard had been none too pleased when he’d told him, and had gone about explaining just how difficult it had been for the faculty to rearrange their schedules just to accommodate Oliver Patrick.

Volguard sighed, closing his books. "I get the feeling you’d learn far more from me if I had the room overtaken by bandits, and allowed for only the most tactical of solutions to the current problems."

"I do enjoy solving them," Oliver protested. Volguard had accused him more than once of being disinterested in strategy, which couldn’t be further from the truth. He was just… distracted. "I’m just having trouble focusing on them alone, I suppose."

"Given your situation, I cannot blame you for that," Volguard said gently, but the critique that followed was merciless nonetheless, as he pried the paper that Oliver had been writing on away from him. "But this is not satisfactory. Had circumstances been different, I would have not known the extent of your lagging education until the spring exams came."