A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"How long have you and Ser Patrick known each other?" She asked. A different question from the days before. It was the sort of question that one would usually start with, but Nila had noted that Asabel had an uncomfortable habit of starting right in the middle of things. Her friendliness drove her towards it.

"Uhm…" Nila looked to Greeves, trying to piece the timeframe together herself.

Greeves opened his mouth to give Nila an answer, but no words came out. He frowned in embarrassment at his own nervousness, and then Nila could practically see him letting the light fade from his eyes so that he could pretend to be elsewhere.

"A few years, I suppose?" Nila offered, before hurriedly finishing with the proper title, as Blackthorn's gaze threatened to bear a hole through her. "My Queen."

'Stop glaring at me…' Nila thought. She wished she could have given a glare of her own back against the man. Surely he could say nothing to that? She had given Lasha her fair share of glares, when they had first met, and the girl had been as immovable as a mountain. But her father wasn't just as immovable as a mountain, he was the mountain itself.

In both appearance – with his broad shoulders, and his thick barrel chest, and his chisel beard around a sharp square chin – and in presence. Knowing what she did of the Boundaries now, Nila supposed it must be the effect of the Fourth Boundary, as Oliver had told her before.

"Can I ask a pointed question?" Asabel said. "Meaning no offence, for having met you, I can understand that your value extends far above your station, and your supposed rank… What you have achieved here, in your defence, and in your taking charge of it… Despite your age and gender – it is a remarkable thing."

"…Go ahead, my Queen," Nila said, wishing that she could point out just how apprehensive Asabel's phrasing made her, when she felt the need to lavish her with praise before even getting to the heart of the issue.

"What do you suppose it was that first drew Oliver Patrick towards the peasantry?" Asabel said. "It is an unusual thing. I do not quite understand the circumstances of it. It's almost as if he prefers the company of the peasantry to his noble kin. It puzzles me how that can come about."

"…He lived among us, my Queen," Nila said carefully. She knew very well that it was a lie that they had weaved, and had to keep hidden. 'If she knew that Beam was a peasant, just like me, how wide would her pretty eyes grow? What of that High King, how startled would he be, if he learned that all his grudges were for nothing? And all the people that serve, and Oliver has made to worship?

He was born a peasant just like – and look how he has made them respect him.'

"Lived amongst you?" Asabel said, batting her eyelids in confusion.

"He… trained in the mountains, with Dominus Patrick," Nila said. "When he would come into the village, we did not realize that he was not one of us. We didn't realize until after the Battle of Solgrim."

"That long…" Asabel said, falling into thought, with a finger of her chin.

'Even the way she thinks is dignified,' Nila thought, almost resentfully.

"So then, we could likely assume it to be the designs of his father," Asabel concluded. "I wonder what he aimed for? I wonder what vision he supposed would be carried out if he did as he had?"

The way that Asabel spoke of Dominus Patrick – and continued to speak about him – wasn't just close to reverence, it was reverence exactly. She spoke of Dominus Patrick as other peasants might have spoken about Arthur Pendragon.

"You hold much respect for him," Nila noted, unable to help herself. General Blackthorn flashed her a warning glance for the too casual remark, but Nila, by the barest effort of will, managed to ignore it.

"I do," Asabel said. "For a man that I have seen so little of, he has had the greatest influence on persons most important to me. My uncle spoke of him most highly. He said that Dominus Patrick was the strongest man to have ever lived, but when he said it, all knew Arthur to sit at the pinnacle of swordsmanship, so I did not understand it.

Now I suppose him to be talking about different qualities… And now, in the fact of his reaching the Sixth Boundary, it seems as if my uncle's words have the right of it. You people in Solgrim saw it firsthand, and you understood, to the point that you erected a statue of him."

"We were privileged to have him protecting us, my Queen," Nila said, and she meant that quite honestly. The day that she had seen Dominus Patrick fight would be one that was seared into her mind forever. That was the pinnacle of human achievement, as far as she knew it. When Dominus Patrick had fought, man walked the line closest to the Gods.

"But isn't it… Isn't it interesting?" Asabel said, leaning forward in her seat. "The only man that I have heard my uncle acknowledge. No, my uncle placed him above himself, even. This was what he chose to die for. This village..?"

Her golden eyes were twinkling with enthusiasm, but it was all Nila could do not to afford a bitter look. She knew very well how their village might have looked to the nobility. Even after all it had grown, it was likely pitiful to them. 'If she had seen it a few years ago, would she have scoffed?'

"I feel as if there is importance in his decision. Maybe he understood that this was the beating heart of the nation," Asabel said.

"…Solgrim, my Queen?" Nila said, tilting her head in confusion. Even Blackthorn had taken a break from glaring a hole through Nila in order to frown at Asabel's assertion.

"Solgrim, yes, but more these villages in particular. They make up the largeness of our population, and yet the nobility barely spare them a second thought, unless it is to collect our taxes. For Dominus Patrick to give his life in the protection of such a village – villages that we can agree make up the majority of our nation – is that not giving up his life most truly for Stormfront itself?

Perhaps he recognized that," Asabel said.