A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

The merchant shook his head. He clenched, then unclenched a pair of shaky, sweaty hands. "Not yet. Don't think I'll be able to get through this business without it though. I say Judas is worse than me… But maybe after all, I'm worse than him. I sicken myself.

Maybe 'cos I know what makes me sick, I can do the same to them, you see… I can really make a man squirm, and beg for his life," Greeves said.

"Who would be begging for their lives?" Oliver asked.

"The Guild has sent some men. They stand out like sore thumbs. They think they're being clever, but they've come with sabotage in mind. We've got one of them, he was quick to talk. Didn't even have to do anything. Just showed him the tools," Greeves said.

"An amateur, I'd say. But I'd also say the fact of the amateur points to the existence of someone better that they're trying to hide."

"…What are their intentions?" Oliver asked.

"Sabotage," Greeves laughed. "What else? They'll make Solgrim a place unsafe to do business. Before Harmon can open his shop, they'll have it burned down… Maybe, the man himself might be a target. That's what I'd do. He's got a wife as well, and a boy.

He shouldn't be making that journey alone."

"They'd stoop so low?" Oliver asked.

Greeves shrugged. "I would. Why stop there? Make an example out of him. No more smiths will be leaving if the last one turns up dead."

"He'll need guards, then," Oliver said, standing. "I'll put out word. We'll get some good men to look after him, and his family. No harm will come to them."

"Your sort of men won't cut it," Greeves said. "You think you know trickery on the battlefield, but this is a different sort. You ain't malicious enough to guess what they'd do. They'd be a knife in their backs before you know it."

"…And your men?" Oliver asked.

"Aye, they'd do," Greeves said. "But if my men went into Ernest, they wouldn't come back. Wanted men, and all that."

"What exactly are you suggesting?" Oliver asked.

"I reckon, if you want that smith to come here, you'd best go yourself," Greeves said. "He'd be lucky to make it out of the city gates without you. There's eyes and ears everywhere, little daggers in the dark that can stop him. Poison in the food. Threats written under the front door. They'll get to him one way another, if they want to.

Not unless the man feels safe."

"…And where do you think I might succeed, where other men might fail? I thought this was not a question of strength," Oliver said.

Greeves gave a titter again. The room was barren of windows. No sunlight flickered in. It was candles, and the light of the fire that kept it lit. And the light of that candle flame seemed to dodge Greeves. The only thing it lit was the shine of his sweat, not his face.

His mouth was eternally in darkness, with only the white of his teeth breaking through it occasionally. "'Cos you're not the best of men, are you, Ser Patrick? I reckon, when you put your mind to it, you have a sense for the darkness, don't you? You'll be able to guess, I think. You've got the eyes to see it, even if most of the time you don't want to look."

"…Pah. If it's a concern. I'll go. There seems to be little else that I have to do these days regardless," Oliver said, trying to pretend that the way Greeves spoke didn't unsettle him. It was far more comfortable to feel disgust than unease.

"And while you're there, why not a little counter attack?" Greeves said. "The Guild can guess who we might go to next. And they'll threaten them in advance, make sure they don't take up a meeting with us. We'll have lost the contest before it's even begun."

"You think Ferdinand will have had a part in all this?" Oliver asked.

"Heh, not Ferdinand, no. As coddled as the heir is, he's got some measure of honour. He won't know what they're up to. But they'll act regardless, to preserve their interests, as they ought to," Greeves said. "Threats work just as well as any other tactic, after all. And you've already seen that the Guild is far from being above pettiness.

They'd like to clip Solgrim's wings a bit, before they grow any further."

"…" Oliver frowned. "It seems just the barest step too far for their motivations to be this strong, though. This… these sort of tactics, they carry with them a different sort of emotion. One would need a degree of personal animosity to go this far, wouldn't they?"

"Oh, did you think this was not personal?" Greeves asked. "It was personal the second we took what was theirs. A merchant is happy to take losses in business dealings, but to have deals that have already long been completely snatched from under them – that's an unhappy bit of accounting. It goes against our nature."

"Even that," Oliver said. "Even that I suppose to be unable to warrant that sort of reaction."

Greeves shifted in his chair, as Oliver levelled his gaze at him.

"There's something you're not telling me," Oliver said. The merchant leaned back far enough as if to flee from the light, as if believing that if Oliver could not see him properly, he wouldn't be able to discern the truth. "There's more that has happened between you and the Guild, is there not?"

"We might have a… history," Greeves said.

"I knew that much. You've been trying to work your way into Ernest for a while, but the Guild has done well to bar your path," Oliver said. "If these are the sorts of tactics that you resort to now, I very much doubt that you didn't use the same sorts of things in the past. What did you do, Greeves, and to whom?"