A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

They were speaking two different conversations, really. It was not poison that had slain Oliver Patrick, after all, but something far deeper, something far harder to remedy. He didn't have anything that he could armour himself again. Nor did he have anyone that he could properly rely on to ask for advice, not without risking revealing all that he was.

"Of course, it's my problem," she said, her tone equally as harsh to match him. "I am a princess of the Pendragons. It is my duty to see that such things do not happen on Academy grounds, whilst I am in attendance and capable of stopping them."

"And what would you do, Princess Asabel?" Oliver asked, a testing smile, as he turned to look at her. "If it really was the sort of issue you're imagining, what would you do?"

She returned his gaze, just as harshly, completely resolute in her stance. "I will do whatever is right. I would serve justice. Murder can't be tolerated."

"This is an Academy of soldiers, Your Highness. Murdering is the end product for all of us," Oliver replied.

"More's the pity," she said, finally breaking eye contact.

"…Really?" Oliver asked. "Is that where your stance lies? You're really that sort of person, princess? Anti-war, anti-soldiery?"

"I'm merely against needless loss of life," she said, "is that such an impossible thing to understand? Though it's not as though I can't see why a soldier kills… It is his duty. And I'm open to the fact that I might be wrong, so I don't extend my hand too far, unless I am sure… I merely try to help that which is in front of me."

"And that's me, is it?" Oliver asked. "A wounded rabbit?"

"You were yesterday," Asabel reminded him. "Do not act so embittered, Oliver, merely because you were caught showing weakness once. That's what you're afraid of, isn't it? You're afraid of showing weakness to your retainers. That's why you hide this from them – there wouldn't be any sense in doing what you are otherwise."

"Some things are better hidden," Oliver said firmly. "This is not a problem that I want to share."

"You would not share an attempt on your own life with your own men? What did you hire them for, then? Do you reject their oaths? There's cruelty in that, Oliver Patrick. Terrible cruelty. I'm a great admirer of the deeds of your father… but I fear my uncle was right when he said that Dominus Patrick's strength was his greatest weakness.

I see the same in you," Asabel said.

"Do you?" Oliver asked, shaking his head, unable to hold back his smile. It was so ridiculous. If this woman knew the truth – that he and Dominus did not share a drop of blood at all between them – she would have blushed bright red from the embarrassment of her own claims.

"…Perhaps not to the same degree," she decided. "You and your father are different. He did not try to build a faction for himself… And perhaps you are right. I overstep. I did not know your father, not properly. I only saw him through the eyes of a child, and I only heard of him through Uncle Arthur, and what he deemed appropriate to tell a younger me.

I overstepped in that. Forgive me."

The will to argue quickly died in Oliver, and he was left feeling hollow. "There's nothing to forgive," he sighed. "You're as right as I am wrong. I don't know what I'm doing. Clearly not a good enough job if I've already attracted the mercy of a princess."

She winced. "It is regrettable to me that you dislike my intervention so thoroughly. I had not realized your dislike for me would run so deep."

"Dislike for you?" Oliver repeated. "I don't know you."

"You don't?" She seemed surprised by that fact. "In the sense that you don't know anyone until you've met them?"

"No, in the same sense that I don't know much at all about the Academy. I haven't heard such things mentioned previously and now that they're in front of me, I don't know how to treat them," he said.

"Your father didn't mention me?" She asked.

"Why would he have?"

"He will have mentioned my uncle though?" Asabel asked.

"A handful of times," Oliver said.

"Only a handful?" She said, incredulous. "That man… I was sure, since you'd spent so much time with him, that you would have even more stories about Uncle Arthur than I do…"

"I'm sorry to disappoint," Oliver said. "I know nothing."

His proclamation stunned her into silence for a few moments. When she finally spoke again, her voice had lost much of the energy that it had had before, much of the confidence. "Oliver Patrick… Just where have you been all these years? What have you been doing? Where did you get those scars on your face and… on your body," she blushed as she said that last part.

"We removed your shirt to check for wounds, and we saw…"

Oliver shrugged. "I'm not particularly bothered. I imagine half the student body has seen them, given my recent whipping."

"Ah… that really doesn't leave much to a woman's imagination, does it?" She murmured. "A nobleman is meant to be more chaste than that… But you've ignored my question. Where have you been?"

"Away. From noble society," Oliver said.

She nodded. "That much was a given. Dominus Patrick would never have been able to disappear so thoroughly whilst still keeping a hand in the noble realm. I mean… more. I'm interested. Does it ache you so to tell me?

Ah, how about this… what about a deal?"

"A deal?" Oliver repeated.

"You won't relax around me, because you assume I hold a terrible secret over you. Well then, swear me to silence. It is not my intention to make your life more difficult, Oliver. But now that I finally have an opportunity to introduce myself to you, I would not let it escape so easily. I would know of the son of the man that my uncle saw so highly," she said.

"The deal?" Oliver prodded.

"So that really was your concern. Just like your father, it seems your own strength is your greatest weakness. You do not need to be without weakness to have your retainers follow you – that's the very purpose of retainers, so that they can cover what you find most difficult. But alas, I will relent… I can see you already growing irritated with me.

We'll answer three questions of mine, within reason, and I will keep what happened between us yesterday a secret," she said.