A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

VOLUME 2 – PART 2 – ENEMIES IN HIGH PLACES

With the last gamble from the Minister of Information and the Minister of Coin, the trial of Oliver Patrick for the murder of twenty guardsmen saw its conclusion. By a split body of Lord's votes, he retained his innocence within the eyes of the Academy law.

Only the scholars of the future as they looked back on the history of Oliver Patrick and his ascension to power would be able to comment transparently on the oddities of those events.

They would be able to remark on the peculiarity of the politics at the time, the strength of the High King's faction, and the fact that a trial that had concluded with the assumption that Oliver Patrick had been the victim of an assassination attempt also saw no sign of investigation into just who had sent the assassins.

In a more just world, that might have been the natural follow-up, but those that left the Minister's Hall that day knew that there would be no further trials, not for Oliver's benefit. The victory he'd won had been merely by the skin of his teeth, thanks to the weight that Princess Asabel and Hod had managed to throw around for him. Even if they'd dragged him there, he wouldn't have gone back.

The evening of the trial brought with it more than Oliver would have liked. He would have preferred to merely sit in his room, and enjoy the quiet after such a day, but of course, given his position on the receiving end of so much support, he could not turn a single man away.

"Verdant," Oliver said as the priest closed the door after him. "Your father seems insistent on making you his heir. Does that not bother you?"

The priest showed no signs that he did. The smile hadn't left his face since the trial had ended. He'd been waiting outside the Hall's doors with Oliver's other retainers and with Lady Blackthorn and he seemed to hardly want to leave Oliver's side since.

"Not all, my Lord," Verdant said. "There are times in a man's life when he must make drastic changes. When he must leave the forces that have tugged at him for so long as a child, moulding him into a certain shape. A man must find out who he is for himself. I've spent years with such forces moulding me. I have been allowed to become my own man. Explore stories at My Virtual Library Empire

I have attained all I wished to attain. I am ready for the restraints of my inheritance."

"What of your priesthood?" Oliver asked. "I thought you became a priest out of some oath to Behomothia?"

"No," Verdant corrected him. "Behomothia did not force me into my post. It was merely a possibility that would allow me the sort of freedom that I wished for, whilst I searched for what it was that I wished to search for. And now I have found it. I can be a far more useful man to you as Verdant Idris the Idris hier than Verdant Idris the priest."

"You make it sound too much for my benefit," Oliver said. "I would rather you did what it was that you wished to."

"Oh, but it is my wish to be of benefit to you," Verdant said easily. "You must see it yourself now, even if you wish to ignore it. Not just your strength, but your very presence – your influence has already begun to cast a weighty shadow. Towards that end, I must again apologise for my failure… We should not have found ourselves in such a position, not when we expected it."

It must have been the third time that Verdant had apologized to Oliver since the trial's end. The priest seemed to be firmly set on blaming himself for what had happened, even though he'd had such a large hand in solving the matter.

"It is as you said, I think," Oliver told him, "this should at least prevent any too-obvious moves from building up, should it not?"

"It should," Verdant agreed. "Though it might be Princess Asabel that has offered us the biggest boon… I would not have expected that from her. She's always seemed rather measured in her approach."

"Indeed…" Oliver said, feeling more than a little conflicted. He had only had the shortest of exchanges with Asabel since the trial ended.

She'd expressed her relief that it had all worked out, and Oliver had expressed his thanks – that was all he'd been able to get in, before Asabel was swamped by Lords and nobles, circling her like vultures, searching for the slightest scrap of opportunity that they could get from her now that she'd quarter inherited.

"My father is sworn to her," Verdant reminded him, "but the Idris house will return to me and my oaths once he passes them to me. You need not worry on that front."

"That wasn't what I was worried about," Oliver said quickly. He'd always had a certain level of distrust – at least to a degree – of people. But how could he even dare to feel anything of the slightest sort towards Asabel? Even if it had happened that he'd have lost the Idris' entirely, thanks to Asabel's maneuvering, he could have been nothing but grateful.

"You worry for the Princess herself, then?" Verdant asked.

Oliver nodded slowly. "There is too much about all this that I don't understand. Far too. The stage keeps shifting and I'm having trouble finding out just what I need to be doing. Somehow, my strength in combat has now become the source of my weaknesses – or at least it has highlighted them – as my lack of proper grounding comes to the fore."

"Those expectations are too high," Verdant told him gently. "You speak of factions, do you not? No matter how far your foresight, you would have struggled to build up the sort of faction that could have protected you from so many high-standing individuals. Or even the highest standing individual…"