A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1332 - 1332: Duties to be Done - Part 2

"Fending off civilians is no praiseworthy task," Blackthorn said.

"And that wound on your shoulder," Oliver said, pointing to it. "You had promised that it was not deep, did you not?"

"It caught on my armour, and the blood has already stopped. That is evidence enough," Lasha said.

"I'll send Nila to check on it. It'll be her that you have to prove it to," Oliver said. "You know how she is – you won't be able to get away with it, if it's any deeper than you've said it to be."

"You really need not go that far—"

"I could say the same to you. Look after yourself, Lasha. There's no need to be so reckless," Oliver said. "It brings me no joy to see you injured under my command."

"For you of all people to admonish me about recklessness," Lasha sighed.

"I have no idea what you mean," Oliver grinned. "Come on then," he said, turning on his heel. "We'll go and see if we can find her."

"Oliver," Lasha called.

"Hm?" When Oliver turned to look back at her, she had one knee in the moist filth of the dirt path. "Er… What are you doing?"

She drew her sword, ignoring his incredulous look. She took it by the hilt, and with the finger of her other hand as support, she bowed her head, and held it up to him. "Ser Patrick, I offer you my sword, and my loyalty. I bid that you accept me as your retainer. I bid that you allow me the honour of calling you Lord."

It was likely the most loudly, and emphatically Lady Blackthorn had spoken in her life. When she willed it, her voice had a power to it. The sort of bellowing resonance that one would expect from a great buffalo of a man like her father.

Oliver shook his head. "You don't need to bother with titles, or speeches, or the offering of swords, Lasha. You may fight by my side as often as you wish, and you may leave, just as often as you wish. I thought that arrangement to be enough for us, no? There is no need for you to tie yourself to me."

"I do not wish to leave," Lasha said. "I do not wish to have any reason to go elsewhere. I do not wish to marry, I do not wish to build an army of my own. I only want to fight here, under you. Will you not have me?"

"You know I would not deny you," Oliver said, his smile troubled. He had to shoot Verdant an accusing look. The man was standing with an ominous quiet. Ordinarily, he would have said something by now. Of all the Lords, only Verdant ought to have been eccentric enough to offer his life in retainership to a man so far beneath him in status. But Verdant shrugged, as if to deflect such accusations.

"Then allow me," Lasha said. "I want nothing more than what I have. I do not wish for it to be changed."

"You'll make me an enemy to your father…" Oliver said, scratching his head. "And will not the years change you? You're a different woman to when we first met. Do you not suppose in another five years you will be a different woman as well? You might wish for something different. You ought not give away your life so soon."

"Do not say that as if it is a good thing," Lasha said. "I do not wish to be an untied flag, carried along by the wind, and by the breath of another man's destiny. I do not wish to be pushed in all directions, and none at once. There is only one current that I wish to be bound to. I need only one anchor, against that promise of change, and that is you, Ser Patrick.

I wish to stay by your side, and see the future along with you, and the rest of your soldiers. There is no General that I would rather fight under, and no life that I would rather live. Please, allow me this honour."

"It is you that honour me," Oliver said, scratching his chin, trying to find some other way to refute her.

"Do not make me beg," Lasha said, half-pouting now. She'd run out of poetisms. It seemed she used a whole lifetime's worth of them at once for herself. "Give me this gift, and you will never need to gift me anything again. Have I not bled for you? Will you not allow me this wish?"

Oliver groaned. "This is blackmail, you do realize."

"Oh, if it be blackmail, then, I shall say, if you deny me, I will never speak to you again," Lasha said. "I will never fight for you, or even look at you. I will pretend you don't exist."

"…Am I the only one that thinks your whole noble swearing-of-name ceremony has become something a degree more childish?" Oliver said, looking to Verdant for some form of validation. The rare small smile on the man's lips told him as much.

Now Blackthorn said nothing more. She seemed to realize that, if she joked along with him, she would lighten the air enough to give him some way of wriggling out of the uncomfortable position that she had put him into.

"To be a Patrick retainer… I don't think it be an enviable position," Oliver said, scratching his head. "You'll distance yourself from your family, and you'll take on, more wholly, problems that should not be yours. I will admit, even just now, we've got ourselves into something of a messy position.

Like Harmon, if I had supposed the battling with the Guild would result in something quite so dangerous, I might have thought twice before doing it."

Still, Blackthorn did not speak. Silence was a weighty response indeed.

"If you want a part in that mess, then I will not deny you. But I would ask again, is this really what you want, Lasha?"

"It is, my Lord," Lasha said.