A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1338 - 1338: The Young General Slayer - Part 4

If Oliver had been permitted a sword on his hip, no doubt that gesture would have been a more intimidating one, but even armoured as they were, every single one of the weapons of his guardsmen had been confiscated at the gate, along with Oliver's own blade.

He had chosen a different sword to wear that morning, instead of Dominus', and instead hidden his treasured blade elsewhere, figuring that, if there was an act of pettiness to be had available to the High King, it was best to see it avoided in advance. The sword he had ended up giving was one that he would not have missed, even if they were to be petty and refuse to give him it back.

The Patrick men that he had brought settled in around Oliver, forming a relative shield against the crowd. The guardsmen seemed to have disappeared at some point, after urging them onwards, towards the many steps leading towards the throne room's open doors.

Oliver wondered how everyone would fit inside, and that question was quickly answered – they wouldn't. Those that had arrived first had secured seats on the inside, from the lower floor, all the way to the two upper floors, they clung to the scraps of space that they had. Only those with an incredible amount of station needed not to worry about such things.

They could simply wander in, whenever they arrived, and demand that they be offered the best seats.

The Patrick House was no such House, however. They were condemned, for a certainty, to being made to stay outside, along with the throng of other people, amidst the smog of mixed perfumes, put on so thickly by the various noblemen and women around them that it was all but impossible to breathe.

"…When do you suppose this thing might start?" Oliver asked, wishing to see the business hurried on with. He already knew the answer to that question, but still he asked it, hoping with the impossible hope that somehow something might have changed since he had last been given its answer.

"Whenever the High King sees fit, my Lord," Verdant responded. "It could be in five minutes, it could be in an hour, or it could be all the way before midnight tonight. Such is the discretion that he is afforded."

At the very least, Oliver supposed, there would be signs as to when it might start, in the arrival of the particularly important peoples, such as the Silver Kings, and the Generals of the campaigns themselves. As of yet, he was not able to see any of them, but then he supposed, given the crowd, it was only natural not to see anyone.

They found a patch of ground relatively near the stairs, and then the Patrick men set up their perimeter around Oliver, prepared to protect the slight metre of space that they had secured with their lives. Oliver certainly did not envy their positions, dealing with nobles – quite physically – as they had to.

There were many lines in the form of "my goodness," and, "how uncouth!" dropped, whenever a particular aggressive party's attempts at shoulder barging their way through them were dropped.

If they had been anywhere else, those aggressive attempts seemed volatile enough to have transformed into something more dramatic, but at least here, the noblemen and women had the sense to see themselves carried with a degree more restraint.

That was not to say that they didn't part without a degree of pettiness. A tug on Verdant's surcoat was one such retaliation, but it didn't move the man by the slightest bit. Only his head turned, with all the menacing of a stone golem, and the women who had tried the act of pettiness gave a rather deserving yelp as she scurried away.

Oliver fancied that the whole lot of them were like goblins, in the desirous way that they carried themselves. They were meant to be the height of the kingdom, the most moral of men, but what lows they sunk to in order to scratch the barest bit of better viewing space. The stairs seemed to be home to the most ambitious of them.

Oliver saw one man and his family, as richly dressed as if they were to attend a wedding – with wide sleeves and a long flowing dress – creep up right behind another family, whose position they desired. And, quite blatantly, did they grab at them. The young woman was pulled dangerously free of the stairs by an older woman of a different house, and she went crashing down into the crowd.

The husband failed to dislodge the man from the other family, but the man was forced to move nonetheless, crying out in terror as he saw his wife disappear beneath tens of dozens of feet.

There was quite a real threat of death when they fell like that. The family, satisfied with their surprise attack, deftly moved in to where a pair of crying children stood waiting, having seen their mother disappear into what to them likely seemed like the jaws of hell. The attacking family moved them aside as well, without a shred of shame, or any other emotion besides satisfaction.

An hour later, Oliver saw that same family assaulted in much the same assassination-like method that they had employed on the others. They were dragged down from their perch on the stairs, unable to climb any higher, and replaced by a group that was bigger, and meaner, and to put it cruelly, a great deal more overweight.

With each hour that passed, the venue seemed to descend more and more into a form. The stench worsened. Sweat was thick in the air, and mixed with the sweetness of the fog of perfume, it was a vomit inducing stench indeed – almost as much as the actual scent of vomit, which began to waft quite occasionally.

There were more than a few families that had to stage a hasty retreat because of the need for the toilet as well. Others stood their ground far too long, and brought themselves only embarrassment, having to find somewhere to change their clothes, leaving the foulest of stenches behind.