A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1407 - 1407: Ambitions - Part 4

Oliver gave her a gentle smile. "You need not say so just for the sake of cheering me up, Nila," Oliver said. "It is not a single victory that I seek but the means to snatch that victory repeatedly. As of yet, it seems to me that I am still as far away as I once was from all of that."

…

…

There was planning the tournament to be done, but there was also ensuring that the preparations went well enough. Oliver had to admit, though they were taxing, he found a certain amount of enjoyment in both parts of those preparations.

The planning was exciting, as far as coming up with new ideas, but walking around the village afterwards, and seeing the enthusiasm with which the people of Solgrim were welcoming the tournament, that quickly grew to be his main driving force.

Without the tournament, he knew, he likely would have found all the excuses he could to hole up in his room, and stare at his Battle board for hours on end, wondering what it was he needed for a breakthrough in that realm.

Stalls were already being put up inside the marketplace. Naturally, there were always stalls of some kind there, but they seemed a different species from what was being erected now. The wood of their frames all looked to be brand new – though Oliver knew, in large part, that the villagers had simply filed down some of the old wood that they had been using – and the carpenters were out in full force, to make those frames even fancier. Some had the slightest ripple of what seemed to be flames carved into the top of their wood, others had a ball of wool, with two crossed needles, for a clothier's stall, and a butcher next to them made sure to have a cleaver carved in.

"…Bloody hell, it does look good, doesn't it?" The butcher observed, with his back to Oliver, he saw the final results of the carpenter's work on one side of his frame.

"Aye, it looks good," the carpenter agreed. "But it'll cost you a pretty penny."

The butcher waved him away with a hand. "No such thing. I'm going to rolling in a river of it when these crowds come. You can take your coin now, and enjoy it, because I'll be making far more later on."

"You trying to make me jealous, you bastard?" The carpenter said, but the coin anyway. "Still. I have to say it's a shame. You could have done with a better canvas to hang for your roof. That old thing ain't white no more. It needs dying a more interesting colour, but we don't have much in the way of dyers around here…"

"Aye," the butcher agreed. "I think I'll have to decide what to do about that later. It's bringing down the whole look of the stall."

"At the end of the day, you are just selling meat though," the carpenter said.

"Pissin' hell. It's a festival, you fool. I'm going to be grilling that meat, and selling all sorts more than I usually would around here."

"Heh? Well, I hope it goes well for you."

Those merchants that had been lucky enough to already have stall space secured right in the heart of the village were the subjects of envy. The travelling merchants – of which, there began to be many – who had caught wind of the occasion, and had settled in order to make stalls of their own, along with a quick few coins, had begun to complain rather aggressively when they weren't given a fair shake for any of the prime in-village spots, no matter how much coin they put forward.

Greeves had been the shield against such disputes, turning them away, but he did not do so willingly. He saw all the coin that they were willing to put up, and had gone running to Oliver to tell him of it.

"We can make a barrel full of it, if we auction off the best spots," Greeves said. "And it'll work in our favour, even after the spots have been sold. 'Cos we'll be able to tax them on their sales – and these travelling merchants will be selling far more than our hometown merchants. They know what they're doing. They'll put up better stalls, and those fools that flock in for the tournament will be weak against them. They'll buy everything they see."

"As tempting as that is, you are to decline it," Oliver said. "This occasion should see our own people enriched, not just our pockets. The merchants that have already been here, working with us, will keep their positions, and you only have my permission to auction off what spots are already free – but that is only if a merchant of Solgrim does not wish to use them first."

"Bloody soft touch…" Greeves had muttered, but he'd carried out the order faithfully anyway.

Even the newly arrived smith Harmon was getting well into the swing of the festivities. He'd been slowly but surely making the smith shop and house that he'd been given into his own. It hadn't been much when he'd first received it, only the barest necessities, but in the few weeks that he'd been here, he'd had a wooden sign carved and painted, with a chestplate on it, and he'd had grand carved tables fashioned to go along with it, to display all his different wares on.

Oliver greeted the man as he passed, peering curiously at the different things that had been put out since he had visited last time.

"Ser Patrick!" Harmon said, bowing deeply, with his hammer still in hand. "Err—about your armour, Ser, it's coming. It'll be ready in time for the tournament, that I can promise you… I've just been getting distracted, I admit…"

His eyes flashed towards the new wares that he'd just been setting out, including an intriguing pair of gauntlets, whose metal had been stained green, and whose wrist guards sported three dagger-like talons.

"Well, I certainly wouldn't wish to be the one to make you stop making things as interesting as these," he said, pointing at the strange gauntlets.