A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1413 - 1413: Ambitions - Part 10

"I…" Oliver frowned. "I have no idea? Perhaps you were unaware of the difficult situation we were in with Ferdinand, but this was simply the best solution."

"…And you choose the best solution, regardless of how the masses might perceive it? Regardless of the fact that you might be mocked, for daring to hold such a tournament? Were you not worried that people would accuse you of acting above your station, Ser? Forgive me for saying so, but the Patrick House is far from being one of standing. It feels wrong to say this aloud, given the history of your House, but its standing ought not to be much more than my destitute noble House… and yet…"

"Such things mean nothing, Yorick," Oliver said. "Perhaps that is a metric that the other nobles use to judge the worth of someone or something, but I hold to it no credence."

"Then… Then, in your own judgement of it, perhaps the confidence with which you declare it, and the competence that you have shown yourself to act with… perhaps that is why the reaction was such…" Yorick said, his forehead creased in a frown, as if he was trying to solve the hardest of all problems. "For, I think that to be the even stranger part – how well this has all been received, and the support that your boldness has collected. Not just now, but continually… On campaign, I have to admit, I feared often for how we would be punished for acting outside the scope of our orders. But it was accepted to a degree, and I still do not understand why. Perhaps that too was an acknowledgement of competence? Yet how did you know they would act as such?"

"I am not so cunning a man as to be capable of thinking everything through, Yorick," Oliver said. "You give me an undue amount of credit. I act on impulse, on emotion more often than not, and I trouble the people around me because of it. It is not praiseworthy."

"And yet, if you did not, how could you achieve all that you currently have?" Yorick said. "It goes against all I was brought up to believe, but you have achieved more through it. The confidence to make your own path… I'm deeply envious, Captain. I don't know where you find the strength."

"Envy, Yorick? Surely not," Oliver said. "I am a Captain that is unable to live up properly to his duties, and you are a Commander that I could not be more pleased with. Perhaps you might see the glass that I am, and falsely assume there to be jewels on the outside, but appearances aside, you have filled the cup of your position far better than I have filled me."

"Captain!?" Yorick said, fitful in his refutal. Oliver had never heard him shout so loud. "Are you of sane mind? You, of all people, being unable to live up to your duties? Did you not hear my stunned exclamation that you were able to put this tournament together? Do you not see how ridiculous the whole thing is – that it's possible, and yet so beyond what a normal nobleman of our standing should ought to aspire to."

"Not at all, Commander, for ridiculousness was the very principle it was founded upon, it was a joke that I was meant to tell, but I had no other ideas to replace it with, and so with doggedness, we have made it work," Oliver said. "That is not something to be praised."

"It most certainly is, Captain," Yorick said. "I am stunned. Do you not know your own worth? How can you have all the confidence you have to make such rash decisions when you seemingly denigrate what it is you have achieved?"

"What indeed have I achieved, Commander?" Oliver said. "I am barely scraping by. As for the confidence to make rash decisions, it could be argued that wasn't a good thing. Besides, it's not confidence, it's impulsiveness. There isn't a long enough delay in thought for me to feel anything that would usually be called nervousness."

"Captain, surely this is madness? Did you not travel to the Capital for this very reason, to see your achievements rewarded? Surely, you must recognize that a normal man of your age does not stand shoulder to shoulder with Generals?" Yorick said. "That he does not command any of their attentions?"

"I think you must have been looking in the wrong direction then, Commander," Oliver said. "I am still much lacking when it comes to standing against Generals."

"Captain! You slew one!" Yorick said. "How is a man like me to have any faith at all in his ability, when a man like you supposes that his achievements are so minor?"

"I cannot even best Colonels in matters of strategy," Oliver protested. "It is my lacking in that realm that has led to the deaths of men greater than myself."

"Captain…" Yorick said, more quietly this time, slowly, peering at Oliver, as if beginning to understand him for the first time. "You truly believe that, don't you? My goodness. I had not realized the degree to which it troubled you."

Oliver stiffened. "Naturally it does. Incompetencies are to be hammered out, like impurities are to be hammered out of steel."

"I see, Ser, that fundamentally, you and I are different creatures," Yorick said. "That is the barest amount I can recognize, but that's still a profound leap of understanding as to you compared to what I had before. I can not believe it. For a man of your position, your achievements, your prospects, to be still so dissatisfied with yourself."

"How could I not be, when I recognize that there is still so much to be done?" Oliver said.

"Not all men share such an impulse, Ser, I can tell you that strongly," Yorick said. "For I am one such man. Cowardice is the only thing that has driven me to be passable as a soldier. I do not have your constant want for betterment. I have to cling to my small victories in order to stay afloat. The world would be far too frightening otherwise. Even this, what you view as a simple matter, in competing in the tournament, I lay awake at night dreading it, Ser, for I am sure I will embarrass myself. I can hardly call myself an officer of yours, when, in the very same realm, you organized this tournament in its entirety, and risked all that possible ridicule, and I can not even fight for a few piddling minutes on a field without dreading it."