A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1470 - 1470: A Passing Breeze - Part 1

"My Lord?" Torin said, leaning forward, pressing his ear close to Ferdinand, ensuring that he would not miss a single word. He couldn't quite the shaking of his hands, nor the tumultuous nature of his mind, as he desperately searched for some part of his training that might serve to piece together the mess that they found in front of them.

"Warn him," Ferdinand said, his voice quieter.

"Warn who, my Lord?" Torin said, not thinking at his best. He ought to have known the answer without asking. He knew who his Lord looked to, though he pretended to deny it, and Torin himself pretended not to see.

"Oliver Patrick," Ferdinand said. "Their schemes ought not to bring him low. Warn him."

Lord Blackwell knelt beside the body of his son, with all the stoic calmness that he retained elsewhere. He did not reach out a hand to test the coldness of his flesh. He merely knelt, as if both before the boy that he had raised, and before the Gods themselves.

Oliver stood close by, though he kept his distance respectful. He knew that Blackwell would call for him eventually. The two had made eye contact when Blackwell had come, but they hadn't said a word. Oliver had reached the body first, and he was able to confirm with his own eyes what Blackwell no doubt was trying to run from in his head.

"Fleeting, it all turns out to be," came a voice, far too lacking in sympathy for the situation. Oliver did not have to turn to know that it was Karstly. The man came in eternal search of drama. There was no way one of his like would not quickly sniff something like this out, especially when the news had already begun to spread so rapidly. "A striking young man. A careful diplomat. Another ten of fifteen years, and he might have negotiated with our enemies on behalf of the kingdom itself. So much potential, lost so soon."

Somehow, those words only reeked of emptiness.

"Though, it does seem odd to me," Karstly said, gesturing towards the corpse.

"What does, General?" Oliver said, his irritation lacing it with his words, making them sharper than they ought to have been in his address of his superior.

Karstly merely smiled at the aggression. "Well now look, look how he died. Alone, you see? He was always surrounded by his retainers. Why would a young lordling like him, of such potential, have to die alone."

"He had one retainer with him when he passed," Oliver said, gesturing towards Torin. The young man looked frankly terrified. He knelt on the opposite side of Ferdinand's corpse to Lord Blackwell, his skin almost as white as the dead's.

"Ah, yes, but he only found our Lord Ferdinand after he had been mortally wounded, did he not? And he did not succeed in chasing the killer," Karstly said.

Oliver looked at him with a mild degree of surprise. It had taken him a good deal of questioning of Torin to find out that much, given the state that his Lord's passing had left him in. He carried himself as a defeated man, and those, by Oliver's experience, always seemed to be the hardest to get through to.

"Of course I'd know," Karstly said, smiling at the unasked question, not even turning to meet Oliver's eyes. "Always just assume I know, Ser Patrick."

"Very well, I shall assume what you ask of me – then what?" Oliver said. "What do you mean to imply?"

"Well, it strikes me that, to go off on his own, our Lord Ferdinand must have had a reason," Karstly said. "And what reason could possibly distract a young man like that? A pretty woman? Doubtful. What was left of a pretty woman remains inside that tent there – and it seems she'd been dead a good while before our Lord Ferdinand got to her."

That was information that even Oliver had yet to be informed of. "Surprised, are you? She's not the only one," Karstly told him. "There have been a handful of killings. It's hard to give an exact number yet. The tents haven't all been checked, but my men are doing what they can."

"You're playing the detective for us, are you? That's awfully honourable of you, General," Oliver said.

"Naturally, as ever, honour is my first and foremost motivation," Karstly said, with just the barest hint of a smile. "This is all to say, despite the diplomat that we thought Ferdinand to be, it seems obvious enough that the young Lord heard something, and went wandering on his own initiative. An act of bravery you would not have expected."

"An act of foolishness," Blackwell said harshly, rising at last. "He, of all people, ought to have known his limitations. The risk he took – pointless. What a waste."

"…Perhaps he thought it to be important," Oliver offered, on the dead lordling's behalf.

"The fire would have been dealt with in time," Blackwell said. "He had only needed to wait. There was no reason for him to act on his own accord. He ought to have at least brought Torin with him."

Oliver searched for another excuse, but was unable to find one. He had the sense that, despite Blackwell's stoney face, he didn't mean his criticisms as harshly as he put them. There was no man alive, Oliver was convinced, that could find the body of his murdered son, and feel nothing. He kept himself quiet, for he knew not what to say, to penetrate that stony exterior. Blackwell, instead, did his work for him.

"Find who did this, Ser Patrick, and deal with them," he said. "From Karstly's report, there is more than one killer, and there are arsonists afoot too. This is your tournament. Restore order to it, before all gets out of hand."

One had to praise Ferdinand on the fact that his men had at least seen the fire dealt with quickly. By the time Oliver and his men had arrived, the fire was nothing more than a few soggy, smouldering embers. But that, naturally, was where their luck ran out.

"And the masses, General Blackwell?" Karstly asked. "How might you be planning to deal with their hysteria?"