A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1495 - 1495: The Need for War - Part 3

They filled out, two men at a time, and left the tent flap stirring behind them. The remaining four individuals did not speak until that flap had ceased to move entirely.

"You will speak freely to me now, General Patrick, without an intermediary," Queen Asabel told him.

"It will be an honour," Oliver said, bowing lightly.

"Speak, then, as you have been bidden to," General Blackthorn said, prodding him impatiently. "Why did Blackwell send you here, of all people? Why does he insult us, with the title that you've been given."

"Naturally, his intention was not to see you insulted. Quite the opposite," Oliver said.

"Which is to say, the news that he bid you carry would have sounded wrong from the mouth of a Captain, or even a Colonel," Lord Idris said. "To such a degree, that he saw it fit for you to be named General, merely to see it spoken to us. I like this not. Your intentions are written obviously, Patrick. You endanger years of labour. None gathered here have the strength to support what you should ask. I do not wish to allow you to speak in a poison tongue, to convince our Queen to any sort of direction."

"Do you think that I can not make such decisions of my own mind?" Asabel said, her irritation making her sharper with him than she normally would have dared to be. She was an angry lioness, that day, it seemed. Oliver noted it with a certain relief. He would have far preferred dealing with this fiery Queen Asabel, when she had all her fierceness to her.

"There was an injustice tonight, my Queen," Oliver said to her.

"There was," Asabel agreed. "…Forgive me, I was unable to do nothing."

"Nor was I," Oliver said. "Nor were his retainers. The deed was done far too quickly for any of us to ask."

"But you sought out the man that did it, and you carried out justice," Asabel said. "Far more than I have been able to."

Lord Idris looked as if he wished to intervene. He could quickly see the conversation getting away from him. Any more, and his interjections, he knew, would be even more unnatural and unwelcome. But though his mouth came open, the words did not come out. He realized, with an acute certainty, that he was attempting to get in the way of a conversation between old friends – though they spoke with the jousting formats of formality, that was undeniable what the sentiment was, beneath the surface.

"Ah, but have we, Queen Asabel?" Oliver said. "We snapped the sword that did the deed, but we are so far away from delivering true justice to the man that saw the sword wielded. An instrument was broken tonight, but not the one that set the scheme in place."

"…Quite," Asabel said. "These are crimes that smell only of jealousy. I had heard that Ferdinand had trouble with the Merchants' Guild. Some of the men that we have integrated pointed to their involvement."

"Lord Blackwell believes in a different culprit," Oliver said. "Though it would not surprise me if the Merchant's Guild was bound up in it all as well. As you can well understand, Lord Blackwell is in quite a… tumultuous state of mind. He's keen to see his justice carried out. He had the aura of a man that has reached the end of his rope. He's willing to do whatever is necessary now."

"Naturally," Queen Asabel said. "One must go that far for family. For justice."

"It is not only this injustice that he points to," Oliver said carefully. "He has been wronged, more than once, by powerful hands, over the course of these last years. His House has been put in great danger for the longest time, for reasons that none could deem good enough. Those wounds begin to ache as well."

Queen Asabel was an intelligent woman. Oliver could tell, as he met those bright green eyes of hers, that she had begun to understand what it was that he was getting at. She carefully evaluated him, as fierce as the dragon sigil that her House bore. She was full of fire that night.

Her pause gave Lord Idris the in that he needed to speak once more, and he seized on it readily, expressing once more the opinion of a logically minded man. "Queen Asabel, I think we can both see what Lord Blackwell points towards. And naturally, we understand his choices, for he is a man stricken by grief. Yet, are we to trust the judgement of such a grief-stricken man, in the very hours following his son's death? Who has ever made the right choice, full of such emotion?"

"Are you saying we should rid ourselves of emotion in all decisions, then, my Pillar?" Queen Asabel asked him. It ought to have been a light question. But something about the way she posed it seemed to carry a great meaning for the woman.

"…Perhaps I would go that far," Lord Idris decided, after giving it a few moments of thought. "One must evaluate the facts, and disconnect the facts from his emotions, before he clouds them."

"What of the Pillar that stands next to you?" Queen Asabel said.

"I, my Queen?" Lord Blackthorn said, in a manner that seemed to suggest he had no idea why he was being included.

"Indeed, you, Lord Blackthorn. Do you not allow your emotions to guide you at times? Self-confessed, you have told me, sometimes your anger gets the better of you," Queen Asabel said.

"I have," Blackthorn said. "And it does."

"Does the General not admit that his anger is a problem to be solved?" Lord Idris said.

"I would not say it was," Queen Asabel replied, on behalf of Blackthorn. "If not for his anger, would Lord Blackthorn be the man that he is today? I think not. I do not think every choice that one makes should be devoid of emotions. The Gods act through us, I believe, and when we feel a strong impulse, it is their knocking on our door to tell us to do thus. Mine own Quarter Inheriting was not a matter founded upon logic."

"And that has been a road fraught with difficulty, my Queen…" Lord Idris pointed out carefully.