A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1533 - 1533: The Resentful - Part 5

"Justice is to be had, no doubt," Oliver said. "But you as individuals, you ought protect yourselves, and that which is dear to you, before it is snatched from your hands. There stands a monarch you can trust with that which you care about. Whatever you might think of her, you can be certain that Queen Asabel shall not steal your land, or your family."

It wasn't much, but there was something to be had there. It was not the passionate inspiration that he had sought to bring out of them before. It was a different, far more malicious emotion, of the sought that Ingolsol could toy with, and there was only the barest drop of it.

The murky waters of fear bled out of just a handful of individuals. The peasants seemed hardly able to be affected by Oliver's words. They did not believe that the hands of the High King would ever reach quite as low as they. It was the peasantry, of all the classes, who seemed most dismissive of the high-level power battles. As far as they were concerned, as long as their fields were not getting raided and torched, it didn't particularly matter who was in charge. They were so far away from it all.

The soldiers were uncomfortable, but none were outright fearful that someone as high borne as the High King would ever stoop towards their daughters. Not when he had all the noble women available for him to choose from. Theirs fears were more for the instability of the nation, and the spreading corruption, but it was still not close enough to their hearts to elicit something.

It was the noblemen that Ingolsol's strings found themselves towards. The Dark God growled with pleasure, when he felt those fearful bindings. Oliver's head turned with a snap, towards the source of such emotions, and he directed his golden eyes towards them, binding them to his will. The first of them, he saw to be the portly gentlemen, who could not help but resist groping his wife in public.

"You, Ser, you know that fear," Oliver said. "Would you stand by, and allow foreign hands to grasp at what is important to you?"

The man did not seem the sort to speak loudly, especially not in front of a crowd. He had nervous and watery eyes. He seemed to seek comfort, if his body was anything to judge him on. And yet, when Oliver called upon him, with Ingolsol's lasso cast, the man could not help but speak, even if he did so poorly. "H-heavens no!" He cried. "T-there are things, there are things that no man should have a right to, no matter who he is!"

"Quite right," Oliver agreed. "You seem to be a man of a particular degree of heart. I respect that. But I do warn you Ser, standing still, and supposing that when the time comes, you will be there to stand as Lord Protector – that is a false notion. When the High King is so capable of having his daggers reach all the way to Lord Blackwell and his noble son Ferdinand, do you suppose they will have trouble cutting through your own defences?"

"…Then, if those… If those be the only options," the man said, grasping for the small dagger that he held at his hip in place of a sword, and raising it. "Then I will fight!" He said it nervously, his nervousness made more obvious when he raised his voice in an attempt to give it aggression. His own wife looked at him in surprise, but it wasn't an entirely disgusted look. There was something in – a very small thing – that might have been ever so slightly impressed. "I will fight!" The man repeated again, as Ingolsol dug his claws in. "House Jovial will fight for your cause, General Patrick, and the cause of Queen Asabel."

"It is not my cause," Oliver corrected. "We fight for the Stormfront. For the land beneath our feet. For the injustices of the past. For the legacy of our ancestors."

"For the Stormfront, then!" The man declared, finding just the smallest hint of anger, to give the smallest degree of hardness to his high voice. "For the Stormfront, House Jovial declares itself!"

With him, twenty soldiers raised their arms, and gave a cheer, deep, and proud, to make up for the weakness of their Lord's voice. Oliver nodded his approval, noting the surprised respect that the portly man had won for himself, with just a handful of moments of forthrightness.

"Who else?" Oliver said, turning his head, towards where he scented the next degree of fear. This man too was old, and noble. He stooped over a stick, embedded with more jewels than most regular soldiers could have bought with a lifetime of wages. His eyes seemed not to see anything. At his shoulder, there was a soldier, eternally shooting him nervous glances, seeming to expect that he would topple over. "You," Oliver said. "You've age to you, Ser. But you have worries."

"…Is it me that General Patrick speaks to?" The old man checked with the soldier next to him.

"It is, my Lord…" The soldier said quietly.

"I have… worries, yes," the old man said, clearing his throat, and then taking an eternity to find the words. "Worries for what comes after me. My lands lie close to the Capital. I do not know if my offspring have the strength to see it defended in my absence… And each year, the Royal lands seem to expand further and further towards my own."

"A worrying expansion," Oliver agreed. "And you have plans as to how you might deal with it?"

The man shook his head. "There are none," the old man said. "The prices they offer will not buy us enough land fit for nobility elsewhere. We will lose our title."

"The leveraging of the High King's crown for more profitable trade deals," Oliver noted. "Hard to call it just."

"…Justice is a sentiment I thought died with Arthur Pendragon," the old man said.

"It is alive and well in his niece," Oliver said. "But she does not have the strength to see it carried out alone."