A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1569 - 1569: The Strategy of Defence - Part 4

Professor Volguard stood over the coffin, and evaluated it in silence, for but a few short seconds. When he spoke, he did so with iron certainty. "Well, the Blackwells have certainly kept that quiet, but I assume it to make sense…"

"Hm?" Oliver said.

"That, I wager, from the circlet he wears, will have been the first Lord Black," Volguard said. "He fought alongside the First King. You might call him a retainer… but the relationships between such factions were different then. The circlet on his brow made him a warlord of considerable rank in his own right – such were our people a time ago. He was one warlord amongst many. And it was the First King who saw so many of them united."

"Hmmmm," Oliver said, with a finger on his chin. "Does Lord Blackthorn know that he's buried here? I imagine they'd both wish to fight for the honour of hosting their dead ancestor."

"If he paused to think about it, I suppose he could deduce it. It was Lord Black that founded Ernest city after all, and he commissioned that church that was built, in honour of the Goddess Claudia that his King had come to worship," Volguard said.

"…He had a great love for his King," Oliver observed.

"I suppose we could guess so," Volguard agreed.

"No, I mean, here – you can really tell. His expression. Even his bones point towards the same thing. Even in death, you can feel the man's loyalty," Oliver said.

That caused Volguard to look at him oddly. The aged Professor even shifted uncomfortably, seeing the intense way that Oliver was looking at the marble coffin, as he could see straight through it, towards the past, hundreds of years ago.

Oliver stood like that for minutes on end, and Volguard dared not interrupt. He smiled as if he was seeing something that only he was privy too.

"I think I understand a bit of it," Oliver said at last. "Why it was that the First King was so comfortable using his men so recklessly… If this is the love that they showed him, he would be dishonouring them, by not operating at his full capacity. They practically willed him to do it… and he did it so casually."

"Perhaps," Volguard said. "The First King was said to inspire such loyalty. An odd sort, he was. Both childish at times, and other times, the height of magnanimous wisdom. He seems a creature separate from the realms of men."

"Mhm," Oliver nodded. "That seems to describe him well. I think I will spend a while here, Professor. You may return, if you so wish."

With an awkward boy, Volguard dipped his head, and turned to leave.

…

…

"You are not worried, Lord Idris?" Volguard said, when he met the man atop the walls of Ernest. Both Verdant and Lady Blackthorn were still looking down on the training below. They stood, at all hours of the day, with or without their Lord, like two great sentinels. They inspired a consistency in the city that was seconded only by the eternally rising and setting sun.

"Worried of what, good Professor?" Verdant said, as calmly as ever. Volguard had always found him a difficult man to handle. That sort of icy calm was hard to converse with. When one never showed any true emotion in response to what was said, how could a proper conversation be had? And then Lasha Blackthorn next to him was even worse. They gave him nothing to work with.

"The odd remarks the young General Patrick makes," Volguard said. "They are not usual for a man in his position, nor is his increasing calmness. It seems to border right on delirium. I hesitate to call it madness, but it could soon shift towards it, if we are not careful."

"I do not think my Lord to be so unstable, Professor," Verdant said. "All seems like madness, until it works. I believe my Lord simply sees something that we do not."

"…Do you?" Professor Volguard said. "How can you be so certain?"

Verdant looked at him, as contented as a cat. "For he is the man that I have chosen to serve. I am quite sure that no other man in the Kingdom is greater than he. Do you yourself not feel it?"

The intensity of the loyalty that he felt pouring out from Verdant was of such a degree that even Volguard could not fail to notice it. He briefly thought of Lord Black, and Oliver's comment as to him, and he wondered 'do you not see it in your own men, General Patrick? How can you be so stunned by such loyalty, when you have a man like Verdant Idris, standing in front of me, proclaiming his faith in you, to a degree that I would even call madness?'

They all seemed like that to Volguard, increasingly. In Solgrim, it had been one thing. Volguard had seen how the town had operated, and how the peasantry had held their Lord highly, with such a degree of respect. But now that war had come, it had transitioned into something else entirely. It was borderline fanaticism. It was hard for Volguard to tell whether it was the most healthy of things, or the most unhealthy, for he did not think that it walked the line in the middle of the two.

"…Why can you have such faith that this will be a good change?" Volguard asked. "Oliver Patrick had been saddled with a responsibility far beyond that which he has ever faced, and his own personality tears him apart. He had been given an order that does not suit him. He grows attached to the Blackwell lands and residences. When the order for retreat is mentioned, he does not give it any mind. He treats it dismissively. He intends to fight here, to the death, against Lord Blackwell's plans."

Verdant shrugged. "If those are my Lord's intentions, then we will follow him, and we will ensure that death does not await him, even if it might us."