A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1727 - 1727: The Pieces - Part 5

"…I am very much aware of that," Oliver said, thinking on it, and then thinking some more, feeling his own emotions swirl about in him. And then they got to the point that he could no longer bear it anymore, and he snatched up a quill, and devoid of all the reasoning that he had put into thinking of what he might say to the Queen, he simply wrote thoughtlessly, and frantically, full of concern.

And for it, Queen Asabel could feel his sincerity. By the end of the first paragraph, there were tears in her eyes. The very first sentence enquired after her well-being, and all those that followed came with such a touching sweetness that one could hardly expect it from the likes of Oliver Patrick.

Her tears only increased as she attempted to read the next paragraph, to the point that she had to put the letter down, and clutch her pillow, to control the sorrowful wails that wracked her body. She cried like she never had before. It was a dagger to the heart, a terrible sweetness that should never have come from such a terrible man. "He's a devil… He's a devil… It's not fair at all," she said.

Lancelot's smile was sad as he regarded her. He had not been told to leave, but he did not feel as if he could stay either. For her to be reduced to such a state by a mere letter seemed to point to the fact that he'd been lacking in his duty as his retainer. He had tried all he could to settle her heart. He'd gone out of his way to find little gifts that might please her. But none had served to lift her melancholy – only for Oliver Patrick to pierce straight through in the span of a single instant.

'A clumsy, clumsy, and terrifying astute man,' Lancelot admitted to himself. If he were not the Queen's retainer, he would never have dared to let that slip. Part of him still hated Oliver, for simply who he was. The two were incompatible. Oliver frowned on the noble principles that Lancelot had been brought up to put all his faith into, and somehow… somehow, his way of being worked even better than Lancelot's. He hated him for that. But he had to admit to, for the love that he held for Queen Asabel, he could hold a certain love for Oliver Patrick as well, for how he cured her. A love, and a most overwhelming burning jealousy, reigned in only by loyalty. If not for that loyalty, it could never have been resisted.

Oliver wrote all that he thought, all that he could. A single impassioned sprawl, so typical of him when he worked himself into such a state. In both the battlefield and his personal life, Oliver Patrick was very much that person. As soon as there was a strong wind of impulse for him to do something, he followed it all the way through. If anything, these days, that way of being was even sharper than before, it wormed its way more deeply.

Asabel could feel a different man in his words. A man that had changed from his experiences. His vision seemed to be both lighter and heavier than before. He struck her with blows in guessing her mood, so profoundly that it made her gasp for breath, and then he hinted at subtleties that her mind could not decipher, but that made her heart feel a sudden stir of something, as if it was a language quiet enough only for it to hear.

She read it all the way through, all three pages of it. And then she read it again, and again, until the tears stopped flowing. Then she looked at the wall, allowing the tears to dry on her cheeks. She looked at it strongly enough that she might stare a hole through it.

She stood from her bed, after a short while, and she began to pace. Her fist was clenched, and her single little stray canine tooth peeked from her mouth.

There was a fire building about her, and Lancelot had the privilege of watching it grow. It was more impassioned that it was wrathful, but the look on Queen Asabel's face was still intense enough to make Lancelot feel as if he would melt.

When she did finally turn to glare at him, he had to look away, as if he was in trouble.

"Why have you let me roll about for so long?" She said to him accusingly.

"…My apologies," Lancelot said.

"I have tricked myself into thinking that there is nothing that I can do," Queen Asabel said. "But there was nothing Oliver could do in the battle against the Emerson's either, was there?"

"…So we are told."

"Then who are we to give up without trying?" Queen Asabel said. "My father told me to go all the way, and go all the way I shall. Perhaps I know far less than my Pillars. Perhaps it would be better to leave everything to them… But I tire of waiting! Lord Idris' meeting with the merchants. Do you know where it is?"

"I might be able to guide you there," Lancelot said, struggling mightily to hide his smile.

"Then take me there, Ser Lancelot," Asabel said firmly. "And do so quickly."

It was a room in her own newly captured castle that Lancelot guided her too. She stormed the castle's corridors, full of energy and vigour. It was a fire that she hadn't felt in her heart for a while. It was like the return of an old friend. It made her eyes glow with determination. She was the sort of fierce creature that now it was difficult to look at.

She had the doors thrown open by Lancelot's hand, and she stepped in, without a word of warning, to nearly two-dozen raised heads, and the sudden silencing of what had sounded from outside as a rather busy conversation.