A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"Daemon," she said to him. "You're making my job impossible."

He looked firmly at her, about to refute, only to melt under the force of her irritation. "You don't have to do it… I've already pointed that out."

"Don't use that as an excuse," Mary said, "we've had this conversation more than once. I'm not having it again, especially not in front of your… guests."

She only seemed to remember then that Oliver was there, for she bowed to him, a full ninety-degree bow, like a proper maid addressing the master of the house. Still, it felt inappropriate now. It was hard to pinpoint her as a normal maid at all. She didn't even tie up her hair as normal maids did, and merely let it stream all the way down her back towards her waist, a whole black river of it.

"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Ser Patrick. I have heard great things," she said.

"Uhh…" caught flat-footed, it took Oliver a second before he could formulate a reply. "It is almost my pleasure to make your acquaintance as well," he said, scratching his cheek.

He saw Skullic give a brief nod of approval. Oliver wasn't sure why. The woman herself might have been smiling, from the warmth coming off her, but in reality, her lips had hardly twitched.

"Now," she said to Skullic. "You have a duty to tend to, do you not?"

"I do…" Skullic murmured, like a child being chastised.

"And do you think you can tend to it, whilst I begin cleaning up this mess?"

"Yes…"

"Good," she said, clapping her hands together. "Then I shall leave you two boys to it."

"Mary," Skullic said quietly, as she grabbed the first piece of debris.

"Mm?"

"I'm sorry…" Skullic said. He seemed almost bashful. Oliver could hardly tell what he'd walked in on. From his meeting with Skullic before, he'd expected some sort of powerful General, but here he was, dipping his head to a maid… Granted, that maid looked as though she could have twisted his head firmly off, with that anger gently simmering in her eyes, but still.

"Awh," Mary said, smiling at him. "Now don't you dare do it again."

It was hard to follow up on that. Oliver didn't even try. Even as he heard the sounds of wooden pieces clacking together to his side, as Mary began the seemingly impossible task of cleaning, Oliver was left standing stock still. Yet another mystery in a noble world full of mysteries. What little grasp he thought he was getting of noble customs was once again shattered.

"Now," Skullic said, regaining his composure. "As for what I am to do with you… Well, I have not quite decided. Regardless, this 'mission' schedule that you have been pressed into, they're… interesting enough.

Had I been your age, I would have no doubt been jealous of the opportunity provided to you, but it has been a decade since I left these walls, and time has given me the experience to understand why we do not let students fight in official drafts until they come of age."

"Why?" Oliver asked curiously. It sounded impertinent, the way he'd asked the sudden question, but he'd managed to keep a curious enough expression on his face to assure Skullic that it was a genuine question.

Oliver had tasted his first experience of combat within the first decade of his life. He'd seen violence properly then. Now, at only fifteen, having fought battles, it seemed odd to him that these noblemen would be given such experience with the sword and then by law banned from battling until they came of age. At the very least he thought they should have been given a choice.
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"Wastefulness," Skullic said. "A grave sin. The death of a human being, if you consider it purely in terms of time and resources invested, it is terribly wasteful. Let an average fifteen-year-old fight in battle and his chances of dying are likely double that of a man three years his elder. To waste fifteen years of nurture and teaching for the sake of three? Does that not strike you as wasteful?"

"I can see that argument," Oliver nodded. "But three years to cut their chances of dying in half? Does that not seem… optimistic?"

"Not at all," Skullic said. "We've done studies. Gods, I hate to sound like an academic… But the Yarmdon do not practise this custom. We have plentiful spies and plentiful battles for the interested to study. Most of the dead in those battles are the young. Why?

We make up the why, but those are the results. At eighteen, he's more of a man, more likely to be fully grown, his muscles are thicker. His techniques are honed. That is what I'd expect."

"Interesting…" Oliver said consideringly.

"The High King violated a dictate when he ordered that you undertake these missions," Skullic said, "or suggested, at the very least. I do not like that."

Mary looked up sharply, a warning hidden in her eyes. Skullic waved her off with a free hand. "It sets a bad precedent, after all. Doing one so-called mission a week, indeed, would likely have killed you, no matter how strong you think yourself to be. You would have been assigned to a General that would have gradually increased the difficulty of your task week by week until you ended up dead."

"…My retainers told me much the same," Oliver said carefully.

"Of which you have three? Or is it four? Ah, yes, four with the Idris heir," Skullic said to himself. "So I suppose that you would want to do these missions alone, mm?

He paused in thought, seeming to be considering something. "Mary, could I trouble you for some tea?" He asked innocently.

Mary had just finished making a pile of wood in one corner of the room and was busy getting on with restoring the fireplace to some semblance of tidiness. Oliver had thought that she would bite with irritation at Tavar's request, but she merely stood up and headed through a side door on the other corner of the room, dropping a languid, "I suppose," as she went.