A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

He turned on his heel, content to leave it there. He was eyeing the tray of drinks that Peter had set out. The tea had been delicious. A lovely blend of wintery berries, sweetened with honey. Oliver loved sweets. It was a fact that likely would have done much to offset his rather aggressive reputation if it were to ever get out.

He ignored the cries of Amelia as she ran to collect her mistress, somehow managing to find a way to blame her state on Oliver. She was certainly a lively girl; he couldn't fault her for that.

Lasha found herself unexpectedly pleased that his attention had flitted away so quickly. That way, she did not have to hide the unreserved smile that she wore, even as she felt icy snow melt down her back.

The days passed by more peacefully for Oliver after that. To a degree. He made sure to keep a lower profile. Or more accurately, he tried to hide away from any more potentially troublesome things.

He had begun his lessons with Lady Blackthorn in earnest, with their training happening most lunchtimes, and Verdant had dragged him to the small shrine of Bohemothia so that he might officially swear his oaths.

All in all, life was going well. Three days had passed, his wounds were healing – now that Verdant was strictly overseeing them, making sure he took proper care of himself – and the days were as rewarding as they were peaceful.

That was, until, his first Command lesson finally came creeping around to his schedule.

His lectures thus far had been relatively simple. He was waiting on General Close Combat Training, and Physical Enhancement – two lessons that were typically held on a weekend – and in the meantime, it was his more academic subjects that he was being forced to take.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

He'd had more lessons in Advanced Strategies – these he found to be considerably more complicated than the rest, given their references to things that he had never studied before – and under the recommendation of Professor Volguard, he'd even signed up with Mathematics, as a replacement for the Swords Training lessons that he had been barred from.

He'd gone, and endured one of those lessons, just the day before, and it was enough to make him seriously consider having his head examined. None of it made sense. It was like a whole new language in and of itself.

"I see you're already tending to the most important factors of keeping an army maintained, by looking into its strategy, command, medical upkeep and individual combat ability… why not round that out with mathematics? It delves into logistics, and helps formulate a more logical mind which can be useful for strategy," Volguard had said.

"Why wouldn't I just do the logistics course for that, then?" Oliver had asked.

Volguard had given a vague smile at that and said. "Well, perhaps it would help you fortify the more scholarly areas in which you are lacking… At the very least, it would give you an entryway into them."

That hadn't exactly filled Oliver with much excitement, but he decided to take the professor's advice for what it was worth, and attend the classes anyway. It had immediately become obvious to him that he would never be an accomplished mathematician, but the discussions of coin that the lesson had centred around had interested him.

It was the sort of thing that would be of interest to Greeves and Nila, and to him, if he ever wanted to try his hand at rebuilding the Patrick estates.

With mathematics going so poorly, and his other written subjects going just as badly, it was clear that he had work to do. Of course, it wasn't as bad as it could be.

When they weren't using too much terminology, he found the concepts that each of the three subjects spoke of to be quite easy to understand, and even exciting, as he puzzled out ways he might apply them to his own endeavours… But the writing was holding him back terribly. He was just too slow.

The other students seemed to be able to glance at the chalkboards and know exactly what each word meant, but Oliver had to sound out the individual glyphs in his head to find out what each one was. The was a simply extraordinary gulf between the amount of practise the other noble students had put into reading, and what he himself had done. His writing suffered from similar problems.

There was work to be done on them, and he'd attempted to start addressing it in his room, having had Verdant bring him a series of simple books from the library… But as of yet, there'd been far from significant progress.

He paced across the grounds now, heading to Command class, a class held exclusively for nobles. It was a biweekly class, marking it as the most infrequent of all the lectures that he was taking, but that only added to the excitement for it.

Verdant had told him that it was meant to be training for authoritative speech, and had warned him that the similarities to real battle weren't there, and that it would be no substitute for the training of a proper General. But Oliver didn't have a proper General. On that front, hardly any progress had been made, or so it seemed.

This Command class was the closest connection he had to that desired future.

The class was to be held in the Central Castle – the only class that he had that was held in that building. He walked there with a spring in his step, once more passing Gras and his building team as they worked to construct a shop for Gargon.

He slowed his pace as he went by them, noting that the bespeckled boy that they'd been leaving out was missing.

"Ser Patrick!" Gras said, hurrying out of the foundational structure to greet him, after someone alerted him to his coming. Oliver marvelled at the speed that they were making on the structure. Already, the barebones were done, the framing all but complete for the walls, the roof and the floor.