A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 767: Inspecting Greeves’ Soldiers - Part 3

"It was not my place to do," Greeves said, sniffing. "I haven’t mistreated em’, but I’m not a saint to be going around freeing people. If you’re the one who has a use for them, then I figure you’d better explain it to them yourself. I hinted at it when I bought them, and they seemed eager enough, but I made it clear that it wasn’t me that they had to impress.

Besides… This is more convenient, ain’t it? Even the villagers don’t know of their arrival yet. If they displease you, I can dispose of them subtly."

Oliver glared at him with a hard look.

"Still got the righteousness in ya, eh?" Greeves said, sniffing. "I thought I detected more of an edge to your eyes, but I suppose not."

"There are limits, Greeves," Oliver said.

"Fair enough, I suppose. Come on then – we’ll be taking something of a walk," Greeves said, leading them in a direction beyond the marketplace, with the villagers looking their way. Oliver spared them a brief nod, and a raise of his hand, easing the small amount of tension that had been building. As one would expect, they still didn’t know quite how to act around the nobility.

Greeves brought them to a part of the village that Oliver rarely frequented. It was at the complete opposite end of the village to the forest, beyond the marketplace and Oliver and Greeves’ houses.

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Here, the destruction had been particularly bad, Oliver recalled. Francis’ large-scale attacks had decimated a number of houses, leaving mountains of rubble. Now, all signs of that rouble were gone, hidden underneath a blanket of snow.

It seemed too that this part of the village was seeing fewer visitors, given the lack of houses there worth visiting. Indeed, only two houses on the very further end remained, and even they had seen better days. One had a clear hole in its roof, whilst the other’s door was barely hanging off its hinges.

Oliver didn’t even see smoke arising from the chimneys at the centre of the roundhouses. Despite the weather, it seemed that the slaves were being made to do without fires. He gave Greeves another glance for that.

"Glare all you want, but I have no care for strangers, boy. If they were to be discovered in advance, it would have been troublesome for you, and thus me. You’re the horse that I bet on. I’m not going to allow ragged dogs to sabotage that chance," Greeves said.

"You could have avoided all this by merely freeing them…" Oliver murmured.

"And have masterless slaves wandering all over the village whilst we waited for you to arrive? What sort of discord would that have caused?" Greeves said.

"I thought you picked these slaves for a reason," Oliver growled. "If you feared such a thing, you should have chosen better slaves."

"I did pick them for a reason – a reason that you’ll see soon enough," Greeves said, marching through the deep snow, treading down a path that didn’t seem to have been used in at least a few days. It begged a number of questions, but Oliver had no time to answer them, for the merchant was already pressing his key in the first the doors.

It took a little bit of jiggling and a few muttered curses in order to get it to open, and even when it did, Greeves had to drag the poorly hinged door stiffly across the stone that it sat on, struggling from the effort.

"Up," Greeves said, his voice cracking like a whip. "Rejoice, slaves. Your saviour has come to find you."

Oliver sighed at Greeves’ manner. There seemed to be fewer people better at playing the bad guy than Greeves. But then, he supposed, that made sense. After all, Greeves was a fairly bad person, despite how Oliver had come to view him.

The merchant made way for him, as Oliver stepped into the cramped roundhouse, where ten slaves huddled, chained together, under ragged blankets that were far too thin for the conditions that they were housed in. Their clothes too were ragged. Their whole bodies were ragged.

Indeed, these were slaves. Even if they had been dressed differently, without their chains, Oliver couldn’t mistake that look in their eyes. A look that he’d once shared himself. A look that was at once both fearfulness and hopelessness and anger. Some slaves lacked the anger, and their eyes glazed over. In truth, that was most slaves.

The slaves with enough will left in them to feel anger were relatively few.

He didn’t say anything as he looked them over. They looked to him in the same way that hungry wolves looked at prey. That same level of evaluation, mixed with caution.

Oliver could see at a glance why Greeves had bought them. Every single one of them was a man of monstrous proportions, and most of them equalled the Yarmdon in size. Some even boasted the tanned skin of a foreigner.

"Syndran," Greeves grunted, jabbing at one man in particular, to explain his skin. "He’s the most interesting. Had to pay a questionable price for him, I did."

"Why is that?" Oliver asked, speaking not to Greeves, but to the slave himself. Greeves seemed to realize that, for he remained quiet, allowing the man to answer.

"He was searching for soldiers," the man said, his accent thick. "I was once that."

"Oh?" Oliver said, intrigued. He didn’t think the Syndrans were a particularly large people, though he knew little of them, aside from the fact that their nobility was said to be beautiful. Many of them boasted silver hair and violet eyes, symbols of their rank. "Did you achieve any sort of rank?"

The other slaves watched stiffly as Oliver interacted with the man. Their wariness was like a knife placed against a man’s neck. It was impossible not to stand stiffly around it. Their discomfort was obvious. Even as they stood watching, a good few of them were shivering.