A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 560 The Trial - Part 6

Oliver watched the crowd as Jolamire talked. Some were nodding along with him. Oliver took particular note of those. They were richly dressed men, and half of them were of a portly nature, with girth to their midsections. Many of them were women as well, with thick golden necklaces about their necks and jewels in their ears and on their fingers. They seemed to be bought completely by Jolamire's speech.

Not just by his words, but by his appearance – Jolamire was a reasonably handsome man, after all, despite his age.

"I could never imagine them raising a weapon not in defence of their masters," Jolamire said. "But at the same time, it pains me to accuse a student of ours of such a thing. It boggles the mind. Yet I saw… the state of Oliver Patrick. It was his hand that slew them, of that there can be no doubt. Twenty men, dealt with on his orders, and with his blade.

I can hardly express my disappointment. Perhaps… Perhaps if we had received him earlier in his education, we might have been able to do more for him, but alas, he has been here for little over a month, and we are already in this position."

He neglected to mention the reasons for what had happened, in their conclusion. Oliver noted that Jolamire had been given a considerably longer time to speak than Hod had been. Hod himself had noticed that as well, and he was pouting because of it, and whispering to Tavar. Tavar ignored him, and in rebellion, Hod slung his legs over the arm of his throne, adopting his usual impetuous posture.

Oliver saw Tavar's eyebrow twitch.

"And your conclusion, Jolamire?" Tavar prodded impatiently.

"My conclusion is that such savagery could not have come from inside the King's Academy. A place fostered by the High King himself, and the Silver Kings along with him. No, only an unintegrated outsider could bring such tragedy to our walls. I choose loyalty to the Academy, and belief in it," Jolamire said.

"Oliver Patrick has sinned, and for that, he must be punished, before the eyes of the Gods, and before the eyes of those chosen as nobility by those same Gods."

He concluded his speech with that, and was led back down to his chair. The crowd was left to mutter amongst themselves once more. By now, more eyes were being cast in Oliver's direction, and they were being done with an increasing amount of distaste. They already judged him to be a criminal, before the trial had really begun. Jolamire's verdict had sealed that. As did his phrasing.

He'd indirectly declared it to be treasonous to believe Oliver Patrick innocent.

The next Minister to stand up with Gavlin, the Minister of Blades. His stony face silenced the crowd before he'd even begun to speak. His sternness was unmatched. He sent Jolamire a tense look as he passed him, a look that might have been angry, or it might have been merely passive – whatever the case, coming from Gavlin, it was terrifying.

He stood up at the centre, playing with the sword on his belt. He was the only other amongst the Ministers that was armed, other than General Tavar himself.

"I know combat," Gavlin said gravely, pointing out that this was his area of expertise. "I would not be deceived by a battle such as this. The wounds are obvious – the guardsmen were the aggressors. The wounds they received are those of a counterattack. That is merely to bar the obvious. The guardsmen bore poison on their weapons, as did they included treasonous individuals among their numbers.

Alistar Hoofless and Fabian Small. This was an assassination attempt, there can be no doubt about that."

The crowd shifted uncomfortably, looking to the other ministers for a rebuttal. No one budged. Jolamire shrugged his shoulders, apparently not at all that bothered that Gavlin had cut down his case straight away.

"Lazarus, do you wish to firm your say on these matters?" Tavar asked.

The Minister of Information shook his head. "I merely need say how regretful it is that we were unable to tame a student of ours before something like this had happened." Find more chapters on My Virtual Library Empire

Even in the face of the confirmation of an assassination, Minister Lazarus stated that unflinchingly. The crowd didn't seem to see anything incongruous about it.

The question remained, what even were they doing there? The Ministers didn't exactly seem to be in disagreement – not about the fact of assassination, though the opposition didn't explicitly mention the fact that it was an assassination.

They danced around the issue, but the second they were pressed with any sort of concrete evidence, they could do nothing more than shamefully restate their stance about how regrettable it was that a student of theirs had done this.

Despite such a strange tactic, a none answering of the question, there was almost nothing they could do about it. Tavar looked dissatisfied, but he couldn't press the point, for even he didn't have the leverage to be heavy-handed here. More importantly, though, the crowd seemed to be firmly on the side that opposed Oliver.

He could feel their malcontent radiating from the stands every time a particularly curious noble was brave enough to look right at him. They would always tut in an exaggerated display of distaste, and then look away with a quickness, as though ashamed of what they'd seen.

It was the strangest sort of affair. Oliver, for his part, was completely clueless. He could do nothing but sit as dignified as possible, whilst the chains fastening him to the wall held him in place, and two guardsmen stood looming next to him, as though there was anything he could do with his hands chained behind his back.

Tavar stood up, forced to take the centre of the room again. He seemed put off somehow by the politicking, and he took more than a few moments to choose his words. "To restate what is already known… our reason for being here is simple. We wish to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Oliver Patrick was the victim of an assassination."