"Have you returned since?" Oliver said. "To Solgrim, I an."
Tolsey shook his head. "I could not. It still visits in my dreams. I would fear ever making such a return."
…
…
"Oliver Patrick?" The guard said, his face twisted in a disgruntled frown. "You've no reason to be going to the Capital. Orders from above – your travel is denied."
He'd heard the nas Idris and Blackthorn and overlooked both of them with a sniff. He'd been looking around the carriage purposefully, as if he knew who else he was likely to find there. Then, of course, his gaze had settled onto Oliver and he'd imdiately dismissed them.
Whilst Blackthorn had been furious enough to run the man through with the rapier at her hip, Oliver and Verdant rely shrugged, kept their cool and took their carriage a distance back along the road. The carriage of their Serving Class retainers trailed after them, and together, they took refuge in the shade offered by so green trees on the roadside.
After idling away their ti for a couple of hours, they soon saw the grand carriage of Queen Asabel plodding its way down the road. A carriage enalled by silver, with beautiful prancing black horses with yellow feathers on their heads.
Before and after the carriage ca a detachnt of nearly a hundred soldiers. Her Pillar of War rode along behind her, fully armoured, with his sword sheathed in his saddlebag, ready to be drawn at a mont's notice.
The man raised an eyebrow seeing their carriages, but it must have been expected enough, for the carriages did not even slow. General Blackthorn simply gestured with his head for them to fall in behind them, and they continued on their way.
Soon enough, they were back at the sa gate. Of course, the guardsn could not turn away a Silver Queen, nor her retainers. When Oliver's carriage ca back through again, he rely saluted politely to the man, and continued on his way. It was the sweetest, and pettiest sort of revenge.
With Ingolsol's urging, Oliver did it more than once at the next few gates, grinning at the irked glares that the soldiers would shoot him, knowing full well that they were failing to fulfil the duty that their King had put down on them. But their hands were tired, and they could do nothing apart from watch Oliver pass through, smiling to himself.
In between the gates, the land was wide open for the most part. On occasion, the forests were allowed to co right to the edge of the road, but such instances were a rare treat. For the most part, what they saw were fields upon fields of farmland, along with several villages and even the occasional town that they passed straight through.
Unlike the North West, where Oliver had spent most of his life, there hardly seed to be a space that wasn't used. There weren't really any sprawling plains. The influence of man was seen wherever one looked, whether it be in the lonely stone guard towers overlooking a section of farmland, or in the bustling market villages and the many roads that led to and from them.
"The land here is fertile," Verdant explained. "These farmlands make up nearly eighty per cent of our country's food. The wealth and abundance they generate is difficult to match by any other house. re occupation of this territory cos with imnse power."
Oliver nodded at the explanation. It made sense why the High King's power so often went uncontested once he had been selected. The lands that the High King occupied were by far the most wealthy in all of the country. They lacked the trade with foreign countries, but in return, they were granted equal trade with all four Silver Kings, and it had its wealth of produce that it itself produced.
As one might expect, the Central Kingdom – the High King's exclusive domain – was also the most populated of all the Kingdoms. It boasted numbers that easily matched that of all the Four Silver Kingdoms put together, despite being of approximately equal size to them.
That wealth was seen everywhere that a human hand was. Even the peasantry seed to have better clothing than what Oliver was used to seeing, but it was the architecture that really seed to illustrate it.
Everything had an extra artistic flourish, whether it be a craftsman's touch of a dragon head on a small village townhouse, or the masterful work of a talworker on a lamppost, turning it from a re staff of iron for a torch, to an artefact entwined with a black iron rmaid, who held the sa torch aloft with her sculpted hands.
"This is the road most often travelled to the Capital – if one is coming by the Pendragon lands," Verdant told him. The way he said it implied that there was more aning to the fact.
"You an to tell that I should not be too impressed, until I have seen beyond that which they want to see?" Oliver said. The man certainly had a point. If it was known that this road would be well travelled, then it was in the best interests of the Crown to keep it well maintained, and to have the image it presents to be a positive and prosperous one.
"Indeed. There is much wealth in the Central Kingdom, but that wealth is not necessarily evenly distributed," Verdant said. "With so many people, there is fierce competition over land and resources. There is a level of poverty in the Central Kingdom that the other kingdoms cannot reach."
"Hm…" Oliver said, considering it. "Because even peasants of the purest sort at least have the land that they need to hunt and to forage and to build – as long as they look for it."
"Indeed," Verdant said, agreeing. "But I do not say that so that you will overlook the achievents you see on this roadside. These are the testants of civilization. This is indeed prosperity. If the High Kings of the past were to see such affluence, they would no doubt be proud."
"So this is where the coin goes, when the High King seems so unwilling to spend it on keeping our borders safe," Oliver said.
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