The Reach was too soft. That was the first conclusion Oliver—now styled Oliuer Tyrell, second son of the Lord of Highgarden—had reached since his "awakening."
He sat in the Highgarden sept, though he did not pray. He watched. He watched the sunlight filter through stained glass, casting garish,"idolatrous" colors across the floor.
He watched the Septon, a man whose belly was far too round for a servant of the divine, drone on about the Smith and the Maiden.
It was vanity. It was filth. It was the court of King Charles, only with more flowers and less velvet.
"Oliver, my boy!" a voice boomed, echoing off the marble.
Oliver didn't flinch. He turned his head slowly. Mace Tyrell, Lord Paramount of the Mander, approached with a stride that suggested a man who thought himself a conqueror but had never felt the grit of a battlefield between his teeth. Behind him trailed Garlan, Oliver's elder brother—a decent enough lad, but one who spent too much time practicing for tournaments and not enough time contemplating the state of his soul.
"The silent one!" Mace laughed, clapping a heavy, ring-laden hand on Oliver's shoulder. "Meditation is fine, son, but the tourney at Bitterbridge is but a fortnight away! Your brother says your prowess with the sword is… unconventional. But effective!"
"I do not fight for the amusement of ladies, Father," Oliver said, his voice a flat, Lowland rasp that sounded out of place in the melodic Reach. "A blade is an instrument of Providence. To use it for sport is to take the name of the Lord—or the gods, if you insist—in vain."
Mace blinked, his jovial mask slipping into a look of profound confusion. "Providence? Gods? My boy, you've been reading too many of those dusty scrolls from the Citadel. You sound like a bloody septon, only… gloomier."
"I am a man who knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows," Oliver replied, standing up.
He was fifteen, yet he carried himself like a man of fifty who had seen empires crumble. He wore no silks. While Garlan was draped in Tyrell green and gold filigree, Oliver wore a plain, russet-colored wool tunic and a simple breastplate of blackened steel.
He looked less like a Rose of Highgarden and more like a piece of iron dropped into a flowerbed.
"He refuses the finery, Father," Garlan added with a smirk, though his eyes held a flicker of genuine unease. "He's been out in the fields again. Talking to the smallfolk. The stable-hands. He has them… marching."
Mace's brow furrowed. "Marching? To what end?"
"To the end of discipline," Oliver said. "Your levies are a rabble, Father. They follow you because of a name. If a stronger name comes along, or a sharper sword, they will scatter like chaff in the wind. I am teaching them to follow a Cause."
"The 'Cause' being House Tyrell, naturally," Mace said, puffing out his chest.
Oliver looked his father in the eye—a gaze so cold and piercing that the Lord of Highgarden actually took a half-step back.
"The Cause is the order of this realm," Oliver said. "The King in King's Landing is a drunkard. The Lords of the North are heathens. The West is ruled by a man who thinks gold is grace. This land is a wilderness of sin, Father. It needs a gardener who isn't afraid to pull up the weeds by their roots."
Mace laughed, a nervous, high-pitched sound. "Well! A bit dramatic, but that's the spirit! My son, the Conqueror! Just… do try to wear the green cape at Bitterbridge? For your mother's sake?"
Oliver watched them leave. He felt the familiar weight of his mission settling onto his shoulders. He had been sent here for a reason. He had executed one King in his previous life for betraying his people; he looked at the decadence of the Reach and knew that, eventually, he would have to do it again.
He turned toward the courtyard. He could hear it—the rhythmic thump-thump-thump of boots on dirt. His "Ironsides." They weren't knights. They were the sons of tanners, smiths, and farmers. But they were learning to move as one. They were learning that a pike-wall didn't care about a knight's lineage.
He walked out into the sun, his hand resting on the hilt of a sword that was plain, functional, and very, very sharp.
"Ser Oliuer!" a young boy shouted, running up. "The Queen of Thorns summons you. She says she's heard you've been 'purifying' the wine cellar again."
Oliver tightened his jaw. Olenna Tyrell. The only one in this den of vipers who saw him for what he truly was. She would be a problem. Or, perhaps, a tool.
"Tell my grandmother I shall be there," Oliver said. "As soon as I finish the drills. Godliness before gossip."
The Reach was a garden. And Oliver Cromwell was the iron plow.
The solar of Olenna Tyrell smelled of lemon cakes and sharp judgment. The "Queen of Thorns" sat in her cushioned chair, her small, withered frame draped in silks that cost more than a village, her eyes tracking Oliver with the predatory stillness of a hawk.
Oliver stood before her, refusing the chair she offered. He stood as he always did: back straight as a pike, hands clasped behind his rough wool doublet, eyes fixed on a point just above her head.
"Sit down, Oliver," Olenna sighed, waving a hand. "You're making the furniture feel inadequate. And stop looking at the ceiling; if the Seven were going to strike me dead for my tongue, they'd have done it during the Targaryen years."
"I do not seek the Seven, Grandmother," Oliver said, his voice dropping into that low, rhythmic cadence that commanded the ears of common men. "I seek a realm that isn't built on the shifting sands of vanity. Your 'Seven' are stone dolls. Your lords are peacocks. And this room... it smells of decay covered in perfume."
Olenna paused, a lemon cake halfway to her mouth. She set it down slowly. "Decay? Highgarden is the breadbasket of the world. We are the wealthiest, most stable House in the Seven Kingdoms because your father is a fool and I am not. We play the game, Oliver. We smile, we wed, we whisper, and we win."
"You play at cards while the house is on fire," Oliver countered, finally looking her in the eye. "I have walked the markets of Highgarden. I have seen the men who grow your wheat. They are hungry for more than bread. They are hungry for truth. They are tired of dying for the 'honor' of a Lord who wouldn't know the weight of a spade."
Olenna leaned forward, her gaze sharpening. "And what is your truth? This 'Cause' I hear the stable-boys whispering about? I'm told you've banned gambling and 'lewdness' in the garrison. My guards are singing hymns, Oliver. Hymns. It's dampening the morale of every whore from here to the Arbor."
"A soldier who fears God fears no man," Oliver said firmly. "A soldier who is sober is a soldier who does not miss his mark. I am building an army of the spirit, Grandmother. One that does not break when a dragon roars or a knight charges."
Olenna gave a dry, raspy chuckle. "An army of the spirit. How very... quaint. And tell me, once you have this 'godly' rabble, what do you intend to do with it? Overthrow the Baratheons? Turn the Red Keep into a meeting house for grim-faced men in black?"
"The King is a belly with a crown on it," Oliver said, his voice devoid of heat but heavy with conviction. "He has no mandate but his blood, and blood is a poor excuse for tyranny. If the King will not rule for the people, then the people must rule for themselves. Under a Protector."
The silence that followed was heavy. Olenna didn't laugh this time. She looked at her grandson—this strange, changeling boy born of Mace's seed but possessed by the soul of an ancient, iron-willed judge. She saw the danger in him. It wasn't the danger of a Littlefinger or a Varys; it was the danger of a man who actually believed what he said.
"You speak of treason, Oliver," she whispered.
"I speak of Providence," he replied. "The old world is a withered branch. I am simply the one with the axe."
Olenna tapped her chin with a ringed finger. "My son is too stupid to see it. Your brothers think you're merely eccentric. But I see the fire in you, boy. It's the kind of fire that burns down cities to 'save' them."
She paused, a thin, dangerous smile touching her lips. "If you're going to be a fanatic, at least be a useful one. Tywin Lannister is coming to the capital soon. He thinks he is the only man of iron in Westeros. I wonder how he'll react to a boy who thinks God is his Master-at-Arms."
"Lord Tywin will find that iron can be broken," Oliver said, turning toward the door. "But the Word cannot."
As he reached the threshold, Olenna called out, "One more thing, Oliver! If you're going to start a revolution, do try not to do it before dinner. We're having lamprey pie."
Oliver didn't look back. "Man does not live by bread alone, Grandmother. But I shall be at the table."