The sun beat down on the golden fields of Highgarden, but the atmosphere in the training courtyard was anything but pastoral. Oliver stood upon a wooden dais, his shadow long and sharp against the stone. Below him stood five hundred men—the first of his "New Model" experiment.
They were a motley collection: third sons of tenant farmers, disgraced men-at-arms, and city-watchmen who had traded their green-and-gold cloaks for simple russet tunics.
"You have been told all your lives that you are the 'smallfolk,'" Oliver's voice carried without the need for a herald's trumpet. It was a voice forged in the English fens, now echoing in the heart of the Reach. "That your purpose is to bleed so that a Lord might have a finer tapestry or a sweeter wine. I tell you that you are the bone and sinew of this land. But bone without discipline is brittle, and sinew without spirit is weak."
He paced the edge of the dais, his boots clicking rhythmically.
"I do not offer you glory. I do not offer you a knight's spurs. I offer you a Cause. You will not fight for the pride of a Rose. You will fight for the Law. You will fight for a realm where a man is judged by his works, not his father's name!"
The New Discipline
Oliver had spent the morning dismantling the traditional hierarchy of the Highgarden levy. He had stripped the "knights" of their honorary commands unless they proved they could march a mile in the same mud as the infantry.
He introduced three radical changes to the Tyrell household guards:
The Merit of the Pike: He promoted men based on their ability to hold a line under pressure, not their lineage. A blacksmith's son, Wat, now commanded a company of fifty, much to the horror of the landed gentry.
The Articles of War: Oliver had drafted a strict code of conduct. Drunkenness was punished by the stocks; looting was punished by death; and "the use of lewd or profane language" resulted in a day's pay being docked for the common fund.
The Uniform of the Spirit: He moved away from the expensive, ornate plate armor of the Reach. His men wore blackened breastplates and pot helmets—cheap to produce, easy to repair, and stripping away the vanity of the individual for the power of the unit.
The Master of Horse
"It's an insult, Oliuer! A bloody insult!"
Ser Jon Fossoway, a man whose family had served the Tyrells for generations, stormed onto the field. He pointed a trembling finger at a line of men practicing a tight, defensive square with sixteen-foot pikes.
"You have my nephew—a boy of noble blood—scrubbing his own horse! And you've given command of the vanguard to a man who smells of the tannery!"
Oliver turned slowly. He didn't raise his voice; he didn't need to. "Your nephew's horse was filthy, Ser Jon. A soldier who cannot care for his beast cannot care for his brothers-in-arms. As for the 'tanner,' he knows the weight of a pike better than any boy who spent his youth chasing skirts at Bitterbridge."
"The Lords of the Reach will not stand for this," Fossoway hissed. "You are turning Highgarden into a labor camp."
"I am turning it into an army," Oliver replied. "When the winter comes—and it is coming, Ser—the Lords will be huddled by their fires. It is the tanner and the blacksmith who will hold the walls. Now, either take a pike and join the drill, or leave my field. There is no room here for 'gentlemen' who are nothing else."
The Iron Audit
Later that evening, Oliver sat in the armory, not with a cup of wine, but with a ledger. He was auditing the Tyrell armaments with a ruthlessness that made the Master-of-Arms break into a cold sweat.
"We have three thousand ceremonial lances," Oliver noted, scratching a line through the entry. "Useless. Melt them down. I want pike-heads. Hundreds of them. And these shields—they are painted with too much gold leaf. Scrape it. Use the coin to buy better steel for the breastplates."
"Lord Mace will have my head, My Lord," the armorer whispered.
"My father is a man of the spring," Oliver said, not looking up from the book. "He enjoys the bloom. But I am a man of the harvest. And the harvest requires a sharp blade."
He paused as a shadow fell across the ledger. He didn't need to look up to know who it was. The scent of dried roses and sharp medicine preceded her.
"You're making a great deal of noise, Oliver," Olenna Tyrell said, leaning on her cane as she surveyed the stripped-down armory. "The kitchens are whispering that you've banned dessert for the guards. Even the dogs look bored."
"A pampered stomach makes a sluggish mind, Grandmother," Oliver said, finally closing the ledger.
"Perhaps," Olenna stepped closer, her eyes glittering with a dangerous curiosity. "But you've also stopped the flow of coin to the Septons. You're building a private army of grim-faced zealots who think singing psalms is a substitute for a personality. Tell me... when you've finished 'purifying' the guards, who is the iron plow meant for?"
Oliver stood, towering over the small woman. "The realm is a field of weeds, Grandmother. I am simply preparing the tools to clear it."
Olenna gave a dry, raspy chuckle. "Just be careful, Oliver. Sometimes the weeds have thorns. And sometimes, they're the only thing keeping the soil from washing away."