'No,' Oliver told himself firmly, batting away such thoughts.
"Oliver," Lady Blackthorn said again, a degree more gently. Stern words had seen Edward sent away, muttering something strange about the spirit of Claudia, and in the falling darkness, Lady Blackthorn's quiet voice seemed almost disembodied. "You ought to rest."
Oliver turned to where he thought he could hear her speaking from, and favoured her with a smile that she likely could not see. "I shall," he told her. "We've had strong victories today and yesterday. If I don't rest now, as a small celebration, whenever will I rest?"
She handed him a woollen blanket of his own by way of reply. King he might have been, but she knew him well enough to know how he would have waved away any higher level of comfort. A strange man he was, who found himself far more content on the hard cold earth than he was in any feather bed.
"I'll put it down here," Oliver said, placing it by the trunk of a tree.
