Rewrite That Witch
CH102 · Rewrite
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Chapter 102: The Honeysuckle and the Elk Families (Part 1)

Petrov arrived at the Elk mansion with his invitation and found the hall already lit against the night, the string quartet already playing. The birthday celebration for Aurelia Elk — third daughter, sixteenth year, newly of marriageable age — had drawn most of the notable families in Longsong Stronghold. The woolen carpet ran from the entrance to the far wall. The chamberlains wore matching uniforms. Someone had attempted the new capital style of party, with circular tables and standing guests and wine on trays, though the execution retained unmistakably western regional characteristics: the food arrived in large, intact, extremely greasy portions.

Petrov had eaten at home beforehand. He accepted a glass of wine from a passing attendant and began his slow navigation of the room.

This was his function at events like these, in the absence of his father: present the family, exchange adequate pleasantries, avoid disgracing anyone who mattered. He had done it often enough to do it without thinking. He watched Aurelia across the room, bright in a canary-yellow dress, surrounded by her friends, and she watched him back exactly once — a brief glance, quickly redirected, a flush climbing her cheeks before she turned away.

He smiled pleasantly at no one in particular. She was, in his honest assessment, a girl.

“Long time.” Someone hooked his neck from behind.

Petrov extracted himself, turned, and found Rene Elk: second son, aspiring knight without a knighthood to aim at, reliably bad influence, and in his limited way a friend. “You were supposed to be at the Cold Wind Mountain Range.”

“Sick. Missed the mobilization.” Rene shrugged with the particular energy of a man who has decided his luck was the best kind. “Spent a week in bed with a head cold. Missed the whole thing.”

“The training exercise.”

“It wasn’t a training exercise.” Rene’s voice dropped. He moved them both sideways, away from the nearest cluster of guests, and leaned in. “The New Holy City almost fell.”

Petrov kept his expression still. “That’s not —”

“I saw the men who came back. Or rather, I saw the size of the group that came back.” Rene’s usual lightness had pulled back several steps. “The demonic beasts breached the inner city. The Church released their front-line warriors and held the walls, but the armies of the four kingdoms were deployed on the outer fortifications and they took the losses. The Cold Wind Mountain Range contingent lost almost everyone.” He paused. “The widows are getting two silver royals in compensation. Per family.”

Petrov did the political arithmetic quickly. The border garrisons in the north of Graycastle existed to slow the Church’s Army of Judges in case of conflict. If those garrisons were now undermanned by a factor of — he estimated — three or four, and if the Church had emerged from the same engagement largely intact while the four kingdoms had bled out their standing armies —

That doesn’t taste like an accident.

He said: “The Church’s Judges. Their own losses?”

“Took hits, apparently. But they weren’t doing the dying.” Rene’s mouth twisted. “They were doing the inspiring. You know how they are — charge first, look devoted, make the soldiers feel cowardly if they don’t follow. Easy to be brave when you heal quickly.” He waved it away. “But honestly, Petrov, even if the Church wanted to push south, it has nothing to do with us down here. Let Timothy lose sleep over it.”

You’re not wrong, Petrov thought. And you’re not right either. He filed the thought carefully and let the conversation pass.

“Speaking of Timothy,” Rene said, brightening again, “I’m being offered a cavalry command. Not confirmed, but possible. They’re desperate for anyone who knows which end of a horse faces forward.” He glanced toward the entrance. “The Wolf family just arrived. I have to go.” Then, turning back: “The handkerchief in your invitation. That wasn’t me. My sister put it there herself. She’s twelve, so there’s a gap — but she knows her own mind. I’m just saying, you’re twenty-two now.”

Petrov looked at him.

“I’m going,” Rene said, hands raised, whistling as he retreated.

Petrov took a slow circuit of the room. He passed the food tables without sampling anything, accepted a second glass of wine he didn’t drink, and found a corner with a reasonable view of the hall. The conversation was what it always was at these events — marriages, inheritance disputes, the price of wool, who had done something amusing at the last banquet. He let it wash around him.

Then a voice from the far side of the hall cut through the music and the murmur:

“He said what?”

It was Simon Elliott — Wolf Branch family, a man with significant volume and limited filter. Petrov had met him twice: once at a hunting event, once when Simon had been in an argument with a wine merchant that Petrov had been unfortunate enough to witness. He was married to a very attractive woman, which seemed to have no moderating effect on his disposition.

“Cornelius came back with nothing. Didn’t say a word. Just took it.” The voice of whoever was telling the story was delighted in the way that people are delighted by other men’s humiliations. “Stood there while the Prince told him the house wasn’t his, signed away twenty gold royals, and walked out.”

“Shaming the whole of Longsong!” Simon’s voice rattled the nearby glassware.

“You could have done better?”

“I couldn’t, alone — but if we take this to the Duke, Roland Wimbledon doesn’t keep his nerve much longer. Twenty gold royals. Twenty.”

Petrov stood very still.

He had been the one to deliver Duke Ryan’s demands to Border Town. He had sat in Roland’s office and watched the fourth prince react to news that should have panicked him, and found — not panic. Something quieter and more difficult than panic. He had come back with intelligence that his father had received in silence, and the message he had not been able to put into a report, the thing that resisted words, was: that man knows something we don’t.

The hall buzzed with opinion around Simon Elliott. The general sentiment was agreement: Cornelius had embarrassed himself, the Prince had overstepped, the Duke should be made aware. Petrov listened to all of it with the particular attention of someone who had actually been in the room.

Careful, he thought. Not to himself. To the room, which could not hear him. You’re mistaking composure for weakness, and that mistake has a cost.

He set his glass down on a passing tray.

Aurelia glanced at him from across the room, caught doing it again, and looked away again with the determined absorption of someone examining a wall decoration. He was not going to think about the handkerchief.

He went to find more wine.

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