Rewrite That Witch
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Chapter 103: The Honeysuckle and the Elk Families (Part 2)

Petrov moved toward the commotion.

The man who spotted his family crest spoke first: “The lord of Border Town has confiscated everything belonging to the Longsong nobility. All of it.”

Simon Elliott pressed through the cluster of bodies with the expression of a man who had been waiting for a larger audience. He found Petrov, recognized the crest, and redirected with practiced ease. “Mr. Petrov. I’ll explain the situation.” He arranged himself into the posture of someone delivering measured testimony and then spoke at considerable volume. “We serve the Duke. We administered his interests in Border Town — the mines, the oversight. Every winter we bring the civilians back here, out of harm’s way, as has been the practice for generations. But when Cornelius returned this year to manage his property —” he spread his hands ”— the Prince told him the house had been demolished, that the town’s people now occupied it, and that twenty gold royals were all that was authorized.”

He paused for effect. Several people obliged him with the appropriate noises.

“‘Admit the house was never yours,’” Simon continued, dropping his voice into an imitation of a man being reasonable through a threat, “‘or I will have you imprisoned for desertion pending execution.’ That is what he said. What we have done for a hundred years — evacuating to the stronghold when the Months arrive — he is calling defection.”

Petrov did not join the murmuring. He was thinking.

The charge was legally defensible. That was the thing nobody in this circle was going to say aloud. A lord could, technically, require his residents to remain during a military emergency. The fact that it had never been enforced didn’t mean it was unenforceable — it meant Roland had found a dormant law and chosen to activate it. Precisely. Selectively. Let the man go home to deliver the message rather than keeping him in a cell.

He’s not trying to win the legal argument, Petrov thought. He’s making noise. Creating a grievance. Giving the Duke a complaint to respond to. But respond how? Publicly defending the nobility’s right to flee during a crisis wasn’t a position Duke Ryan could take without implications. And sending an army over a twenty-gold-royal property dispute was overreaction by any measure — which meant if Ryan moved, it would be because he’d already decided to move, and Cornelius was just the pretext.

“But he is still the lord of Border Town,” said one of the men near Simon. “Within his domain, he sets the rules.”

“Border Town falls under the western territory’s jurisdiction!” Simon’s voice had found its upper register again. “Duke Ryan doesn’t take kindly to someone openly defying the six families. He’ll move.”

“Dimitry Hill.” Rene appeared at Petrov’s elbow, composed, with a fresh glass of wine. “You’re talking about the man who had Dimitry Hill hanged?”

Simon turned to him immediately. “The very same, Young Lord. Your father —”

“Was furious, yes.” Rene nodded without apparent personal opinion on the matter. “I’ve been called back from the borderlands for exactly this reason. My eldest brother is in the capital on trade business, so I’m representing the family at the moment.” He glanced at Simon. “Duke Ryan has already made his decision. This changes nothing, only confirms it.”

Simon looked satisfied in the way of men who get what they wanted without having to ask directly.

Petrov caught Rene by the arm and moved them sideways, out of earshot. “Don’t fight this one.”

Rene raised his eyebrows. “I’m not going to fight anyone. The Duke will fight.”

“I mean don’t go with the expedition.”

“Petrov.” Rene was smiling with the patience of someone explaining something obvious. “The Prince has farmers. We have knights. If he resists at all, which he won’t — he’s never held a sword in his life, never been in a battle — it will be over in an hour. The Duke’s not going to hurt him. He’ll surrender the town, maybe get reassigned somewhere harmless. It’s how this works.”

It’s not going to work that way. The certainty was quiet and settled and Petrov had no way to explain it, no way to make the case in terms Rene would find credible. He had been in the man’s study. He had watched Roland Wimbledon receive terrible news with the specific calm of a person who had already modeled out the consequences and decided they were manageable. That was not a man who was going to surrender a wall he’d spent three months defending against demonic beasts.

But he couldn’t say any of it. “I’m worried about you,” he said, which was true and inadequate.

“I’ll be fine.” Rene patted his shoulder. “Go. Your steward’s been trying to get your attention for two minutes.”

Petrov turned. The old steward was indeed hovering at a respectful distance, white-haired and anxious. “Count Shalafi asks for you at home, Master Petrov.”

He said his farewells and rode back to the Honeysuckle estate.

His father was in the study with documents spread across the table and a letter open beside them. He did not look up when Petrov entered.

“Take count of our domain’s able-bodied men and their income. I need the figures before the week is out.” He continued writing. “Duke Ryan has called for arms. When the snow finishes melting, the six families march on Border Town. We provide twenty-five knights, their squires, horses, and equipment, plus one hundred soldiers — free men or serfs, basic arms.”

Petrov calculated quickly. Six families. Similar contributions from each. The Duke’s own standing force on top of that. A thousand soldiers at minimum, probably more, against a town of two thousand inhabitants with no standing cavalry and no walls older than a year.

In any ordinary military analysis, this is not a contest.

“Father,” he said carefully, “I would ask that you stay from the field yourself.”

His father put down the pen. “What?”

“Your safety. I’m concerned —”

“He has fifty guardsmen.” His father stood, and the chair scraped back hard against the stone. “Our numbers exceed his by twenty to one. What concern could you possibly have?” He moved to the wall — the portrait wall, where his ancestors looked out from painted light in poses of accomplished severity: his grandfather, longbow in hand; the generation before that, armored and straight-backed, with faces that looked like they had been carved rather than born.

“You always preferred the ledger to the saddle,” his father said, pointing at the portraits. “I accepted that — a merchant who can read the sea is worth more than a poor swordsman. But there is a difference between choosing trade and fearing war. Those men —” the finger moved along the row of frames ”— every one of them defended their land with their own hands, against beasts and brigands and every other thing that came at them. Your grandfather stood at the wall of this very estate and put arrows into a demonic beast’s eye at sixty paces. Do not stand in my study and ask me to step aside from a soft target because you are frightened.”

Petrov bowed his head. He said nothing more.

Father, he thought, looking not at the portraits but at the man beneath them — at the loosened belt, at the line of the jaw where the weight had settled in the years since he had last ridden further than the east field, at the hands that now held a quill more naturally than a bow — do you look at those portraits and see yourself? Do you honestly see yourself?

He said: “I understand, Father. I’ll have the figures to you by tomorrow.”

He left his father to his documents and his ancestors, and went to bed with the specific unease of a man who knows how a story ends but cannot find the words to change it.

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