Rewrite That Witch
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Chapter 133: The Knight of the Elk Family (Part 2)

The prince was younger than Prius had expected, and less decorated.

He sat at a writing table with a quill in his hand, gray hair — the Wimbledon family’s signature, which Prius had always thought was a strange thing for a young man to have — and eyes that were scanning a parchment rather than performing a reception. No crown. No rings. No ornamentation at all, which for someone who had just taken the western territory by force was either strategic modesty or genuine indifference to display.

He defeated Duke Ryan, Prius thought, looking at the young face across the table. With miners and hunters and those iron tubes.

“Prius Dessau. Elk Family knight.” Roland set the parchment down. “Can you read and write?”

Prius went to one knee. “Yes, Your Highness. A knight of my generation—” He caught himself. Some of the older knights had been ennobled for battlefield merit, before the era when literacy was expected. “Yes. All the younger knights can.”

“Stand. Two options.”

He stood. He breathed.

“Option one: the North Slope Mine. Twenty years, working your sentence down. Paid wages. Three days’ rest per month. Not slavery — an obligation with a fixed end.” Roland recited this with the precision of someone who had said it several times this morning. “Option two: teacher. You teach reading and writing to the people of Border Town. Paid more than the mine. Two days’ rest per week. You work until age fifty and retire at full salary. The job doesn’t transfer and can’t be inherited.”

Prius absorbed this. No hanging. No exile. No dungeon.

But the question forming behind that relief was louder. “Your Highness — my territory—”

“Ceased to be yours the day you rode against me.” Roland’s voice was direct without being cruel. “The new Count is already making arrangements to send your family and a compensation to Border Town. His to conference afterward.”

The chickens. The duck pond. The morning light on the water at the north edge of his land.

He had known this was coming and it still landed like a stone.

“The compensation will be calculated to my advantage,” Prius said, because there was no point pretending otherwise.

“Most likely. Though a barren little territory isn’t worth much fighting over.” Roland’s tone shifted slightly — something that might have been mild interest. “You could purchase your own land here, if you chose to. The salary accumulates. Teachers at senior grades earn considerably more than the starting rate.”

Prius looked up. “How much, to start?”

“Junior grade: twenty silver royals per month, increasing five silver per year until fifty.” Roland’s eyes were still on the parchment — not dismissive, just efficient. “The mine pays less and the work is harder. Teaching is the better option if you’re capable of it. So. Any skills beyond reading and riding?”

The honest answer was no. Any skill that mattered to the usual run of knights — sword forms, tournament technique, cavalry tactics — he had been mediocre at and had stopped practicing as soon as the requirement to demonstrate them had passed. What he was good at was the pond, and the chicken house, and the way you could tell by the color of the yolk whether a hen had been eating properly.

He said it aloud because there was nothing else to say. “Raising poultry. And fishing.”

The silence afterward had a slightly different quality.

Roland looked up from the parchment. “Tell me how you raise them.”

Prius braced himself for something condescending and instead got a question that was entirely genuine. He started talking.

He explained the grain-in-hay method for faster growth, and the sand-mixing trick that stretched the feed without reducing the effect. He explained ventilation — the way heat built under a low roof in summer and stopped the hens from laying, and how even a simple overhang on the south side could prevent it. He explained the winter straw bedding, the small fish given once a month that reduced sickness by a measurable amount. He explained the manure rotation, which was less pleasant to describe but which he knew in detail, having implemented it himself.

When he finished, the prince was smiling.

“The Western territory’s nobility is not entirely useless,” Roland said, which Prius didn’t fully understand. Then: “I’m buying a flock from Longsong Stronghold. I need someone to manage them and to build a workable poultry operation from the beginning — siting, construction, feeding regimen, record-keeping for output.” He set the quill down. “Middle-grade teacher rate. Fifty silver royals per month, increasing ten per year. You design the operation; I’ll provide the resources and the land west of town.”

Prius opened his mouth and closed it.

“If the birds don’t thrive,” Roland added, “the mine remains available.”

“They’ll thrive,” Prius said, before he’d finished deciding whether to say it.

Something in the prince’s expression suggested this was the answer he’d been waiting for.

“Good. One more question.” Roland looked at him directly. “The knight Ferlin Eltek. You were held with him. How did he avoid the front line of the charge?”

Prius blinked. “I don’t know, Your Highness. I wondered the same thing.”

“I see.” Roland made a mark on his parchment. “You’ll be escorted to the housing district after this. Report to the steward for your assignment.”

He was being dismissed. Prius bowed, turned, and was halfway to the door when Roland spoke again.

“The chickens will arrive within two weeks. I suggest you spend the interval surveying the land and planning the shed placement. Drainage matters more than most people think.”

“I know,” Prius said. “I’ve already been thinking about the drainage.”

The prince smiled again, and this time Prius was close enough to see that it was genuine.

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