Rewrite That Witch
CH148 · Rewrite
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Chapter 148: The Merchant from King’s City (Part 1)

Rain came to Border Town in late spring as if apologizing for its long absence.

Nightingale opened the window and the smell of wet earth flooded in — rich and green and specific to rain after drought, a smell that had no equivalent in anything that didn’t grow. Across the Shishui River, the south bank’s fields were barely visible through the gray curtain, only a suggestion of the endless green rows that had been there this morning. The river itself had gone from its usual cold gray-green to a churned brown at its edges.

Roland had been at his desk since before the rain started.

She leaned against the window frame and looked at the stack of drawings he’d accumulated over the past hour. He was finishing another one now, a patient, precise process — ruler, quill, the small corrections that he made with a second quill trimmed narrower for the purpose.

“Did the blueprint turn out well?” she asked.

“For a first iteration.” He put the quill down and placed the new sheet on the stack with the care he gave to things that weren’t finished but had reached a useful stage. “I’m calling it a rotating rifle. The cylinder here—” he didn’t gesture toward the drawing, having already learned she wouldn’t follow the reference “—holds multiple charges. The firing rate increases by several times over the flintlock.”

“You don’t need to explain it,” she said.

“There’s a shorter version.” He sat back. “Same mechanism, shortened barrel — a revolver. Small enough to carry on your person. When the technology is ready, I can give you one. You wouldn’t need to worry about Judges the way you do now.”

She looked at him.

“Ordinary woman kills armored knight,” he said. “Not just one. Several, if you’re lucky.”

“You’re lying.”

“Not even slightly.”

She studied his face for the tell she had never been able to find and gave up on it. “When is when the technology is ready?”

“After I solve the primer problem.” He said it with the equanimity of someone describing a delay in a shipment — annoying, finite, manageable. “But in the meantime, I have other things. The work this afternoon should—”

A knock.

“Your Royal Highness.” The guard’s voice through the door. “Barov’s man has returned from King’s City, with a merchant who trades in saltpeter. They’re waiting at the gate.”

Roland looked at Nightingale. She read surprise in the look — not that someone had come, but which someone.

He had sent people to Fallen Dragon Ridge, Redwater City, and King’s City looking for saltpeter, weeks before the Longsong campaign. The others had already reported back or failed to report back. The King’s City apprentice was the last, the longest journey, the one he had stopped expecting. And now.

“Put them in the reception room,” Roland said. “Have the kitchen send dessert.” He glanced at the window. “Something warm.”

He stood and straightened his coat. Nightingale went invisible.

The merchant had left her wet cloak and straw hat with the guard, and her hair was still damp when Roland came in. Blonde hair, thick, long enough to hang past her shoulders when loose — she wore it tied back in the manner of someone accustomed to having hair in her way. She was perhaps thirty, perhaps a little more; her face had the texture of a life spent largely outdoors, wind-darkened and with the fine lines around the eyes that came from squinting at horizons. When she bowed, the movement was precise in the way that meant she had done it many times for many different audiences.

“Margaret Farman,” she said. “A merchant from King’s City. It’s an honor, Your Royal Highness.”

He had expected a man. He registered this, set it aside.

The route she had traveled — King’s City to Border Town, through whatever roads were passable this time of year, with the spring unpredictability of the mountain passes — was not a journey a person took lightly. That she had made it as a woman and arrived with the composure of someone who had found the trip unremarkable said something.

“Please sit.” He took his own seat and studied her across the table. “You’re not originally from Graycastle.”

“The hair,” she said, with a small smile. “I’ve been asked before.”

“There’s a girl in my castle — a young explorer — with the same color. My understanding is it’s characteristic of the Fjords.”

“Your understanding is correct. I was born there. I’ve been on the mainland for twelve years, and King’s City for most of that.” She folded her hands on the table in the manner of someone who had learned, at some point, that unoccupied hands made people uncertain. “I’m enough of a resident to consider myself half-Graycastle. Though it seems we may have been neighbors at court, Your Highness, before you were posted to the border.”

“Perhaps,” he said.

Something pressed briefly against his right side — sharp, precise, a warning. He decoded it: she had a God’s Stone on her person. He made a mental note and chose to feel the pleasant sensation of being competently looked after.

“The explorer in your castle,” she said. “Her father — did she tell you his name?”

“She mentioned him. He was apparently lost at sea in a storm.”

“Which name?”

He watched her expression as he said it: “Thunder.”

Her composure cracked, just briefly. Her eyes went wide and she leaned forward a degree, the unconscious lean of a person who has received news they weren’t expecting. “Sir Thunder? You know his daughter?”

“She lives here. She’s been in my castle since shortly after the shipwreck.”

“Sir Thunder is—” She seemed to be choosing between several sentences. “In the Fjords, every child knows his stories. The Twin Dragon Islands. Shallow Water Island. His chart of the eastern coastline and the Shadow Island — sailors still use it. He’s one of the greatest explorers in a generation.” Her voice had shifted entirely; the professional warmth was gone and something genuine had replaced it. “There were rumors that he was dead. His daughter — where is she now?”

“She’s flying over the Concealing Forest today. Looking for something.” He paused. “If you stay until she returns, I can introduce you.”

“I’ll stay as long as necessary,” she said immediately, with a conviction that had nothing to do with saltpeter.

He smiled. “Then once you’ve had dessert, perhaps we can also discuss business.”

“Of course, Your Highness.” She sat back, and the professional composure resumed around her warmth like water returning around a stone. “Ask whatever you like.”

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