Rewrite That Witch
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Chapter 192: Under the Curtain of the Night

About fifty of them. Armor that caught the afternoon sun cleanly, which meant it had been maintained on the road — knights of some kind, or men who served them. They rode in columns of eight, flanked by flags. Three displayed the royal insignia: the grey tower, the two crossed pikes. The fourth bore a tower surmounted by a horse’s head.

Petrov sorted through his memory of noble heraldry. The Hawes family. Northern border lords.

One rider broke forward from the column and called out over the walls: “I am Lehman Hawes, messenger of King Timothy. I carry a royal resolution. Lower the drawbridge.”

“Your certificate?”

The rider unslung a bow, fitted an arrow, tied a folded parchment to the shaft, and put it precisely onto the top of the wall.

Petrov took it from the guard who brought it up. The parchment was embedded with faint crisscrossing golden threads — the type only the royal scriptorium used — and at the lower right corner sat the unmistakable royal seal.

He took a slow breath through his nose. This was real. The calculation ran itself without effort: if he refused entry to a legitimate royal envoy, every family currently keeping a cautious peace would read it as open war against Timothy. The undercurrent suppressed these last two months would rebound in an afternoon.

But the fact that Timothy had sent fifty people — not five hundred, not five thousand — confirmed what the prince had suspected. The new king could not yet reach into the Western Territory.

Fifty men to collect a prince who repelled a coalition of two hundred knights.

“Lower the bridge,” Petrov called. “Open the gate.”

As Lehman Hawes and his party rode into the stronghold, Petrov watched them from the wall before descending to meet them. A handful at the front carried themselves correctly — back straight, weight easy in the saddle. The rest slumped. Not road-weariness: something else. They sat crooked, eyes dull, as if holding themselves upright cost more than it should have.

He descended and met the envoy at the gate.

“Welcome, Sir Lehman. I’m Petrov Hull, stronghold manager for the Honeysuckle family.”

Stronghold manager. The title sat badly in his own mouth. A duke would have stayed inside his hall and waited.

Lehman dismounted with the casual ease of a man certain of his standing. “I’ve heard your name at Cold Wind Range, ‘Acting Duke.’” The warmth in his voice was precisely calibrated — just enough to deny any insult if questioned. “The Western Border is a strange place. Duke Ryan assembled a grand army and still couldn’t take a border town. Rare, in the history of Graycastle. Though for the Honeysuckle family, it must have been welcome news.”

Petrov set the irony aside as cleanly as a man folding a letter he doesn’t intend to answer. “Your men look unwell.”

“The north is cold,” Lehman said, glancing back. “They haven’t adjusted to the climate change. Rest will help.” He returned his attention forward before Petrov could read anything further in his expression. “I wonder — why did you come from Cold Wind Range and not from King’s City?”

“Because His Majesty Timothy Wimbledon is currently in the northern territories.” Lehman answered without hesitation, as if he’d rehearsed nothing and needed to rehearse nothing. “Duke Essie attempted to exploit the Border Guards’ weakened state. King Timothy had to suppress the uprising personally.”

Rebellion. Petrov kept his face composed, but his mind worked the edges of the claim. The Northern Border Guard was built on knights sworn to the local duke. How had Timothy suffered significant losses to his own people, unless —

The letter in his memory. Duke Ryan’s handwritten plan to annex the North.

Could it be, Petrov thought, that Timothy had the same idea?

He let the silence answer itself. “And what does the King’s resolution require?”

“A recall order,” Lehman said pleasantly. “Roland Wimbledon was summoned before the Months of Demons. He has not returned. His Majesty sent me to escort him to King’s City.”

“He remained in Border Town through the Months of Demons to defend his people. The circumstances prevented immediate compliance.”

“The Months of Demons ended three months ago.”

There was nothing to say to that. Petrov gave directions to the barracks — the Duke’s old knight quarters, comfortable enough — and arranged for dinner to be delivered. He made sure, as Lehman thanked him with genuine warmth, to note the exact positions of the guards he was quietly assigning to every entrance the visitors could use.

That evening he called for Westeros — one of his fastest riders — and gave him three short-tailed horses and an order: ride through the night to Border Town. Do not stop. Tell His Royal Highness that Timothy’s envoy is here. Tell him they leave tomorrow morning.

Three days for a regular pace. One night and day for a man who rides like he means it.

It is all I can do for you, my lord.

The camp that night was still. The watch-fires burned in the barracks yard, and most of Petrov’s garrison kept quietly to the walls. He’d positioned roughly a hundred men at the gates — the patrols and city guard, not his best, but enough to count. Let them see they were watched.

Inside the central tent of the envoy’s camp, Lehman Hawes sat in the firelight while the men closed around him.

“We’re surrounded,” the first one reported. “Watch at every angle. Another hundred at the gates — city patrol types, light armor. He doesn’t trust us.”

“He shouldn’t.” Lehman flexed his hand and stopped when the pain reached his forearm. The bone was broken — he was certain now. The swelling had gone past rolling pin and into something that looked architectural, the skin gone a deep greenish-blue under the lamp. He had not yet found the church’s analgesic herbs. “Our intelligence held. Most knights are imprisoned in Border Town. What fighting strength they have left is thin.”

“What about those who took the medicine?”

“They’re close to the limit.” The voice from the shadow was flat, practical. “Give them pills and they’ll do anything.”

The group of fifty was largely fiction. Thirteen real knights. The rest: mercenaries recruited and rendered loyal through the church’s two-colored pills. They were more obedient than hounds, more ferocious than anything the stronghold had seen from the outside. They were also Lehman’s key to the gate — and the gate was the key to everything.

A militia force of fifteen hundred was moving toward the stronghold through the countryside, traveling slowly enough to avoid notice. When the gate opened, they would be inside within the hour.

Lehman looked at the fire a long time, his broken arm resting across his knee.

“Hand out the pills,” he said finally. “Ten men for the patrol. The rest to the east gate.”

He did not add: the pills are the third dose for most of them. He did not need to. The men knew what the third dose meant. They had chosen to take the first one.

He did not add this either.

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