Rewrite That Witch
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Chapter 450: Old Friends

Rene Medde had been in the basement of the Elk mansion for half a month.

He thought he could have stopped Jacques. He had underestimated how quickly his brother would move.

“Your lunch.” Sean, the long-faced steward, descended the stairs and slid a plate through the cell bars. What was on it resembled oatmeal mixed with vegetables, and the portion would have been insulting to a child.

“Let me out, you fool!” Rene threw the plate against the floor. He gripped the bars and leaned into them. “Jacques is a fool too. He doesn’t understand what he’s doing. It’s not too late — let me out!”

The steward shook his head with the sorrow of a man who has long since accepted the situation. He took out a handkerchief and cleaned the mess from his shoes. “If I were in your position, I would have eaten that food rather than wasted it. The Earl told me to bring you one meal a day this week, to keep your strength.”

“This is not about the food!” Rene’s voice rose. “If Jacques doesn’t stop, he will destroy the Elk Family. For my father’s sake — open this door.”

The steward had been moving toward the stairs. He stopped.

“Your father?” He turned back and looked at Rene without expression. “If he were alive, I think he would have expelled you from this house. You seem to have forgotten, Master — it was Roland Wimbledon who killed the Earl of the Elk Family. Meanwhile, the Honeysuckle Family not only went over to Prince Roland’s side but helped him suppress the other four families. Your elder brother is trying to correct that mistake. And you — you’re afraid to act.” He paused. “How can a person afraid to act claim to be a qualified knight?”

“Whether I’m a qualified knight is not yours to judge.” Rene’s voice was flat with controlled anger. “In the past three years, while I was on Hermes’ defensive line killing demonic beasts, Jacques was in King’s City drinking wine and entertaining himself. Do you think he attacked the Honeysuckle Family out of courage? He was blinded by profit. That’s all.”

Sean sighed. “Even so, he is your elder brother, an Earl, and the head of this family. He deserves some basic respect.”

He climbed the stairs. When the door closed at the top, the basement went silent.

“Damn it.”

Rene drove his fist into the floor.

Since the beginning of winter Jacques had been visiting the other families more often. Rene hadn’t paid attention at first — family management had never interested him, and after Jacques refused to pay his ransom the first time he’d been taken captive by Roland Wimbledon (it was Petrov who bailed him out, in the end), the two brothers had nothing much to say to each other. Even so, Rene hadn’t been planning any kind of conflict over the household. He had been, in fact, seriously considering going to Border Town and offering himself as a guarding knight to Prince Roland.

Then, at a private feast in the Elk mansion, he had overheard enough to understand what the four families were planning together.

That night he went directly to Jacques’s study. Jacques threw him out. Rene spent the night thinking and decided the next morning to go to Petrov with the information, and to bring his own patrolmen to physically stop Jacques if necessary.

He woke up in the cell. Jacques had poisoned his breakfast.

Since then — nothing. Yelling, threatening, none of it reached his brother. His world had narrowed to the brightness of a single louver in the basement corner, by which he tracked whether it was day or night.

His stomach growled.

He glanced at the food on the floor, looked away, and lay back on the pile of straw. Sleep. I don’t feel hungry when I’m asleep.

He had just closed his eyes when footsteps came down the stairs.

Jacques? He was on his feet and at the bars before he’d finished the thought — but the figure in the dim light was small and slim. Obviously not the Earl.

“Brother, are you all right?” Aurelia, the third daughter of the Elk Family, stepped into the light of the louver and saw the oatmeal scattered across the floor. “Is that what they’ve been feeding you? This is an outrage. Wait — I’ll tell the kitchen—”

“Jacques isn’t home?” The question came out before anything else.

“He left two days ago,” Aurelia said, shaking her head. “He took most of the house guards. Otherwise I couldn’t have gotten down here.”

“Two days ago.” Rene leaned against the bars and let himself sink slowly to the floor. Even if I get out right now, it’s already too late. “Aurelia — did you hear that he was planning to move against the Honeysuckle Family?”

Her expression changed. “Will Milord Petrov be all right?”

She’s always had feelings for Petrov. I tried to arrange something between them, but Petrov had someone else in mind. Now none of that matters.

“Jacques won’t spare the Hull family,” Rene said. “Which means Prince Roland will come with everything he has.” He closed his eyes. The images from that day at Border Town were never far — fire in front of him, thunder on all sides, the first rank of knights seeming to strike an invisible wall, all their years of training and all their courage for honor becoming meaningless at the edge of those weapons. That was the day he had stopped wanting to fight Roland Wimbledon. Not because he lacked will, but because he wasn’t an idiot.

No human being defeats His Highness’s troops. No human being.

“Jacques spent too long in King’s City,” Rene said. “He has no idea what he walked into. This time — I don’t think Prince Roland lets anyone go.”

“What’s wrong, brother?” Aurelia put her hand on his arm through the bars.

He didn’t answer.

“The Elk Family is finished.”

Then, through the thick ceiling above them, came a sound — dim at first, then not dim at all. A low rumble. Then a sharper one. The floor shivered.

Rene raised his head and found his sister’s face wearing the same expression as his.

Then: panic. The voices of servants, filtering down through the floorboards overhead, urgent and getting louder.

“Is that—” Rene stood up slowly. “How is that possible?”

“What’s happening out there?” Aurelia moved toward the stairs.

“Don’t.” He caught her hand. “Don’t go anywhere. Stay right here.”

“Huh?”

“Listen to me.” He swallowed. “It might not be safe.”

The noise above them subsided. Then, minutes later — boots on the basement stairs. A platoon of soldiers in brown uniforms, carrying weapons Rene had last seen pointed at him from across a burning field in Border Town.

He felt the last of his hope go out. He had known Roland would come eventually. He had not calculated on this fast.

A tall man stepped out from the soldiers — broad-shouldered, a face with the angles of a different people, eyes that held the particular cold of someone accustomed to making decisions with irreversible consequences.

“Are you the second son of the Elk Family? Knight Rene Medde?”

“Since you know who he is, you should leave.” Aurelia stepped in front of the bars, voice shaking only a little. “What do you want with him?”

“I’m Rene. Don’t hurt her — she had nothing to do with any of this.”

He braced himself for what came next. And what came next was not what he expected.

The tall man ignored Aurelia entirely. He looked at Rene through the bars.

“I am Iron Axe, Commander of the First Army.” His voice was low, measured. “His Highness Roland sent me to find you specifically.”

Rene said nothing.

“He asked me to tell you,” Iron Axe said, “that Petrov wants to see you.”

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