“Read it,” the Fool’s whisper urged me.

I unrolled the vellum carefully. This was Verity’s hand, the careful lettering of a man who loved to draw, to make maps and chart terrain, to sketch fortifications and draw battle plans. He had written large, dark, and plain. My king’s hand. My throat tightened. It was a moment before I could speak. My voice was higher as I spoke past tightness.

“Be it known by my seal on this document and by the testimony of the trusted bearer, Chade Fallstar, that this scroll is the true desire of King-in-Waiting Verity Farseer. In plain words let me say, I leave today on a quest from which I may not return. I leave my queen, Kettricken of the Mountains, with child. If in my absence my father, King Shrewd, should die, I commend my lady to the protection of my nephew FitzChivalry Farseer. If word of my death be returned, then I desire that he be recognized formally as protector of my heir. If my queen perish and my heir survive, then I stipulate that FitzChivalry Farseer is to reign as regent until such time as my heir is able to assume the throne. And if none survive me, neither father, nor queen, nor heir, then it is my will that FitzChivalry Farseer be recognized as my heir. It is not my wish that my younger brother, Regal Farseer, inherit my crown. I do most ardently urge that my dukes recognize and affirm my will in this matter.” I paused to catch my breath. “And his signature is below it.”

“And this would have been your crown.” The Fool’s scarred fingertips traced the rim of the simple circlet. “Not a jewel to be touched. And sword-steel, by the feel of it. Wait, wait! Not so plain, perhaps. Here. What is this?”

I took the crown from him and tilted it to the candlelight. It was engraved into the plain circlet. “A charging buck.”

“He gave you that emblem.”

“Verity did,” I said quietly. My voice tightened up a notch as I observed, “It’s just the charging buck. There is no slash across it to mark me a bastard.”

There was a very long silence. The candles burned and at the other end of the room a log slumped on the hearth. “Do you wish it had come to pass?” the Fool asked me.

“No! Of course not!” That would have been like wishing death on Shrewd and Kettricken and her then-unborn child. “But … I do wish I had known. There were times when it would have meant a great deal to me.” A tear tracked down my cheek. I let it fall.

“And not now?”

“Oh, and still now. To know he thought me worthy to guard his queen, and his child. And to step up and claim the throne after him.”

“Then you never wished to be king?”

“No.” Liar. But the lie was so old and so oft repeated that most of the time I believed it.

He gave a small sigh. When I realized it was of relief, not sadness for the smallness of my ambitions, I wondered why. He answered before I asked.

“When Chade told me you had been formally acknowledged, and that most of the folk there were inclined to lionize you and welcome you home, I worried. And when my fingers touched your crown, I feared.”

“Feared what?”

“That you would want to stay here at Buckkeep Castle. That you would enjoy being seen as what you have always been, not the king-in-waiting but the king-in-the-shadows.”

Such a title to give me. “And that made you fear … what?”

“That you would be reluctant to leave the acclaim you had finally earned. That you would go without heart to my errand.”

To deflect him from any thoughts of the murders he’d assigned me, I hastily referenced his other errand. “Fool, I will do all I can to find the son you suspect you have left somewhere. Doubtless it would make my task much easier if you could recall for me the women you have lain with who might have borne such a child, and when it might have happened.”

He gave a snort of displeasure. “Fitz! Have you listened not at all to what I told you? There is no such woman, nor a child conceived in that way. I told you that.”

My mind reeled. “No. No, you didn’t. I am sure that if you had told me such a thing, I would have remembered it. And that I would have immediately asked, as I do now, then how have you made a son?”

“You don’t listen,” he said sadly. “I explain things quite clearly, but if it’s not what you expect to hear, you set it aside. Fitz. This crown. Would it fit?”

“It’s not a crown, not really.” He had changed the subject again. I knew that he would not explain until he decided to. I tried to conceal my relief that he’d let me get away with my deflection as I turned the cold steel in my hands. The last time I’d worn a crown, it had been wooden and decorated with roosters. No. Don’t summon that memory now. I lifted the circlet and set it on my head. “It fits, I suppose. I’m not sure how it’s supposed to fit.”