“I swear that I do, FitzChivalry, son of Chivalry.” To my horror, the war-scarred old man took my hands in his and placed them on his forehead in the ancient sign of one who gives fealty. It was all I could do not to snatch them away. Loyalty to Verity, I told myself. This is how I have begun this, and I must see that this is how I go on.

“I will speak to the others,” Brawndy was going on quietly. “I will tell them that this is how you wish it. In truth, we have no wish for bloodshed. It is as you say. Let the whelp run inland with his tail between his legs. Here is where the wolves shall stand and fight.”

My scalp prickled at his choice of words.

“We will attend his ceremony. We will even stand before him, and swear once more to be loyal to a King of the Farseer line. But he is not that King. Nor ever shall be. I understand he departs the very day after the ceremony. We shall let him go, though by tradition a new King-in-Waiting is bound to stand before his dukes and hear their counsels. It may be that we shall linger close, a day or so longer, after Regal has departed. Buckkeep at least shall be yours, ere we depart. We shall see to that. And there will be much to discuss. The placement of our ships. There are other ships, half-finished in the boat sheds, are there not?”

At my short nod, Brawndy grinned in wolfish satisfaction. “We shall see them launched, you and I. Regal has plundered Buckkeep of supplies; this is known to all. We will have to look into replenishing your warehouses. The farmers and shepherds of Buck will have to understand that they must find more, must give of what they held back, if their soldiers are to keep their coast free. It will be a hard winter for all of us, but lean wolves fight fiercest, or so they say.”

And we are lean, my brother; oh, we are lean.

A terrible foreboding rose in me. I wondered what I had done. I would have to find a way to speak to Kettricken before she departed, to somehow assure her I had not turned on her. And I must Skill to Verity, as soon as I possibly could. Would he understand? He must. He had always been able to see into the depths of my heart. Surely he would see what my intentions were. And King Shrewd? Once, long ago, when he had first bought my loyalty, he had said to me, “If ever any man or woman seeks to turn you against me by offering you more than I do, then come to me, and tell me of the offer, and I shall meet it.” Would you give Buckkeep into my hands, old King? I wondered.

I realized that Brawndy had fallen silent. “Do not fear, FitzChivalry,” he said quietly. “Do not doubt the rightness of what we do, or we are all undone. If yours was not the hand that reached forth to claim Buckkeep, another would have. We could not leave Buck with no one at the helm. Be glad it is yourself, as we are. Regal has gone where none of us may follow, fled inland to hide beneath his mother’s bed. We must stand on our own. All the omens and portents point us that way. They say the Pocked Man was seen drinking blood from a Buckkeep well, and that a serpent coiled on the main hearth in the Great Hall and dared to strike at a child. I myself, riding south to be here, witnessed a young eagle bedeviled by crows. But just as I thought she must plunge into the sea to avoid them, she turned and, in midair, seized a crow that had sought to dive on her from above. She clenched him and dropped him bloody to the water, and all the other crows fled squawking and flapping. These are signs, FitzChivalry. We’d be fools to ignore them.”

Despite my skepticism for such signs, a shiver ran up me, setting the hair on my arms upright. Brawndy glanced away from me to the inner door of the chamber. I followed his eyes. Celerity stood there. The short dark hair framed her proud face and her eyes gleamed fierce blue. “Daughter, you have chosen well,” the old man told her. “I wondered, once, what you saw in a scriber. Perhaps now I see it as well.”

He beckoned her into the room, and she came in a rustle of skirts. She stood by her father, looking boldly at me. For the first time I glimpsed the steel will that hid inside the shy child. It was unnerving.

“I bade you wait, and you have,” Duke Brawndy said to me. “You have shown yourself a man of honor in this. I have given you my loyalty this day. Will you take my daughter’s pledge to be your wife as well?”

What a precipice I teetered on. I met Celerity’s eyes. She had no doubts. If I had never known Molly, I would have found her beautiful. But when I looked at her, all I could see was who she was not. I had no heart left to give to any woman, let alone at a time like this. I turned my eyes back to her father, determined to speak firmly.

“You do me more honor than I deserve, sir. But, Duke Brawndy, it is as you have said. These are evil times, and uncertain. With you, your daughter is safe. At my side, she could know only greater uncertainty. What we have discussed here, today, some would call treason. I will not have it said that I took your daughter to bind you to me in a questionable endeavor, nor that you gave your daughter for such a reason.” I forced myself to look back at Celerity, to meet her eyes. “Brawndy’s daughter is safer than FitzChivalry’s wife. Until my position is more certain, I pledge no one to me in any way. My regard for you is great, Lady Celerity. I am not a Duke, nor even a lord. I am as I am named, an illegitimate son of a Prince. Until I can say I am more than that, I will seek no wife, nor court any woman.”