“It’s an honest statement of my intentions at this time,” said Danny. “But since I don’t know the future, I’m not going to make any promises I might not be able to keep.” Danny spoke over Enopp’s head, to Marion and Leslie. “I have to get to school. Are you all right?”

“Our lives just got a little more complicated,” said Leslie. “But what could possibly go wrong?” She gave him her sweetest, most sarcastic smile.

“That’s why I love you,” said Danny.

He gated back to his little home. Only as he looked at his own kitchen did he realize that he was so stupid, he hadn’t taken any of Leslie’s bread with him to eat for breakfast.

Loyalty

14

LOYALTY

Keel was as loyal a servant as a king could have, or so it seemed to everyone but himself. But Keel knew that it was mere coincidence that created that illusion.

In his twenties, he had been called Plank, because he was master of refitting of the King’s ships. His own father trained him to the task, for he was Plank son of Plank son of Plank, three generations of master shipwrights, who could heal a damaged ship and make it whole again.

Unlike his father, who was a grumbler and griper, Keel-when-he-was-still-Plank had never uttered a word of complaint. After the war with Gray ended badly, and the treaty forbade Iceway to have more than six small fighting ships, suited only for subduing pirates, Plank never criticized the treaty, nor said a word against King Prayard’s father for having started and then lost the war.

Instead, he quietly set about repairing all the ships that managed to limp home from the war. Five of the smallest and fastest he refitted for speed, to skim lightly across the water in pursuit of pirates.

The others—the great warships—he refitted so that even the most suspicious inspectors from Gray would see nothing but cargo vessels, suitable only for trade, ships that wallowed in the water, sluggishly lurching from port to port.

When Prayard became king, he came himself to see what Plank had done. He stood on a tower overlooking the harbor and watched the clumsy cargo vessels that once had been proud warships, as they bumbled up the Graybourn to the docks, or yawed their awkward way downstream, barely manageable from the helm. Prayard did not complain, either. “You have kept my father’s word,” he said to Plank. “It is a good servant who preserves the King’s honor.”

“I am the King’s true servant,” said Plank. Then, most softly, he said, “Return at night and see my obedience.”

Five days later, Plank was wakened by the hand of his youngest son, Knot. “A visitor who has no name,” said his son, and Plank knew it had to be the King.