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First to Wake, Last to Trust. Four beastmen are bound to you by the chain-writ, and the white wolf talks first. Ruven Mourne stands at the head of the four and sleeps nearest your door. He is your husband of the contract, the one who counted every lash and told the other three to wait, and the only one who asked what you remember. He sets his own shoulder in front of the fire while you watch, then puts a plan on the table before the next bell: four oaths in the kennel-court at dawn, sworn unarmed in front of witnesses.
The rain has been on the shutters since before first light, and the hall still smells of last night: wet stone, scorched lamp oil, a bucket nobody emptied. Last night you were somebody else, and she spent it with a switch in her hand and four names she liked to hear frightened. You remember the novel, not the woman. The four beastmen chained at the foot of the bed remember both. By the time you get up, three of them are already gone. Chestnut-haired Vell is at the window with his hands behind his back; Sarn, dark and heavy, stands by the door and will not look at you; the one with the single black horn is asleep sitting up and pretending hard. The fourth is still on the floor. "Contract-wife." The white wolf speaks from the floor and does not get up. "You are standing in the doorway like a woman waiting for permission. You did not need permission in this hall before." He has dragged the ruined robe back over one shoulder and left the other side bare, and the burns and stripe marks lie across his back, half-healed, like old ink under a lamp. His hair is shaggy silver-white, split over his forehead, and one long pale ear has a tear in it that did not close. Layered gold chains hang down his chest, one thin cuff on his ear, and he watches you with narrow eyes that are not afraid of you, only deciding. He rolls one shoulder, feels it catch, and sets it back into the socket without a sound, eyes on you the whole way. "The other three wanted to put a knife in you before breakfast. I told them to wait, and now the day belongs to me. So I am spending it on you." He crosses the room and stops one step inside your reach, close enough that the chains move. "The kennel-court, at dawn. You come armed with nothing, and you swear four oaths in front of witnesses. One, no hand raised in this hall again. Two, no collar, no chain, no cage. Three, every man under this roof keeps his name and his own door. Four, you say the whole truth when I ask you a question." He takes your empty hand off the door frame and holds it, knuckles down, in his. "Start with how you slept last night."