The Eyes of the Dragon (23 page)

“Wait,” Beson said in a hard growl that made the butler hesitate. “I come with a message for your master.”

The butler hesitated for a moment and then began to swing the door closed again. The man's sullen, swollen face was frightening.
Could
he actually be a dwarf, down from the north country? Supposedly the last of those wild, fur-clad tribes had either died or been killed off in his grandfather's time, but still . . . one never knew. . . .

“It is from Prince Peter,” Beson said. “If you close this door, you will hear hard things later from your marster, thinks I.”

Arlen hesitated again, torn between closing the door against the ghoul and the power the name of Prince Peter still held. If this man came from Peter, he must be the Needle's Chief Warder. Yet—

“You don't
look
like Beson,” he said.

“You don't look like your father, neither, Arlen, and it's made me wonder more than once where your mother may have been,” the lumpish ghoul retorted rudely, and stuck a smudged envelope through the crack still open in the door. “Here . . . take it to'im. I'll wait. Close the door if you want, although it's devilish cold out here.”

Arlen didn't care if it was twenty below. He didn't intend to have the horrible-looking fellow toasting his feet in front of the fire in the servants' kitchen. He snatched the envelope, shut the door, bolted it, started away . . . then returned and double-bolted it

P
eyna was in his study, staring into the fire and thinking long thoughts. When Thomas had been crowned the moon had been new; it was not yet at the half, and already he did not like the way things were going. Flagg—that was the worst. Flagg. The magician already wielded more power than in the days of Roland's reign. Roland had at least been a man, full of years, no matter how slow his thinking might have been. Thomas was only a boy, and Peyna feared that Flagg might soon control all Delain in Thomas's name. That would be bad for the Kingdom . . . and bad for Anders Peyna, who had never concealed his dislike of Flagg.

It was pleasant here in the study, before the crackling fire, but Peyna thought he nonetheless felt a cold wind around his ankles. It was a wind which might rise and blow away . . . everything.

Peyna didn't know . . . and would not admit to himself, even now, that doubts as to whether or not Peter really had been rotten were beginning to nibble at his heart.

There was a knock at the door.

Peyna roused himself, looked around, and called out impatiently: “Come! And it better be damned good!”

Arlen came in, looking ruffled and confused. He held an envelope in one hand.

“Well?”

“My Lord . . . there's a man at the door . . . at least, he
looks
like a man . . . that is, his face is most awfully puffed and swelled, as if he had gotten a terrible beating . . . or . . .” Arlen's voice trailed away.

“What's that to do with me? You know I don't receive this late. Tell him to go away. Tell him to go to the devil!”

“He says he's Beson, my Lord,” Arlen said, more flustered than ever. He raised the smudged envelope, as if to use it as a shield. “He brought this. He says it's a message from Prince Peter.”

Peyna's heart leaped at that, but he only frowned more strenuously at Arlen.

“Well, is it?”

“From Prince Peter?” Arlen was almost gibbering now. His usual composure was utterly lost, and Peyna found this interesting. He wouldn't have believed Arlen would lose his composure come fire, flood, or invasion of ravaging dragons. “My Lord, I would have no way of knowing. . . . That is, I . . . I . . .”

“Is it
Beson
, you idiot?”

Arlen licked his lips—actually
licked his lips
. This was utterly unheard of. “Well, it might be, my Lord . . . it looks a bit like him . . . but the fellow on the doorstep is most awfully bruised and lumpy. . . . I . . .” Arlen swallowed. “I thought he looked like a dwarf,” he said, bringing out the worst and then trying to soften it with a lame smile.

It IS Beson
, Peyna thought.
It's Beson and if he looks as if he's been beaten it's because Peter administered the beating. That's why he brought the message. Because Peter beat him and he was afraid not to. A beating's the only thing that convinces his sort.

There came a sudden feeling of exultation in Peyna's heart: he felt as one might feel in a dark cave when a light suddenly shines out

“Give me the letter,” he said.

Arlen did. He then made as if to scuttle out, and this was also something new, because Arlen did not scuttle.
At least,
Peyna thought, his mind lawyerly as always,
I have never KNOWN him to scuttle.

He let Arlen get as far as the study door, as a veteran fisherman will let a hooked fish run, and then pulled him up short. “Arlen.”

Arlen turned back. He looked braced, as if to receive a reprimand.

“There are no more dwarves. Did your mother not tell you so?”

“Yes,” Arlen said reluctantly.

“Good for her. A wise woman. These dreams in your head must have come from your father. Let the Chief Warder in. To the servants' kitchen,” he added hastily. “I have no wish to have him in here. He stinks. But let him into the servants' kitchen so he may warm himself. The night is cold.” Since the death of Roland, Peyna reflected, all the nights had been cold, as if in reproach for the way the old King had burned, from the inside out.

“Yes, my Lord,” Arlen said with marked reluctance.

“I'll ring for you shortly and tell you what to do with him.”

Arlen went out, a humbled man, and closed the door behind him.

Peyna turned the envelope over in his hands several times without opening it. The dirt was no doubt from Beson's own greasy fingers. He could almost smell the villain's sweat on the envelope. It had been sealed shut with a blot of common candle wax.

But he knew that he wouldn't. That absurd feeling—that feeling that here was a ray of light in hopeless darkness—would not leave him. He put his thumb under the flap of the envelope, broke the seal, took out a brief letter, and read it by firelight.

P
eyna
,

P
eyna looked at this amazing letter for quite some time. His eyes kept returning to the first line, and the last.

It did not surprise him that the boy continued to protest—he had known criminals to go on for years and years protesting their innocence of crimes of which they were patently guilty. But it was not like a guilty man to be so bald in his own defense. So . . . so commanding.

Yes, that was what bothered him most about the letter—its tone of command. A true King, Peyna felt, would not be changed by exile; not by prison; not even by torture. A true King would not waste time justifying or explaining. He would simply state his will.

Peyna sighed. After a long time, he drew his inkpot to him, took a sheet of fine parchment from his drawer, and wrote upon it. His note was even shorter than Peter's had been. It took him less than five minutes to write it, blot it, sand it, fold it, and seal it shut. With that done, he rang for Arlen.

Arlen, looking much chastened, appeared almost at once.

“Is Beson still here?” Peyna asked.

“I think so, sir,” Arlen sad. In fact he
knew
Beson was still there, because he had been peeking through the keyhole at the man, watching him lurch back and forth restlessly from one end of the servants' kitchen to the other with a cold chicken leg clutched like a club in one hand. When the meat on the leg was all gone, Beson had crunched the bones—horrible splintering sounds they made—and sucked contentedly at the marrow.

Arlen was still not utterly convinced the man was not a dwarf . . . perhaps even a troll.

“Give him this,” Peyna said, handing Arlen the note, “and this for his trouble.” Two guilders clinked into Arlen's other hand. “Tell him there may be a reply. If so, he's to bring it at night, as he did this one.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

“Don't linger and chat with him, either,” Peyna said. It was as close as he was able to come to making a joke.

“No, my Lord,” Arlen said glumly, and went out. He was still thinking of the crunching sounds the chicken bones had made when Beson bit through them.

H
ere,” Beson said grumpily when he came into Peter's cell the next day, thrusting the envelope at Peter. In truth, he
felt
grumpy. The two guilders handed to him by Arlen had been an unexpected windfall, and Beson had spent most of the night drinking it up. Two guilders bought a great lot of mead, and today his head felt large and very painful. “Damned messenger boy is what I'm turning into.”

“Thank you,” Peter said, holding the envelope.

“Well? Ain'tcher going to open it?”

“Yes. When you leave.”

Beson bared his teeth and clenched his fists. Peter simply stood there, looking at him. After a moment, Beson lowered his fists. “Damned messenger boy, is all!” he repeated, and went out, slamming the heavy door behind him. There was the thud of iron locks being turned, followed by the sliding sound of bolts—three of them, each as thick as Peter's wrist—being slid into place.

When the sounds had stopped, Peter opened the note. It was only three sentences long.

Peter smiled. Judge-General Peyna was not a sly man—slyness was not at all in his nature, as it was in Flagg's—but he was exceedingly careful. This note was the proof of that. Peter had expected Peyna's condition. He would have felt wary if Peyna had not asked what he wanted. Ben would be the go-between, Peyna would cease to actually be a part of the bribe very shortly, but still he walked carefully, as a man might walk on loose stones which might slide out from under his feet at any moment.

Peter went to the door of his cell, rapped, and after some conversation with Beson, was given the inkpot and dirty quill pen again. Beson did more muttering about being nothing but a damned messenger boy, but he was not really unhappy about the situation. There might be another two guilders in this for him.

“If them two write back and forth long enough, I guess I could get rich arter it,” he said to no one at all, and roared laughter in spite of his aching head.

P
eyna unfolded Peter's second note and saw that this time the prince had left off both of their names. That was very well. The boy learned fast. As he read the note itself, his eyebrows shot up.

Peyna read this note over and over again before throwing it into the fire. He was troubled by it because he did not understand it. The boy was up to something . . . or was he? What could he want with his mother's dollhouse? So far as Peyna knew, it was still in storage somewhere in the castle, gathering dust under a sheet, and there could be no reason not to give it to him—not, that was, if a good man was charged with going through it carefully first, to make sure all the sharp things—tiny knives and such—were removed from it. He remembered quite well how enchanted Peter had been with Sasha's dollhouse as a very young boy. He also remembered—vaguely, very vaguely—that Flagg had protested that it was hardly fitting for a boy who would someday be King to be playing with dolls. Roland had gone against Flagg's advice that time . . . wisely, Peyna thought, for Peter had given the dollhouse up, all in good time.