That is, I . . . I . . . Is it Beson, you idiot? Arlen licked his lipsactually 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. Its Beson and if he looks as if hes been beaten its because Peter administered the beating. Thats why he brought the message. Because Peter beat him and he was afraid not to. A beatings the only thing that convinces his sort. There came a sudden feeling of exultation in Peynas 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. Ill 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 Besons own greasy fingers. He could almost smell the villains sweat on the envelope. It had been sealed shut with a blot of common candle wax. He thought, I would do better, perhaps, to throw this directly into the fire, and think of it no more. Yes, throw it into the fire, then ring Arlen and tell him to give the little hunchedover Chief Warderhe really DOES look like a dwarf, now that I think of ita hot toddy and send him away. Yes, that is what I should do. But he knew that he wouldnt. That absurd feelingthat feeling that here was a ray of light in hopeless darknesswould 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. 58 Peyna, I have decided to live. I had read only a little about the Needle before I actually found myself in the place, and although I had heard a bit more, most of it was only gossip. One of the things I heard was that certain small favors might be purchased. It seems this really is so. I of course have no money, but I thought you might perhaps defray my expenses in this matter. I did you a favor not long ago, and if you were to pay the Chief Warder a sum of eight guilderssuch sum to be paid anew at the beginning of each year I spend in this unhappy placeI would consider the favor repaid. This sum, you will notice, is very small. That is because I require only two things. If you will arrange for Beson to wet his beak so that I may have them, Ill trouble you no more. I am aware that you would be put in a bad light if it came out that you have helped me, even in a small way. I suggest that you make my friend Ben your gobetween, if you decide to do as I ask. I have not spoken to Ben since my arrest, but I think and hope he remains true to me. I would ask him rather than you, but the Staads are not well off, and Ben has no money of his own. It shames me to ask money from anyone, but there is no other to whom I may turn. If you feel you cannot do as I request, I will understand. I did not murder my father. Peter 59 Peyna looked at this amazing letter for quite some time. His eyes kept returning to the first line, and the last. I have decided to live. I did not murder my father. It did not surprise him that the boy continued to protesthe 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 letterits 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. I have decided to live. 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 Peters 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 boneshorrible splintering sounds they madeand 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 Arlens other hand. Tell him there may be a reply. If so, hes to bring it at night, as he did this one. Yes, my Lord. Dont 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. 60 Here, Beson said grumpily when he came into Peters 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 Im turning into. Thank you, Peter said, holding the envelope. Well? Aintcher 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 boltsthree of them, each as thick as Peters wristbeing slid into place. When the sounds had stopped, Peter opened the note. It was only three sentences long. I am aware of the longstanding customs of which you speak. The sum you mentioned could be arranged. I will do so, but not until I know what favors you expect to buy from our mutual friend. Peter smiled. JudgeGeneral Peyna was not a sly manslyness was not at all in his nature, as it was in Flaggsbut he was exceedingly careful. This note was the proof of that. Peter had expected Peynas condition. He would have felt wary if Peyna had not asked what he wanted. Ben would be the gobetween, 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. 61 Peyna unfolded Peters 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. Perhaps your request to know my business is presumptuous, perhaps not. It matters little, since I am at your mercy. Here are the two things your eight guilders per year are to purchase 1. I want to have my mothers dollhouse. It always took me to pleasant places and pleasant adventures, and I loved it much as a boy. 2. I would like to have a napkin brought with my mealsa proper royal napkin. The crest may be removed, if you like. These are my requests. 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 mothers 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 himnot, that was, if a good man was charged with going through it carefully first, to make sure all the sharp thingstiny knives and suchwere removed from it. He remembered quite well how enchanted Peter had been with Sashas dollhouse as a very young boy. He also rememberedvaguely, very vaguelythat 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 Flaggs advice that time . . . wisely, Peyna thought, for Peter had given the dollhouse up, all in good time. Until now. Has he gone mad, then? Peyna did not think so. The napkin, now . . . that he could understand. Peter had always insisted upon a napkin at every meal, always spread it neatly on his lap like a small tablecloth. Even when on camping trips with his father, Peter had insisted on a napkin. So oddly like Peter not to ask for better food than the normal poor prison rations, as almost any other noble or royal prisoner would have done before asking for anything else. No, he had asked for a napkin instead. That insistence on always being neat . . . on always having a napkin . . . that was his mothers doing. Im sure of it. Do the two go together, somehow? But how? Napkins . . . and Sashas dollhouse. What do they mean? Peyna did not know, but that absurd feeling of hope remained. He kept remembering that Flagg had not wanted Peter to have the dollhouse as a little boy. Now, years later, here was Peter asking to have it again. There was another thought wrapped up inside this, as neatly as filling is wrapped up in a tart. It was a thought Peyna hardly dared to entertain. Ifjust ifPeter had not murdered his father, who did that leave? Why, the person who had originally owned that hideous poison, of course. A person who would have been nothing in the Kingdom if Peter had followed his father . . . a person who was nearly everything now that Thomas sat on the throne in Peters place. Flagg. But this thought was hideous to Peyna. It suggested that justice had somehow gone wrong, and that was bad. But it also suggested that the simple logic in which he had always prided himself had been washed away in the revulsion he had felt at the sight of Peters tears, and this ideathe idea that he had made the single most important decision of his career on the basis of emotion rather than factwas much worse. What harm can there be in his having the dollhouse, as long as the sharp things are removed? Peyna drew his writing materials to him and wrote briefly. Beson had another two guilders to drink upalready he had been paid half the sum he would receive for the princes little favors each year. He looked forward to more correspondence, but there was no more. Peter had what he wanted. 62 As a child Ben Staad had been a slim, blueeyed boy with curly blond hair. The girls had been sighing and giggling over him since he was nine years old. Thatll stop soon enough, Bens father said. All the Staads make handsome enough lads, but hell be like the rest of us when he gets his growth, reckonhis hairll darken to brown and hell go around squintin at everything and hell have all the luck of a fat pig in the Kings slaughtering pen. But neither of the first two predictions came true. Ben was the first Staad male in several generations to remain as blond at seventeen as he had been at seven, and who could tell a brown hawk from an auger hawk at four hundred yards. Far from developing a nearsighted squint, his eyes were amazingly keen . . . and the girls still sighed and giggled over him as much now, at seventeen, as they had when he was nine. As for his luck . . . well, that was another matter. That most of the Staad men had been unlucky, at least for the last hundred years or so, was beyond argument. Bens family thought that Ben might be the one to redeem them from their genteel poverty. After all, his hair hadnt darkened and his eyes hadnt grown dim, so why should he not escape the curse of bad luck as well? And after all, Prince Peter was his friend, and Peter would someday be King. Then Peter was tried and convicted of his fathers murder. He was in the Needle before any of the bewildered Staad family could get their minds around what had happened. Bens father, Andrew, went to Thomass coronation, and he came home with a bruise on his cheeka bruise his wife thought it might be prudent not to speak of. Im sure Peters innocent, Ben said that night at supper. I simply refuse to believe The next moment he was sprawling on the floor, his ear ringing. His father was towering over him, pea soup dripping from his mustache, his face so red it was almost purple, and Bens baby sister, Emmaline, was crying in her high chair. Dont mention the murdering whelps name again in this house, his father said. Andrew! his mother cried. Andrew, he doesnt understand His father, normally the kindest of men, turned his head and stared at Bens mother. Be quiet, woman, he said, and something in his voice made her sit down again. Even Emmaline stopped crying. Father, Ben said quietly, I cant even remember the last time you struck me. Its been ten years, I think, maybe longer. And I dont think you ever struck me in anger, until now. But it doesnt change my mind. I dont believe Andrew Staad raised one warning finger. I told you not to mention his name, he said, and I meant it, Ben. I love you, but if you say his name, youll be leaving my house. Ill not say it, Ben replied, getting up, but because I love you, Da. Not because Im scared of you. Leave off! Mrs. Staad cried, more frightened than ever. I wont have the two of you bickering this way! Do you want to drive me insane? No, Mother, dont worry, its over, Ben said. Isnt it, Da? Its over, his father said. Youre a good son in all things, Ben, and always have been, but mention him not. There were things Andy Staad felt he couldnt tell his sonalthough Ben was seventeen, Andy still saw him as a boy. He would have been surprised if hed known that Ben understood his reasons for striking out quite well. Before the unfortunate turn of events of which you now know, Bens friendship with the prince had already begun changing things for the Staads. Their Inner Baronies farm had once been very large. Over the last hundred years, they had been forced to sell the land off, a piece at a time. Now fewer than sixty reels remained, most of that mortgaged. But over the last ten years or so, things had gradually improved. Bankers who had been threatening first became willing to extend the outstanding mortgages, and to even offer new loans at interest rates so cheap they were unheard of. It had hurt Andrew Staad bitterly to see the land of his ancestors whittled away reel by reel, and it had been a happy day for him when he was able to go to Halvay, the owner of the next farm over, and tell him that he had changed his mind about selling him the three reels Halvay had wanted to buy for the last nine years. And he knew who he had to thank for these wonderful changes, too. His son . . . his son who was a close friend of the prince who also happened to be the Kinginwaiting. Now they were only the unlucky Staads again. If that had been all, only a case of things going back to the way they had been, he could have stood up under it without striking his son at the dinner table . . . an act of which he was already ashamed. But things werent going to go back to the way they had been. Their position had worsened. He had been lulled when the bankers had stopped behaving like sheep instead of wolves. He had borrowed a great deal of money, some to buy back land which he had already sold, some to install things like the new windmill. Now, he felt sure, the bankers would take off their sheepskins, and instead of losing the farm a piece at a time, he might lose it all at once. Nor was that all. Some instinct had told him to forbid any of his family members to go to Thomass coronation and he had listened to that inner voice. Tonight he was glad. It had happened after the coronation, and he supposed he should have expected it. He went into a meadhouse to have a drink before starting home. He was very depressed by the whole sorry business of the Kings murder and Peters imprisonment; he felt that he needed a drink. He had been recognized as Bens father. Did yer son help his friend do the deed, Staad? one of the drunks had called, and there had been nasty laughter. Did he hold the old man while the prince poured the burnin pizen down his thrut? one of the others called out in turn. Andrew had put his mug down half empty. This was not a good place to be. He would leave. Quickly. But before he could get out, a third drunka giant of a man who smelled like a pile of moldy cabbagespulled him back. And how much did you know? this giant had asked in a low, rumbling voice. Nothing, Andrew said. I know nothing about this business, and neither does my son. Let me pass. Youll pass whenand ifwe decide to let yer pass, the giant said, and shoved him backward into the waiting arms of the other drunks. The pummeling then began. Andy Staad was pushed from one to the next, sometimes slapped, sometimes elbowed, sometimes tripped. No one quite dared to go as far as punching him, but they came close; he had seen in their eyes how badly they had wanted to. If the hour had been later and they had been drunker, he might have found himself in very serious trouble indeed. Andrew was not tall, but he was broadshouldered and well muscled. He calculated that he might be able to dust off any two of these idlers in a fair fightwith the exception of the giant, and he thought that perhaps he could give even that fellow a run for his money. One or two, possibly even three . . . but there were eight or ten there in all. If he had been Bens age, full of pride and hot blood, he still might have had a go at them. But he was fortyfive, and did not relish the thought of creeping home to his family beaten within an inch of his life. It would hurt him and frighten them, and both things would be to no purposeit was just the Staad luck come home with a vengeance, and there was nothing to do but endure it. The barkeeper stood watching it all, doing nothing, not attempting to put a stop to it. At last they had let him escape. Now he feared for his wife . . . his daughter . . . and most of all for his son Ben, who would be the prime target for bullies such as those. If itd been Ben in there instead of me, he thought, they would have used their fists, all right. They would have used their fists and beaten him unconscious . . . or worse. So, because he loved his son and was afraid for him, he had struck him and threatened to drive him from the house if Ben ever mentioned the prince by name again. People are funny, sometimes. 63 What Ben Staad didnt already understand abstractly about this strange new state of affairs he discovered very concretely the next day. He had driven six cows to market and sold them for a good price (to a stockman who didnt know him, or the price mightnt have been so good). He was walking toward the city gates, when a bunch of loitering men set upon him, calling him murderer and accomplice and names even less pleasant. Ben did well against them. They beat him quite badly in the endthere were seven of thembut they paid for the privilege with bloody noses, black eyes, and lost teeth. Ben picked himself up and went home, arriving after dark. He ached all over, but he was, all things considered, rather pleased with himself. His father took one look at him and knew exactly what had happened. Tell your mother you fell down, he said. Aye, Da, Ben said, knowing his mother would not believe any such story. And after this, Ill take the cows to market, or the corn, or whatever we have to take to market . . . at least until the bankers come an take the place out from under us. No, Da, Ben said, just as calmly as he had said Aye. For a young man who had taken a bad beating, he was in a very strange mood indeedalmost cheerful, in fact. What do you mean, telling me no? his father asked, thunderstruck. If I run or hide, theyll come after me. If I stand my ground, theyll grow tired soon enough and look for easier sport. If someone draws a knife from his boot, Andrew said, voicing his greatest fear, youll never live to see them grow tired of it, Benny. Ben put his arms around his father and hugged him tight. A man cant outsmart the gods, Ben said, quoting one of Delains oldest proverbs. You know that, Da. And Ill fight for P . . . for him youd not have me mention. His father looked at him sadly and said, Youll never believe it of him, will you? No, Ben said steadfastly. Never. I think youve become a man while I wasnt looking, his father said. Its a sad way to have to become a man, scuffling in the streets of the market with gutter louts. And these are sad times that have come to Delain. Yes, Ben said. They are sad times. Gods help you, Andrew said, and gods help this unlucky family. 64 Thomas had been crowned near the end of a long, bitter winter. On the fifteenth day of his reign, the last of that seasons great storms fell on Delain. Snow fell fast and thick, and long after dark the wind continued to scream, building drifts like sand dunes. At nine oclock on that bitter night, long after anyone sensible should have been out, there was a fist began to fall on the front door of the Staad house. It was not light or timid, that fist; it hammered rapidly and heavily on the stout oak. Answer me and be quick, it said. I havent all night. Andrew and Ben sat before the fire, reading. Susan Staad, wife of Andrew and mother of Ben, sat between them, working at a sampler which would read GODS BLESS OUR KING when finished. Emmaline had long since been put to bed. The three of them looked up at the knock, then around at each other. There was only curiosity in Bens eyes, but both Andrew and Susan were instantly, instinctively afraid. Andrew rose, putting his reading glasses in his pocket. Da? Ben asked. Ill go, Andrew said. Let it only be some traveler, lost in the dark and seeking shelter, he hoped, but when he opened the door a soldier of the King stood there on the stoop, stolid and broadshouldered. A leather helmetthe helmet of a fighting manclung to his head. There was a shortsword in his belt, near to hand. Your son, he said, and Andrew felt his knees buckle. Why do you want him? I come from Peyna, the soldier said, and Andrew understood that this was all the answer he was to have. Da? Ben asked from behind him. No, Andrew thought miserably, please, this is too much bad luck, not my son, not my son Is that the boy? Before Andrew could say nouseless as that would have beenBen had stepped forward. I am Ben Staad, he said. What do you want with me? You must come with me, the soldier said. Where? To the house of Anders Peyna. No! his mother cried from the doorway of their small living room. No, its late, its cold, the roads are full of snow I have a sleigh, the soldier said inexorably, and Andrew Staad saw the mans hand drop to the shaft of his shortsword. Ill come, Ben said, getting his coat. Ben Andrew began, thinking Well never see him again, hes to be taken away from us because he knew the prince. It will be all right, Da, Ben said, and hugged him. And when Andrew felt that young strength embracing him, he could almost believe it. But, he thought, his son had not learned fear yet. He had not learned how cruel the world could be. Andrew Staad held his wife. The two of them stood in the doorway and watched Ben and the soldier break their way through the drifts toward the sleigh, which was only a shadow in the dark with lanterns glowing eerily on either side. Neither of them spoke as Ben climbed up on one side, the soldier on the other. Only one soldier, Andrew thought, thats something. Maybe its only for questioning that they want him. Pray its only for questioning that they want my son! The Staads stood in silence, membranes of snow blowing around their ankles, as the sleigh pulled away from the house, the flames in the lanterns jiggling, the sleigh bells jingling. When they were gone, Susan burst into tears. Well never see him again, she sobbed. Never, never! Theyve taken him! Damn Peter! Damn him for what hes brought my son to! Damn him! Damn him! Shh, mother, Andrew said, holding her tightly. Shh. Shh. Well see him before morning. By noon at the latest. But she heard the quiver in his voice and cried all the harder. She cried so hard she woke little Emmaline up (or maybe it was the draft from the open door), and it was a very long time before Emmaline would go back to sleep. At last Susan slept with her, the two of them in the big bed. Andy Staad did not sleep all that night. He sat up by the fire, hoping against hope, but in his heart, he believed he would never see his son again. 65 Ben Staad stood in Anders Peynas study an hour later. He was curious, even a little awed, but not afraid. He had listened closely to everything Peyna said, and there had been a muted chink as money changed hands. You understand all of this, lad? Peyna asked in his dry courtroom voice. Yes, my Lord. I would be sure. This is no childs business I send you on. Tell me again what you are to do. I am to go to the castle and speak to Dennis, son of Brandon. And if Brandon interferes? Peyna asked sharply. I am to tell him he must speak to you. Aye, Peyna said, settling back in his chair. I am not to say Tell no one of this arrangement.  Yes, Peyna said. Do you know why? Ben stood thoughtfully for a moment, head down. Peyna let him think. He liked this boy; he seemed coolheaded and unafraid. Many others brought before him in the middle of the night would have been gibbering with terror. Because if I said such a thing, he would be quicker to tell than if I said nothing, Ben said finally. A smile touched Peynas lips. Good, he said. Go on. Youve given me ten guilders. Im to give two to Dennis, one for himself and one for whoever finds the dollhouse that belonged to Peters mother. The other eight are for Beson, the Chief Warder. Whoever finds the dollhouse will deliver it to Dennis. Dennis will deliver it to me. I will deliver it to Beson. As for the napkins, Dennis himself will take them to Beson. How many? Twentyone each week, Ben replied promptly. Napkins of the royal house, but with the crest removed. Your man will engage a woman to remove the royal crests. From time to time you will send someone to me with more money, either for Dennis or for Beson. But none for yourself? Peyna asked. He had already offered; Ben had refused. No. I believe thats everything. You are quick. I only wish I could do more. Peyna sat up, his face suddenly harsh and forbidding. You must not and you shall not, he said. This is dangerous enough. You are procuring favors for a young man who has been convicted of committing a foul murderthe secondfoulest murder a man may do. Peter is my friend, Ben said, and he spoke with a dignity that was impressive in its simplicity. Anders Peyna smiled faintly, and raised one finger to point at the fading bruises on Bens face. I would guess, he said, that you are already paying for that friendship. I would pay such a price a hundred times over, Ben said. He hesitated just a moment and then went on boldly I dont believe he killed his father. He loved King Roland as much as I love my own da. Did he? Peyna asked, apparently without interest. He did! Ben cried. Do you believe he murdered his father? Do you really believe he did it? Peyna smiled such a dry and ferocious smile then that even Bens hot blood was cooled. If I didnt, I should be careful who I said it to, he said. Very, very careful. Or I should soon feel the headsmans blade go through my neck. Ben stared at Peyna silently. You say you are his friend, and I believe you. Peyna sat up straighter in his chair and leveled a finger at Ben. If you would be a true friend, do just the things I have asked, and no more. If you see any hope for Peters eventual release in your mysterious summons hereand I see by your face that you doyou must give that hope up. Rather than ring for Arlen, Peyna saw the boy out himselfout the back way. The soldier who had brought him tonight would be on his way to the Western Barony tomorrow. At the door, Peyna said Once more do not stray from the things weve agreed upon so much as one solitary bit. The friends of Peter are not much cared for in Delain now, as your bruises prove. Id fight them all! Ben said hotly. One at a time or all at once! Aye, Anders Peyna said with that dry, ferocious smile. And would you ask your mother to do the same? Or your baby sister? Ben gaped at the old man. Fear opened in his heart like a small and delicate rose. It will come to that, if you do not exercise all your care, Peyna said. The storms are not over in Delain yet, but only beginning. He opened the door; snow swirled in, driven by a black gust of wind. Go home now, Ben. I think your parents will be happy to see you so soon. This was an understatement of some size. Bens parents were waiting at the door in their nightclothes when Ben let himself in. They had heard the jingle of the approaching sleigh. His mother hugged him close, weeping. His father, redfaced, unaccustomed tears standing in his eyes, wrung Bens hand until it ached. Ben remembered Peyna saying The storms are not over but only beginning. And still later, lying in bed with his hands behind his head, staring up into the darkness and listening to the wind whistle outside, Ben realized that Peyna had never answered his questionhad never said whether or not he believed Peter to be guilty. 66 On the seventeenth day of Thomass reign, Brandons son, Dennis, brought the first lot of twentyone napkins to the Needle. He brought them from a storeroom that neither Peter nor Thomas nor Ben Staad nor Peyna himself knew aboutalthough all would become aware of it before the grim business of Peters imprisonment was done. Dennis knew because he was a butlers son from a long line of butlers, but familiarity breeds contempt, so they say, and he thought nothing much about the storeroom from which he fetched the napkins. Well speak more of this room later; let me tell you now only that all would have been struck with wonder at the sight of it, and Peter in particular. For had he known of this room which Dennis took completely for granted, he might have attempted his escape as much as three years sooner . . . and much, for better or for worse, might have been changed. 67 The royal crest was removed from each napkin by a woman Peyna had hired for the quickness of her needle and the tightness of her lips.


Each day she sat in a rocker just outside the doorway of the storeroom, picking out stitches that were very old indeed. When she did this her lips were tight for more reasons than one; to unmake such lovely needlework seemed to her almost a desecration, but her family was poor, and the money from Peyna was like a gift from heaven. So there she sat, and would sit, for years to come, rocking and plying her needle like one of those weird sisters of whom you may have heard in another tale. She spoke to no one, not even her husband, about her days of unmaking. The napkins had a strange, faint smellnot of mildew but of must, as if from long disusebut they were otherwise without fault, each of them twenty rondels by twenty, big enough to cover the lap of even the most dedicated eater. There was a bit of comedy attached to the first napkin delivery. Dennis hung about Beson, expecting a tip. Beson let him hang about a while because he expected that sooner or later the dimwitted lad would remember to tip him. They both came to the conclusion that neither was going to be tipped at the same time. Dennis started for the door, and Beson helped him along with a kick in the seat of the pants. This caused a pair of Lesser Warders to laugh heartily. Then Beson pretended to wipe his bottom with the handful of napkins for the Lesser Warders further amusement, but he was careful only to pretendafter all, Peyna was in this business somewhere, and it was best to tread lightly. Perhaps Peyna would not be around a great deal longer, however. In the meadhouses and wineshops, Beson had begun to hear whispers that Flaggs shadow had fallen on the JudgeGeneral, and that if Peyna was not very, very careful, he might soon be watching the proceedings at court from an even more commanding angle than the bench upon which he now sathe might be looking in the window, these wags said behind their hands, from one of the spikes atop the castle walls. 68 On the eighteenth day of Thomass reign, the first napkin was on Peters breakfast tray when it was delivered in the morning. It was so large and the breakfast so small that it actually covered the meal completely. Peter smiled for the first time since he had come to this cold, high place. His cheeks and chin were shadowed with the beginnings of a beard which would grow full and long in these two drafty rooms, and he looked quite a desperate character . . . until he smiled. The smile lit his face with magical power, made it strong and radiant, a beacon to which one could imagine soldiers rallying in battle. Ben, he muttered, picking the napkin up by one corner. His hand shook a bit. I knew youd do it. Thank you, my friend. Thank you. The first thing Peter did with his first napkin was to wipe away the tears that now ran freely down his cheeks. The peephole in the stout wooden door popped open. Two Lesser Warders appeared again like the two heads of Flaggs parrot, packed into the tiny space cheek to scruffy cheek. Hope that baby wont forget to wipe his chinnychin! one cried in a cracked, warbling voice. Hope that baby wont forget to wipe the eggy off his shirty! the other cried, and then both screamed with derisive laughter. But Peter did not look at them, and his smile did not fade. The warders saw that smile and made no more jokes. There was something about it which forbade joking. Eventually they closed the peephole and left Peter alone. A napkin came with his lunch that day. With his dinner that night. The napkins came to Peter in his lonely cell in the sky for the next five years. 69 The dollhouse arrived on the thirtieth day of Thomas the LightBringers reign. By then modils, those first harbingers of Spring (which we call bluets) were coming up in pretty little roadside bunches. Also by then Thomas the LightBringer had signed into law the Farmers Tax Increase, which quickly became known as Toms Black Tax. The new joke told in the meadhouses and wineshops was that the King would soon be changing his royal name to Thomas the TaxBringer. The increase was not eight percent, which might have been fair, or eighteen percent, which might have been bearable, but eighty percent. Thomas had had some doubts about it at first, but it hadnt taken Flagg long to convince him. We must tax them more on what they admit they own, so we can collect at least some of whats due us on all they hide from the tax collector, Flagg said. Thomas, his head fuddled by the wine that now flowed constantly in the court chambers of the castle, had nodded with what he hoped was a wise expression on his face. For his part, Peter had begun to fear that the dollhouse had been lost after all these yearsand that was almost the truth. Ben Staad had commissioned Dennis to find it. After several days of fruitless searching, Dennis had confided in his good old da the only person he dared trust with such a serious matter. It had taken Brandon another five days to find the dollhouse in one of the minor storage rooms on the ninth floor, west turret, where its cheerful pretend lawns and long, rambling wings were hidden under an ancient (and slightly motheaten) dustcloth that was gray with the years. All of the original furnishings were still in the house, and it had taken Brandon and Dennis and a soldier handpicked by Peyna three more days to make sure all the sharp things were removed. Then, at last, the dollhouse was delivered by two squire boys, who toiled up the three hundred stairs with the heavy, awkward thing spiked to a board between them. Beson followed closely behind, cursing and threatening terrible reprisals if they should drop it. Sweat rolled down the boys faces in rivers, but they made no reply. When the door of Peters prison opened and the dollhouse was brought in, Peter gasped with surprisenot just because the dollhouse was finally here, but because one of the two boys carrying it was Ben Staad. Give not a sign! Bens eyes flashed. Dont look at me too long! Peters flashed back. After the advice he had given, Peyna would have been stunned to see Ben here. He had forgotten that the logic of all the wise old men in the world cannot often stand against the logic of a boys heart, if the boys heart is large and kind and loyal. Ben Staads was all three. It had been the easiest thing in the world to exchange places with one of the squires meant to carry the dollhouse to the top of the Needle. For a guilderall the money Ben had in the world, as a matter of factDennis had arranged it. Dont tell your father of this, Ben cautioned Dennis. Why not? Dennis had asked. I tell my old da almost everything . . . dont you? I did, Ben said, remembering how his father had forbidden him to mention Peters name anymore in the house. But when boys grow up, I think that sometimes changes. However that may be, you mustnt tell him this, Dennis. He might tell Peyna, and then Id be in a hot pot on a highfire. All right, Dennis promised. It was a promise he kept. Dennis had been cruelly hurt when his master, whom he had loved, had been first accused and then convicted of murder. In the last few days, Ben had gone a long way toward filling the empty place in Denniss heart. Thats good, Ben said, and punched Dennis playfully on the shoulder. I only want to see him a minute, and refresh my heart. He was your best friend, wasnt he? Still is. Dennis had stared at him, amazed. How can you claim a man who murdered his own father as your best friend? Because I dont believe he did it, Ben said. Do you? To Bens utter amazement, Dennis burst into wretched tears. All my heart says the same, and yet Listen to it, then, Ben said, and gave Dennis a large rough hug. And dry off your mug before someone sees you bawling like a kid. Put it in the other room, Peter said now, distressed at the slight tremble in his voice. Beson didnt notice; he was too busy cursing the two boys for their slowness, their stupidity, their very existence. They carried the dollhouse into the bedroom and set it down. The other boy, who had a very stupid face, dropped his end too quickly and too hard. There was the tiny sound of something breaking inside. Peter winced. Beson cuffed the boybut he smiled as he did it. It was the first good thing that had happened to him since these two lads had appeared with the accursed thing. The stupid boy stood up, wiping the side of his face, which was already starting to swell, and staring at Peter with frank wonder and fear, his mouth wide open; Ben remained on his knees a moment longer. There was a small rattan mat in front of the houses front doorwhat we would call a welcome mat, I suppose. For just a moment Ben allowed his thumb to move over the top of this, and his eyes met Peters. Now get out! Beson cried. Get out, both of you! Go home and curse your mothers for ever bringing such slow, clumsy fools as yourselves into the world! The boys passed Peter, the loutish one shrinking away as if the prince might have a disease he could catch. Bens eyes met Peters once more, and Peter trembled at the love he saw in his old friends gaze. Then they were gone. Well, you have it now, my good little princeling, Beson said. What shall we be bringing you next? Little ruffly dresses? Silk underpants? Peter turned slowly and looked at Beson. After a moment, Beson dropped his eyes. There was something frightening in Peters gaze, and Beson was forced to remember again that, sissy or not, Peter had beaten him so badly that his ribs had ached for two days and he had had dizzy spells for a week. Well, its your business, he muttered. But now that you have it, I could find a table for you to put it on. And a chair to sit in while you . . . He grimaced. While you play with it. And how much would this cost? A mere three guilders, I should think. I have no money. Ah, but you know powerful people. No more, Peter said. I traded a favor for a favor, thats all. Sit on the floor, then, and get chilblains on your arse, and be damned to you! Beson said, and strode from the room. The little flood of guilders he had enjoyed since Peter came to the Needle had apparently dried up. It put Beson in a foul mood for days. Peter waited until he had heard all the locks and bolts go rattling home before lifting the rattan mat Ben had rubbed with his thumb. Beneath he found a square of paper no larger than the stamp on a letter. Both sides had been written on, and there were no spaces between the words. The letters were tiny indeedPeter had to squint to read them, and guessed that Ben must have made them with the aid of a magnifying glass. PeterDestroy this after you have read it. I dont believe you did it. Others feel the same I am sure. I am still your friend. I love you as I always did. Dennis does not believe it, either. If I can ever help get to me through Peyna. Let your heart be steadfast. As he read this, Peters eyes filled with warm tears of gratitude. I think that real friendship always makes us feel such sweet gratitude, because the world almost always seems like a very hard desert, and the flowers that grow there seem to grow against such high odds. Good old Ben! he whispered over and over again. In the fullness of his heart, he couldnt think to say anything else. Good old Ben! Good old Ben! For the first time he began to think that his plan, wild and dangerous as it was, might have a chance of succeeding. Next he thought of the note. Ben had put his life on the line to write it. Ben was noblebarelybut not royal; thus not immune from the headsmans axe. If Beson or one of his jackals found this note, they would guess that one or the other of the boys who had brought the dollhouse must have written it. The loutish one looked as if he couldnt read even the large letters in a childs book, let alone write such tiny ones as these. So they would look for the other boy, and from there to the chopping block might be a short trip for good old Ben. He could think of only one sure way to get rid of it, and he didnt hesitate; he crumpled the little note up between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand and ate it. 70 By now I am sure you have guessed Peters plan of escape, because you know a good deal more than Peyna did when he read Peters requests. But in any case, the time has come to tell you straight out. He planned to use linen threads to make a rope. The threads would come, of course, from the edges of the napkins. He would descend this rope to the ground and so escape. Some of you may be laughing very hard at this idea. Threads from napkins to escape a tower three hundred feet high? you could be saying. Either you are mad, Storyteller, or Peter was! Nothing of the sort. Peter knew how high the Needle was, and he believed he must never be greedy about how many threads he took from each napkin. If he unraveled too much, someone might become very curious. It didnt have to be the Chief Warder; the laundress who washed the napkins might be the one to notice rather a lot of each one was gone. She might mention it to a friend . . . who could mention it to another friend . . . and so the story would spread . . . and it wasnt really Beson Peter was worried about, you know. Beson was, all things said, a fairly stupid fellow. Flagg was not. Flagg had murdered his father and Flagg kept his ear to the ground. It was a shame Peter never stopped to wonder about that vague smell of must about the napkins, or to ask if the person hired to remove the royal crests had been let go after removing a certain number, or if that person was still at workbut, of course, his mind was on other things. He could not help noticing that they were very old, and this was certainly a good thinghe was able to take a great many more threads from each than he ever would have guessed in even his most optimistic moments. How many more than that he could have taken he came to know only in time. Still, I can hear some of you saying, threads from napkins to make a rope long enough to reach from the window of the Needles topmost cell to the courtyard? Threads from napkins to make a rope strong enough to support one hundred and seventy pounds? I still think you are joking! Those of you who think so are forgetting the dollhouse . . . and the loom within, a loom so tiny that the threads of napkins were perfect for its tiny shuttle. Those of you who think so are forgetting that everything in the dollhouse was tiny, but worked perfectly. The sharp things had been removed, and that included the looms cutting blade . . . but otherwise it was intact. It was the dollhouse about which Flagg had had vague misgivings so long ago which was now Peters only real hope of escape. 71 I would have to be a much better storyteller than I am, I think, to tell you how it was for Peter during the five years he spent at the top of the Needle. He ate; he slept; he looked out the window, which gave him a view to the west of the city; he exercised morning, noon, and evening; he dreamed his dreams of freedom. In the summer his apartment sweltered. In the winter it froze. During the second winter he caught a bad case of the grippe which almost killed him. Peter lay feverish and coughing under the thin blanket on his bed. At first, he was only afraid he would lapse into delirium and rave about the rope that was hidden in a neat coil under two of the stone blocks on the east side of his bedroom. As his fever grew worse, the rope he had woven with the tiny dollhouse loom came to seem less important, because he began to think he would die. Beson and his Lesser Warders were convinced of it. They had, in fact, begun to wager on when it would happen. One night, about a week after the onset of his fever, while the wind raged blackly outside and the temperature dropped down to zero, Roland appeared to Peter in a dream. Peter was convinced that Roland had come to take him to the Far Fields. Im ready, Da! he cried. In his delirium he didnt know if he had spoken aloud or only in his mind. Im ready to go! Yell not be dying yet, his father said in this dream . . . or vision . . . or whatever it was. Yeve much to do, Peter. Father! Peter shrieked. His voice was powerful, and below him, the wardersBeson includedquailed, thinking that Peter must be seeing the smoking, murdered ghost of King Roland, come to take Peters soul to hell. They made no more wagers that night, and in fact one of them went to the Church of the Great Gods the very next day and embraced his religion again, and eventually became a priest. This mans name was Curran, and I may tell you of him in another story. Peter really was seeing a ghost in a wayalthough whether it was the actual shade of his father or only a ghost born in his feverstruck brain, I cannot say. His voice lapsed into a mutter; the warders did not hear the rest. Its so cold . . . and I am so hot. My poor boy, his glimmering father said. Youve had hard trials, and there are more of them ahead, I think. But Dennis will know . . . Know what? Peter gasped. His cheeks were red, but his forehead was as pale as a wax candle. Dennis will know where the sleepwalker goes, his father whispered, and was gone. Peter lapsed into a faint that quickly became a deep, sound sleep. In that sleep, his fever broke. The boy who had made it his practice over the last year to do sixty pushups and a hundred situps each day awoke the next morning too weak to even get out of bed . . . but he was lucid again. Beson and the Lesser Warders were disappointed. But after that night, they always treated Peter with a kind of awe, and took care never to go too close to him. Which, of course, made his job that much easier. All that is an easy enough tale to tell, though it would no doubt be better if I could say for sure that the ghost was there or that it was not. But like other matters in the larger tale, youll have to make up your own mind about it, I suppose. But how am I to tell you about Peters endless, drudging work at that tiny loom? That tale is beyond me. All the hours spent, sometimes with frosty breath pluming from his mouth and nose, sometimes with sweat running down his face, always in fear of discovery; all those long hours alone, with nothing but long thoughts and almost absurd hopes to fill them. I can tell you some things, and will, but to convey such hours and days of slow time is impossible for me, and might be impossible for anyone except one of the great storytellers whose race is long vanished. Perhaps the only thing that even vaguely suggests how much time Peter spent in those two rooms was his beard. When he came in, it was only a shadow on his cheeks and a smudge under his nosea boys beard. In the 1,825 days which followed, it grew long and luxuriant; by the end it reached the middle of his chest, and although he was only twentyone, it was shot with gray. The only place it did not grow was along the length of the jagged scar left by Besons thumbnail. Peter dared pluck only five threads from each napkin the first yearfifteen threads each day. He kept them under his mattress, and at the end of each week, he had one hundred and five. In our measure, each thread was about twenty inches long. He wove the first batch a week after he received the dollhouse, working carefully with the loom. Using it was not as easy at seventeen as it had been at five. His fingers had grown; the loom had not. Also, he was horribly nervous. If one of the warders caught him at his work, he could tell them he was using the loom to weave errant threads from the old napkins for his own amusement . . . if they believed it. And if the loom worked. He wasnt sure that it would until he saw the first slim cable, perfectly woven, emerging from the looms far end. When Peter saw this, his nervousness abated somewhat and he was able to weave a little faster, feeding the threads in, tugging them to keep them straight, operating the foot pedal with his thumb. The loom squeaked a little at first, but the old grease soon limbered up and it ran as perfectly as it had in his childhood. But the cable was terribly thin, not even a quarter of an inch through the center. Peter tied off the ends and tugged experimentally. It held. He was a little encouraged. It was stronger than it looked, and he thought it should be strong. They were royal napkins, after all, woven from the finest cotton thread in the land, and he had woven tightly. He pulled harder, trying to guess how many pounds of strain he was putting on the slim cotton cable. He pulled even harder, the rope still held, and he felt more hope come stealing into his heart. He found himself thinking about Yosef. It had been Yosef, head of the stables, who told him about that mysterious and terrible thing called breaking strain. It was high summer, and they had been watching huge Anduan oxen pull stone blocks for the plaza of the new market. A sweating, cursing drover sat astride each oxs neck. Peter had then been no more than eleven, and he thought it better than a circus. Yosef pointed out that each ox wore a heavy leather harness. The chains that pulled the dressed blocks of stone were attached to the harness, one on each side of the animals neck. Yosef told him the cutters had to make a careful estimate of just how much each block of stone weighed. Because if the blocks are too heavy, the oxen might hurt themselves trying to pull them, Peter said. This wasnt even a question, because it seemed obvious to him. He felt sorry for the oxen, dragging those great blocks of rock. Nay, Yosef said. He lit a cigarette made of cornshuck, almost burning off the end of his nose, and drew deeply and contentedly. He always liked the young princes company. Nay! Oxen arent stupidpeople only think them so because they are large and tame and helpful. Says more about the people than about the oxen, if you ask me, but leave that bhind, leave that bhind. If an ox can pull a block, hell pull it; if he cant, why, hell try twice and then stand with is head down. And hell stand so, even if a bad master whups his hide to ribbons. Oxen look stupid, but they aint. Not a bit. Then why do the cutters have to guess at the weight of the blocks they cut, if the ox knows what he can pull and what he cant? Taint the blocks; its the chains. Yosef pointed to one of the oxen, which was dragging a block that looked to Peter almost as big as a small house. The oxs head was down, its eyes fixed patiently ahead, as its drover sat astride it and guided it with little taps of his stick. At the end of the double length of chain, the block moved slowly along, goring a furrow in the earth. It was so deep that a small child would need to work to climb out of it. If an ox can pull a block, he will, but an ox dont know nothing about chains, or about the breaking strain. Whats that? Put a thing under enough of a tug, and itll snap, Yosef said. If yonder chains were to snap, theyd fly around something tumble. You wouldnt want to be a witness to what can happen if a heavy chain lets go when its under such a tug as those oxen can put on. Its apt to fly anywhere. Backrds, mostly. Apt to hit the drover and tear him apart, or cut the legs from under the beast itself. Yosef took another drag at his makeshift cigarette and then tossed it in the dirt. He fixed Peter with a shrewd, friendly glare. Breaking strain, he said, is a good thing for a prince to know about, Peter. Chains break if you put on enough of a tug, and people do, too. Keep it in mind. He kept it in mind now, as he pulled at his first cable. How much of a tug was he putting on? Five rull? At least. Ten? Perhaps. But maybe that was only wishful thinking. He would say eight. No, seven. Better to make a mistake on the pessimistic side, if a mistake was to be made. If he miscalculated . . . well, the cobblestones in the Plaza of the Needle were very, very hard. He tugged harder still, the muscles on his arms now beginning to stand out a little. When the first cable finally snapped, Peter guessed he might be applying as much as fifteen rullalmost sixtyfour poundsof tug. He was not unhappy with this result. Later that night, he threw the broken cable out of his window, where the men who cleaned the Plaza of the Needle daily would sweep it up with the rest of the rubbish the following day. Peters mother, seeing his interest in the dollhouse and the little furnishings inside, had taught him how to weave cables and braid them into tiny rugs. When we have not done a thing for a long period, we are apt to forget exactly how that thing was done, but Peter had nothing but time, and after some experimentation, the trick of braiding came back to him. Braiding was what his mother had called it and so that was how he thought of it, but braiding was not really the right word for it; a braid, precisely speaking, is the handweaving of two cables. Wrapping, which is how rugs are made, is the handweaving of three or more cables. In wrapping, two cables are placed apart, but with their tops and bottoms even. The third is placed between them, but lower, so its end sticks out. This pattern is carried on as length after length is added. The result looks a little bit like Chinese fingerpullers . . . or the braided rugs in your favorite grandmothers house. It took Peter three weeks to save enough threads to try this technique, and most of a fourth to remember exactly how the overandunder pattern of wrapping had gone. But when he was done, he had a real rope. It was thin, and you would have thought him mad to entrust his weight to it, but it was much stronger than it looked. He found he could break it, but only by wrapping its ends firmly around his hands and pulling until the muscles bulged on his arms and chest and the cords stood out on his neck. Overhead in his sleeping chamber were a number of stout oak beams. He would have to test his weight from one of these, when he had a rope long enough. If it snapped, he would have to start all over again . . . but such thoughts were useless and Peter knew itso he just got to work. Each thread he pulled was about twenty inches long, but Peter lost roughly two inches in the weaving and wrapping. It took him three months to make a rope of three strands, each strand consisting of a hundred and five cotton threads, into a cable three feet long. One night, after he was sure all of the warders were drunk and at cards below, he tied this pigtail to a rope over one of the beams. When it had been looped over and tied in a slipknot, less than a foot and a half hung down. It looked woefully thin. Nevertheless, Peter seized it and hung from it, mouth tightened to a grim white line, expecting the threads to let go at any moment and spill him to the floor. But they held. They held. Hardly daring to believe it was happening, Peter hung there from a rope almost too thin to see. He hung there for almost a full minute, and then he stood on his bed to pull the slipknot free. His hands trembled as he did it, and he had to fumble at the knot twice, because his eyes kept blurring with tears. He didnt believe his heart had been so full since reading Bens tiny note. 72 He had been keeping the rope under his mattress, but Peter realized this would not do much longer. The Needle was three hundred and forty feet high at the peak of its conical roof; his window was just about three hundred feet above the cobblestones. He was six feet tall and believed he would dare to drop as much as twenty feet from the end of his rope. But even at best, he would eventually have to hide two hundred and seventy feet of rope. He discovered a loose stone on the east side of the bedroom floor, and cautiously pried it up. He was surprised and pleased to find a little space beneath. He couldnt see into it properly so he reached in and felt around in the darkness, his whole body stiff and tense as he waited for something down there in the dark to crawl over his hand . . . or bite it. Nothing did, and he was just about to withdraw it, when one of his fingers brushed somethingcold metal. Peter brought it out. It was, he saw, a heartshaped locket on a fine chain. Both locket and chain looked to be made of gold. Nor did he think, by its weight, that the locket was false gold. After some poking and feeling, he found a delicate catch. He pushed it and the locket sprang open. Inside were two pictures, one on each sidethey were as fine as any of the tiny paintings in Sashas dollhouse; even finer, perhaps. Peter stared at their faces with a boys frank wonder. The man was very handsome, the woman very beautiful. There was a faint smile on the mans lips and a devilmaycare look in his eyes. The womans eyes were grave and dark. Part of Peters wonder came from the fact that this locket must be very old, judging by what he could make out of their dress, but only part of it. Most came from the fact that these two faces looked eerily familiar. He had seen them before. He closed the locket and looked on the back. He thought there were initials entwined there, but they were too flounced and curlicued for him to read. On impulse, he delved into the hold again. This time he touched paper. The single sheet of foolscap he brought out was ancient and crumbling, but the writing was clear and the signature unmistakable. The name was Leven Valera, the infamous Black Duke of the Southern Barony. Valera, who might someday have been King, had instead spent the last twentyfive years of his life in the room at the top of the Needle for the murder of his wife. No wonder the pictures in the locket looked familiar! The man was Valera; the woman was Valeras murdered wife, Eleanor, about whose beauty ballads were still sung. The ink Valera had used was a strange rusty black, and the first line of his note chilled Peters heart. The note entire chilled his heart, and not only because the similarity between Valeras position and his own seemed too great for coincidence. To the Finder of the Note I write with my own Blood, drawn from a vayne I have opened in my left Forearm, my pen the Shaft of a Spune which I have sharpened long and long upon the stones of my Bedchamber. Nearly a quarter of a Centurie I have spent here in the skie; I came here a Young Man and now am I Old. The Coughing Spells and Fayver have come on me again, and this time I think I shall not survive. I did not kill my Wyfe. Nay, though all the Evidence say otherwise, I did not kill my Wyfe. I did love her and love her still, although her dear Face has grown misty in my treacherous Mind. I believe twas the Kings Magician who killed Eleanor, and arranged Matters to see me put asyde, for I stood in his Way. It seems his Plans have worked and he has prospered; yet I believe there are Gods who punish Wickedness in the end. His Day shall come, and I have come to feel more and more strongly as my own Death approaches that he shall be brought down by One who comes to this Place of Dispair, One who finds and reads this Letter written in my Blood. If tis so, I cry out to you; Avenge, Avenge, Avenge! Ignore me and my lost Years if you must, but never, never, never ignore my dear Eleanor, murdered as she slept in her Bed! It was not I who poisoned her Wine; I write the name of the Murderer here in Blood Flagg! Twas Flagg! Flagg! Flagg! Take the Locket, and show it to him the instant before you relieve this the World of Its greatest Scoundrelshow him so that he may know in that Instant that I have been a part of his Downfall, even from beyond my unjust Murderers Grayve. Leven Valera Perhaps now you can understand the true source of Peters chill; perhaps not. Perhaps you will understand it better if I remind you that, although he looked to be a man in a hale and hearty middle age, Flagg was really very old. Peter had read about the supposed crime of Leven Valera, yes. But the books in which he had read of it were histories. Ancient histories. This crumbling, yellowed parchment first spoke of the Kings magician, and then spoke of Flagg by name. Spoke his name? Cried it, shrieked itin blood.


But Vateras supposed crime had happened in the reign of Alan II and Alan II had ruled Delain four hundred and fifty years ago. God, oh great God, Peter whispered. He staggered back to his bed and sat down on it heavily, just before his knees would have unhinged and spilled him to the floor. Hes done it all before! Hes done it all before, and in exactly the same way, but he did it over four centuries ago! Peters face was deadly white; his hair was standing on end. For the first time he realized that Flagg, the Kings magician, was in reality Flagg the monster, loose in Detain again now, serving a new Kingserving his own young, confused, easily led brother. 73 Peter at first entertained giddy thoughts of promising Beson another bribe to take the locket and the crumbling sheet of foolscap to Anders Peyna. In his initial flush of excitement, it seemed to him that this note must point the finger of guilt at Flagg and set him, Peter, free. A little reflection convinced him that while that might happen in a storybook, it would not happen in real life. Peyna would laugh and call it a forgery. And if he took it seriously? That might mean the end of both the JudgeGeneral and the imprisoned prince. Peters ears were sharp, and he listened closely to the gossip of the meadhouses and the wineshops as it was passed back and forth between Beson and the Lesser Warders. He had heard of the Farmers Tax Increase, had heard the bitter joke which suggested that Thomas the LightBringer should be renamed Thomas the TaxBringer. He had even heard that some few daring wags had renamed his brother Foggy Tom the Constantly Bombed. The headsmans axe had swung with the regularity of a clocks pendulum since Thomas had ascended Delains throne, only this clock called out treasonsedition, treasonsedition, treasonsedition with a regularity that would have been monotonous, had it not been so frightening. By now Peter had begun to suspect Flaggs goal to bring the ordered monarchy of Delain to an utter smash. Showing the locket and the note would only get him laughed at or cause Peyna to take some sort of action. And that would undoubtedly get them both killed. In the end Peter put the locket and foolscap back where they had come from. And with them he put the little threefoot pigtail it had taken him a month to weave. On the whole, he did not feel too bitter about the evenings workthe rope had held, and the finding of the locket and foolscap after more than four hundred years proved at least one thingthe hiding place was not apt to be discovered. Still, he had much food for thought, and he lay long awake that night. When he slept, he seemed to hear Leven Valeras dry, stony voice whispering in one ear Avenge! Avenge! Avenge! 74 Time, yes, timePeter spent a great deal of time at the top of the Needle. His beard grew long, save for where that white scar streaked his cheek like a lightning bolt. He saw many changes from his window, as it grew. He heard of more terrible changes yet. The headsmans pendulum had not slowed down but actually speeded up treasonsedition, treasonsedition, it sang, and sometimes half a dozen heads rolled in the course of but a single day. During Peters third year of imprisonment, the year in which Peter was first able to do thirty chinups in a single effort from his bedchambers central beam, Peyna resigned his post as JudgeGeneral in disgust. It was the talk of the meadhouses and wineshops for a week, and the talk of Peters keepers for a week and a day. The warders believed that Flagg would have Peyna jailed almost before the heat of the old mans burn had left the judges bench, and that soon after the citizens of Delain would find out once and for all if there was blood or ice water in the JudgeGenerals veins. But when Peyna remained free, the talk died down. Peter was glad Peyna had not been arrested. He bore him no ill will, in spite of Peynas willingness to believe that he had murdered his father; and he knew that the arrangement of the evidence had been Flaggs doing. Also during Peters third year in the Needle, Denniss good old da, Brandon, died. His passing was simple but dignified. He had finished his days work in spite of a terrible pain in his chest and side and came slowly home. He sat down in the little living room, hoping the pain would pass. Instead it grew worse. He called his wife and son to his side, kissed them both, and asked if he might have a glass of bundlegin. This was provided. He drank it off, kissed his wife again, and then sent her from the room. You must serve your master well now, Dennis, he said. Yere a man now, with a mans tasks set before you. Ill serve the King as well as I may, Da, Dennis said, although the thought of taking over his fathers responsibilities terrified him. His good, homely face was shiny with tears. For the last three years, Brandon and Dennis had buttled for Thomas, and Denniss responsibilities had been much the same as before, with Peter; but it had never been the same, somehownever even close to the same. Thomas, aye, Brandon said, and then whispered But if the time comes to do yer first master a service, Dennis, you mustnt hesitate. I have never At that moment, Brandon clutched the left side of his chest, stiffened, and died. He died where he would have wanted to die, in his own chair, in front of his own fire. In Peters fourth year of imprisonmenthis rope below the stones growing steadily longer and longerthe Staad family disappeared. The throne possessed itself of what little there remained of their lands, as it had done when other noble families disappeared. And as Thomass reign progressed, there were more and more disappearances. The Staads were only one item of meadhouse gossip in a busy week that included four beheadings, an increased levy against shopkeepers, and the imprisonment of an old woman who had for three days walked back and forth in front of the palace, screaming that her grandson had been taken and tortured for speaking against the previous years Cattle Levies. But when Peter heard the Staad name in the warders conversation, his heart had stopped for a moment. The chain of events leading to the disappearance of the Staads was one familiar to everyone in Delain by now. The ticktocking pendulum of the headsmans axe had thinned the numbers of the nobility terribly. Many of these nobles died because their families had served the Kingdom for hundredsor thousandsof years, and they could not believe such an unjust fate would or could fall on them. Others, seeing bloody handwriting on the wall, fled. The Staads were among these. And the whispering began. Tales were told behind cupped hands, tales suggesting that these nobles had not simply scattered to the four winds but had gathered together somewhere, perhaps in the deep woods at the northern end of the Kingdom, to plan an overthrow of the throne. These stories passed to Peter like the wind through his window, the drafts beneath his door. . . . They were dreams of a wider world. Mostly he worked on his rope. During the first year, the rope grew longer by eighteen inches every three weeks. At the end of that year, he had a slim cable that was twentyfive feet longa cable that was, theoretically at least, strong enough to bear his weight. But there was a difference between dangling from a beam in his bedroom and dangling above a drop of three hundred feet, and Peter knew it. He was, quite literally, staking his life on that slim cord. And twentyfive feet a year was perhaps not enough; it would take more than eight years before he could even try, and the rumblings he heard at second hand had grown loud enough to be disturbing. Above all else, the Kingdom must endurethere must be no revolt, no chaos. Wrongs must be put right, but by law, not by bows and slings and maces and clubs. Thomas, Leven Valera, Roland, he himself, even Flagg paled into insignificance next to that. There must be law. How Anders Peyna, growing old and bitter by his fire, would have loved him for that! Peter determined that he must make his effort to escape as soon as possible. Accordingly he made long calculations, doing the figures in his head so as to leave no trace. He did them again and again and again, proving to himself that he had made no mistake. In his second year in the Needle, he began to pluck ten threads from each napkin; in his third year fifteen; in his fourth year, twenty. The rope grew. Fiftyeight feet long after the second year; a hundred and four after the third; a hundred and sixty after the fourth. The rope at that time would still have fetched up a hundred and forty feet from the ground. During his last year, Peter began to take thirty threads from each napkin, and for the first time his robberies showed clearlyeach napkin looked frayed on all four sides, as if mice had been at it. Peter waited in agony for his thefts to be discovered. 75 But they were not discovered then, or ever. There was not so much as a question ever raised. Peter had spent endless nights (or so they seemed to him) wondering and worrying when Flagg would hear some wrong thing, some wrong note, and so get wind of what he was up to. He would send some underling, Peter supposed, and the questions would begin. Peter had thought things out with agonizing care, and he had made only one wrong assumptionbut that one led to a second (as wrong assumptions so often do) and that second was a dilly. He had assumed that there was some finite number of napkinsperhaps a thousand or so in alland that they were being used over and over again. His thinking on the subject of the napkin supply never went much further than that. Dennis could have told him differently and saved him perhaps two years of work, but Dennis was never asked. The truth was simple but staggering. Peters napkins were not coming from a supply of a thousand, or two thousand, or twenty thousand; there were nearly half a million of these old, musty napkins in all. On one of the deep levels below the castle was a storeroom as big as a ballroom. And it was filled with napkins . . . napkins . . . nothing but napkins. They smelled musty to Peter, and that wasnt surprisingmost of them, coincidentally or not, dated from a time not long after the imprisonment and death of Leven Valera, and the existence of all those napkinscoincidentally or notwas, indirectly at least, the work of Flagg. In a queer sort of way, he had created them. Those had been dark times indeed for Delain. The chaos Flagg so earnestly wished had almost come upon the land. Valera had been removed; mad King Alan had ascended the throne in his place. If he had lived another ten years, the Kingdom surely would have drowned in blood . . . but Alan was struck down by lightning while playing cubits on the back lawn in the pouring rain one day (as I told you, he was mad). It was lightning, some said, sent by the gods themselves. He was followed by his niece, Kyla, who became known as Kyla the Good . . . and from Kyla, the line of succession had run straight and true down through the generations to Roland, and the brothers to whose tale you have been listening. It was Kyla, the Good Queen, who brought the land out of its darkness and poverty. She had nearly bankrupted the Royal Treasury to do it, but she knew that currencyhard currencyis the lifes blood of a kingdom. Much of Delains hard currency had been drained away during the wild, weird reign of Alan II, a King who had sometimes drunk blood from the notched ears of his servants and who had insisted that he could fly; a King more interested in magic and necromancy than profit and loss and the welfare of his people. Kyla knew it would take a massive flow of both love and guilders to set the wrongs of Alans reign right, and she began by trying to put every ablebodied person in Delain back to work, from eldest to youngest. Many of the older citizens of the castle keep had been set to making napkinsnot because napkins were needed (I think I have already told you how most of Delains royalty and nobility felt about them), but because work was needed. These were hands that had been idle for twenty years or more in some cases, and they worked with a will, weaving on looms exactly like the one in Sashas dollhouse . . . except in the matter of size, of course! For ten years these old people, over a thousand of them, made napkins and drew hard coin from Kylas Treasury for their work. For ten years people only slightly younger and a little more able to get about had taken them down to the cool, dry storeroom below the castle. Peter had noticed that some of the napkins brought to him were motheaten as well as mustysmelling. The wonder, although he didnt know it, was that so many of them were still in such fine condition. Dennis could have told him that the napkins were brought, used once, removed (minus the few threads Peter plucked from each), and then simply thrown away. After all, why not? There were enough of them, all told, to last five hundred princes five hundred years . . . and longer. If Anders Peyna had not been a merciful man as well as a hard one, there really might have been a finite number of napkins. But he knew how badly that nameless woman in the rocking chair needed the work and the pittance it brought in (Kyla the Good had known the same, in her time), and so he kept her on, as he continued to see that Besons guilders went on flowing after the Staads were forced to flee. She became a fixture outside the room of the napkins, that old woman with her needle for unmaking rather than making. There she sat in her rocker, year after year, removing tens of thousands of royal crests, and so it was really not surprising that no word of Peters petty thievery ever reached Flaggs ears. So you see that, except for that one mistaken assumption and that one unasked question, Peter could have gotten about his work much faster. It did sometimes seem to him that the napkins were not shrinking as rapidly as they ought to have done, but it never occurred to him to question his basic (if vague) idea that the napkins he used were being regularly returned to him. If he had asked himself that one simple question! But perhaps, in the end, all things worked for the best. Or perhaps not. That is another thing you must decide for yourself. 76 Eventually Dennis got over his fright of being Thomass butler. After all, Thomas ignored him almost completely, except to sometimes berate him for forgetting to put out his shoes (usually Thomas himself had left his shoes somewhere else, then forgotten where) or to insist Dennis have a glass of wine with him. The wine always made Dennis feel sick to his stomach, although he had come to enjoy a wee drop of bundlegin in the evenings. He drank it nonetheless. He did not need his good old da around to tell him one did not refuse to drink with the King when asked. And sometimes, usually when he was drunk, Thomas would forbid Dennis to go home but insist that he spend the night in Thomass apartments instead. Dennis supposedand rightlythat these were nights on which Thomas simply felt too lonely to bear his own solitary company. He would give long, besotted, rambling sermons on how difficult it was to be King, how he was trying to do the best job he could and be fair, and how everyone hated him for some reason or other just the same. Thomas often wept during these sermons, or laughed wildly at nothing, but usually he just fell asleep halfway through some mangled defense of one tax or another. Sometimes he staggered off to his bed, and Dennis could sleep on the couch. More often, Thomas fell asleepor passed outon the couch, and Dennis made his uncomfortable bed on the cooling hearth. It was perhaps the strangest existence any Kings butler had ever known, but, of course, it seemed normal enough to Dennis because it was all he had ever known. Thomas mostly ignoring him was one thing. Flagg ignoring him was another, even more important thing. Flagg had, in fact, entirely dismissed Denniss part in his scheme to send Peter to the Needle. Dennis had been no more than a tool to hima tool which had served its purpose and could be put aside. If he had thought of Dennis, it would have seemed to him that the tool had been well rewarded Dennis was the Kings butler, after all. But on an early winters night in the year when Peter was twentyone and Thomas sixteen, a night when Peters thin rope was finally nearing completion, Dennis saw something which changed everythingand it is with the thing Dennis saw that cold night that I must begin to narrate the final events in my tale. 77 It was a night much like those during the terrible time just before and after Rolands death. The wind shrieked out of a black sky and moaned in the alleys of Delain. Frost lay thick in the pastures of the Inner Baronies and on the cobbles of the castle city. At first, a threequarters moon chased in and out of the rushing clouds, but by midnight the clouds had thickened enough to obscure the moon completely, and by two in the morning, when Thomas awoke Dennis by rattling the latch of the door between his sitting room and the corridor outside, it had begun to snow. Dennis heard the rattling and sat up, grimacing at the stiffness in his back and the pins and needles in his legs. Tonight Thomas had fallen asleep on the couch instead of lurching his way to bed, so it had been the hearth for the young butler. Now the fire was almost out. The side of him which had been lying closer to it felt baked; the other side of him felt frozen. He looked toward the rattling sound . . . and for a moment terror froze his heart and vitals. For that one moment he thought there was a ghost at the door, and he almost screamed. Then he saw it was only Thomas in his white nightshirt. MMy Lord King? Thomas took no notice. His eyes were open, but they were not looking at the latch; they were wide and dreaming and they looked straight ahead at nothing. Dennis suddenly guessed that the young King was sleepwalking. Even as Dennis decided this, Thomas seemed to realize that the reason the latch wouldnt work was that the bolt was still on. He drew it and then passed out into the hall, looking more ghostlike than ever in the guttering light of the corridor sconces. There was a swirl of nightshirt hem, and then he was gone on bare feet. Dennis sat stockstill on the hearth for a moment, crosslegged, his pins and needles forgotten, his heart thumping. Outside, the wind hurled snow against the diamondshaped panes of the sittingroom window and uttered a long banshee howl. What should he do? There was only one thing, of coursethe young King was his master. He must follow. Perhaps it was the wild night which had brought Roland so vividly to Thomass mind, but not necessarilyin fact, Thomas thought of his father a great deal. Guilt is like a sore, endlessly fascinating, and the guilty party feels compelled to examine it and pick at it, so that it never really heals. Thomas had drunk far less than usual, but, strangely, had seemed drunker than ever to Dennis. His sentences had been broken and garbled, his eyes wide and staring, showing too much of the whites. This was, to a large extent, because Flagg was gone. There had been rumors that the renegade nobitityStaads among themhad been seen gathered together in the Far Forests at the northern reaches of the Kingdom. Flagg had led a regiment of tough, battlehardened soldiers in search of them. Thomas was always more skittish when Flagg was gone. He knew it was because he had come to depend completely on the dark magician . . . but he had come to depend on Flagg in ways he did not fully understand. Too much wine was no longer Thomass only vice. Sleep is often denied to those with secrets, and Thomas was afflicted with severe insomnia. Without knowing it, he had become addicted to Flaggs sleeping potions. Flagg had left a supply of the drug with Thomas when he led the soldiers north, but Flagg had expected to be gone only three daysfour at the most. For the last three days, Thomas had slept badly, or not at all. He felt strange, never quite awake, never quite asleep. Thoughts of his father haunted him. He seemed to hear his fathers voice in the wind, crying out Why do you stare at me? Why do you stare at me so? Visions of wine . . . visions of Flaggs darkly cheerful face . . . visions of his fathers hair catching fire . . . these things drove sleep away and left him wideeyed in the long watches of the night while the rest of the castle slept. When Flagg had still not returned on the eighth night (he and his soldiers were even then camped fifty miles from the castle and Flagg was in a foul mood; the only trace of the nobles they found had been frozen hoofprints that might have been days or weeks old), Thomas sent for Dennis. It was later that night, that eighth night, that Thomas arose from his couch and began to walk. 78 So Dennis followed his lord and master the King down those long, drafty stone corridors, and if you have come along this far, I think you must know where Thomas the LightBringer finished up. Late stormy night had passed into early stormy morning. No one was abroad in the corridorsat least, Dennis saw no one. If anyone had been abroad, he or she might well have fled in the other direction, perhaps screaming, believing he or she had seen two ghosts walking, the one leading in a long white nightshirt that could easily have been mistaken for a shroud, the other following in a plain jerkin, but with bare feet and a face pale enough to have been mistaken for the face of a corpse. Yes, I believe anyone who saw them would have fled, and told long prayers before sleeping . . . and even many prayers might not have kept the nightmares at bay. Thomas stopped in the middle of a corridor that Dennis had seldom been down, and he opened a recessed door which Dennis had never really noticed at all. The boy King stepped into another corridor (no chambermaid passed them with an armload of sheets, as one had once passed Thomas and Flagg when Flagg had brought the prince this way some years before; all good chambermaids were long since in their beds), and partway down it, Thomas stopped so suddenly that Dennis almost ran into him. Thomas looked around, as if to see if he had been followed, and his dreaming eyes passed directly over Dennis. Denniss skin crawled, and it was all he could do to keep from crying out. The sconces in this almost forgotten hallway guttered and stank foully of das oil; the light was faint and gruesome. The young butler could feel his hair trying to clump up and push out in spikes as those empty eyeseyes like dead lamps lit only by the moonpassed over him. He was there, standing right there, but Thomas did not see him; to Thomas, his butler was dim. Oh, I must run, part of Denniss mind whispered distractedlybut inside his head, that distracted little whisper was like a scream. Oh, I must run, he has died, he has died in his sleep and I am following a walking corpse! But then he heard the voice of his da, his own dear, dead da, whispering If the time ever comes to do yer first master a service, Dennis, you mustnt hesitate. A voice deeper than either told him that the time for that service had come. And Dennis, a lowly servant boy who had changed a kingdom once by discovering a burning mouse, perhaps changed it again by holding his place, in spite of the terror which froze his bones and pushed his heart into his throat. In a strange, deep voice that was nothing at all like his usual voice (but to Dennis that voice sounded weirdly familiar), Thomas said Fourth stone up from the one at the bottom with the chip in it. Press it. Quick! The habit of obedience was so ingrained in Dennis that he had actually begun to move forward before realizing that Thomas, in his dream, had commanded himself in the voice of another. Thomas pushed the stone before Dennis could move more than a single step. It slid in perhaps three inches. There was a click. Denniss jaw dropped, as part of the wall swung inward. Thomas pushed it farther, and Dennis saw there was a huge secret door here. Secret doors made him think of secret panels, and secret panels made him think of burning mice. Again he felt an urge to run and fought it down. Thomas went in. For a moment he was only a glimmering nightshirt in the dark, a nightshirt with no one inside it. Then the stone wall closed again. The illusion was perfect. Dennis stood there, shifting from one cold bare foot to the other cold bare foot. What should he do now? Again, it was his das voice he seemed to hear, impatient now, brooking no refusal. Follow, you paltry boy! Follow, and be quick! This is the moment! Follow! But Da, the dark He seemed to feel a stinging slap, and Dennis thought hysterically Even when youre dead you got a strong right hand, Da! All right, all right, Im going! He counted up four from the chipped stone and pushed. The door swung about four inches inward on darkness. There was a tiny clittering sound in the awesome silence of the corridora sound like mice made of stone. After a moment Dennis realized that sound was his own teeth, chattering together. Oh Da, Im so scared, he mourned . . . and then followed King Thomas into the darkness. 79 Fifty miles away, rolled into five blankets against the bitter cold and the roaring wind, Flagg cried out in his sleep at the precise moment Dennis followed the King into the secret passageway. On a knoll not far distant, wolves howled in unison with that cry. The soldier sleeping nearest Flagg on the left died instantly of a heart attack, dreaming that a great lion had come to gobble him up. The soldier sleeping on Flaggs right woke up in the morning to discover he was blind. Worlds sometimes shudder and turn inside their axes, and this was such a time. Flagg felt it, but did not grasp it. The salvation of all that is good is only thisat times of great import, evil beings sometimes fall strangely blind. When the Kings magician awoke in the morning, he knew that he had had a bad dream, probably from his own longforgotten past, but he did not remember what it had been. 80 The darkness inside the secret passage was utter and complete, the air still and dry. In it, coming from somewhere ahead, Dennis heard a terrible, desolate sound. The King was weeping. At that sound, some of Denniss fear left him. He felt a great wonder, and a great pity for Thomas, who always seemed so unhappy, and who had grown fat and pimply as Kingoften he was pallid and shakyhanded from too much wine the night before, and his breath was usually bad. Already Thomass legs were beginning to bow, and unless Flagg was with him, he had a tendency to walk with his head down and his hair hanging in his face. Dennis felt his way forward, his hands held out in front of him. The sound of weeping grew closer in the dark . . . and then, suddenly, the dark was no longer complete. He heard a faint sliding noise and then he could see Thomas faintly. He was standing at the end of the corridor, and faint amber light was coming in from two small holes in the dark. To Dennis, those holes looked strangely like floating eyes. Just as Dennis began to believe that he would be all right, that he would probably survive this strange night walk, Thomas shrieked. He shrieked so loudly it seemed that his vocal cords must split open. The strength ran out of Denniss legs and he fell to his knees, hands clapped over his mouth to stop his own screams, and now it seemed to him that this secret way was filled with ghosts, ghosts like strange flapping bats that might at any moment snare themselves in his hair; oh yes, the place seemed filled with the unquiet dead to Dennis, and perhaps it was; perhaps it was. He almost swooned . . . almost . . . but not quite. Somewhere below him, he heard barking dogs and realized they were above the old Kings kennels. The few of Rolands dogs still alive had never been moved outside again. They were the only living beingsbesides Dennis himselfthat had heard those wild shrieks. But the dogs were real, not ghosts, and Dennis held on to that thought the way a drowning man might hold on to a floating mast. A moment or two later, he realized that Thomas was not just shriekinghe was crying out words. At first Dennis could make out only a single phrase, howled out again and again Dont drink the wine! Dont drink the wine! Dont drink the wine! 81 Three nights later, a light knock came at the closed sittingroom door of a farm in one of the Inner Baronies, a farm quite close to where the Staad family had lived not so long ago. Come! Anders Peyna growled. And it better be damned good, Arlen! Arlen had aged in the years since Beson had appeared at Peynas door with Peters note. The changes in him, however, were slight when compared with the changes in Peyna. The former JudgeGenerals hair was almost all gone. His spareness of frame had become gauntness. The loss of hair and weight were very little, however, when compared with the changes in his face. Formerly he had been stern. Now he was grim. Darkbrown hollows floated below his eyes. The stamp of despair was clear on his face, and there was good reason for this. He had seen the things he had spent his life defending brought to ruin . . . and this ruin had been accomplished with shocking ease, and in a shockingly brief period of time. Oh, I suppose all men of intelligence know how fragile such things as Law and Justice and Civilization really are, but its not a thing they think of willingly, because it disturbs ones rest and plays hob with ones appetite. Seeing his lifes work knocked casually apart like a childs tower of blocks was bad enough, but there was another thing which had haunted Peyna these last four years, something that was even worse. This was the knowledge that Flagg had not achieved all the dark changes in Delain alone. Peyna had helped him. For who else had seen Peter brought to a trial which was perhaps too speedy? Who else had been so convinced of Peters guilt . . . and not so much by the evidence as by a young boys shocked tears? Since the day Peter had been led to the top of the Needle, the chopping block in the Plaza of the Needle had been stained a sinister rusty color. Not even the hardest rain could wash it clean. And Peyna thought he could detect that sinister red stain spreading out from the blockspreading out to cover the Plaza, the market streets, the alleys. In his troubled dreams Peyna saw rills of fresh blood washing in bright, accusing threads between the cobblestones and running down the gutters in streamlets. He saw the redans of Castle Delain gleaming bloody in the sun. He saw the carp in the moat floating bellyup, poisoned by the blood which poured out of the sewers in floods and which rose from the springs in the earth itself. He saw the blood rising everywhere, staining the fields and forests. In these unhappy dreams even the sun began to look like a bloodshot, dying eye. Flagg had let him live. In the meadhouses, people whispered behind their hands that he had reached an agreement with the magicianthat he had perhaps given Flagg the names of certain traitors, or that perhaps Peyna had something on Flagg, some secret that would come out if Peyna died suddenly. This was, of course, ridiculous. Flagg was not a man to be threatenednot by Peyna, not by anyone. There were no secrets. There had been no agreements or deals. Flagg had simply let him live . . . and Peyna knew why. Dead, he would perhaps have been at peace. Alive, he was left to twist on the rack of his own bad conscience. He was left to watch the terrible changes Flagg had wrought on Delain. Well? he asked irritably. What is it, Arlen? A boy has come, my Lord. He says he must see you. Send him away, Peyna said moodily. He reflected that, even a year ago, he would have heard a knock at the front door, but it seemed that he became more deaf with every passing day. I see no one after nine, you know that.