But because he dared not be seen-not by anyone-Dennis went by the most obscure corridors he knew, and at the sound of every footfall (either real or imagined, and I do think quite a few of them were imagined), he withdrew into the nearest cranny or niche. In the end, it took him over an hour.
He thought he had never been so hungry in his life.
Never mind your cussed belly now, Dennis-take care of your master first, your belly later.
He was standing far back in a shadowy doorway. Faintly, he heard the Crier call four o’clock. He was about to move forward when slow, echoing footfalls came down the hallway… a clank of steel-and-scabbard-a creak of leather leggings.
Dennis pushed himself farther back into the shadows, sweating.
A Guard o’ the Watch paused just in front of the thinly shadowed doorway where Dennis hid. The fellow stood for a moment rooting in his nose with his little finger, and then leaned over to blow a stream of snot between his knuckles. Dennis could have reached out and touched him, and felt certain that any moment the guard would turn… his eyes would widen… he would draw his shortsword… and that would be the end of Dennis, son of Brandon.
Please, Dennis’s frozen mind whispered. Please, oh, please
He could smell the guard, could smell the old wine and burned meat on his breath, and the sour sweat coming out of his skin.
The guard started to move on… Dennis began to relax… then the guard stopped and began rooting in his nose again. Dennis could have screamed.
“I have a girrul name of Marchy-Marchy-Melda,” the guard began to sing in a low-pitched, droning voice, rooting in his nose all the while. He produced a large green something, ex-amined it thoughtfully, and flicked it onto the wall. Splat. “She’s got a sister named Es-a-merelda… I would sail the seven seas… Just to kiss her dimply knees! Tootie-sing-tay, sing-tiy, and pass me a bucket-da wine.”
Something exceedingly horrible was now happening to Den-nis. His nose had begun to itch and tickle in a way which was unmistakable. Very soon he would sneeze.
Go! he screamed in his mind. Oh, why don’t you go, you stupid fool?
But the guard seemed to have no intentions of going. He had apparently struck a rich lode up in the left nostril, and he meant to mine it.
“I have a girrul name of Darchy-Darchy-Darla… She’s got a sister named Red Headed Carla… I would take a thousand sips… From her pretty pretty lips… Tootie-sing-tay, sing-tiy, and pass me a bucket-da wine.”
I’ll hit you over the HEAD with a bucket of wine, you fool! Dennis thought. Move ON!! The itch in his nose grew steadily worse, but he did not dare even touch it, for fear the guard would see the movement from the corner of his eye.
The guard frowned, bent over, blew his nose between his knuckles again, and finally moved on, still singing his droning song. He was barely out of sight before Dennis threw his arm over his own nose and mouth and sneezed into the crook of his elbow. He waited for the clash of metal as the guard drew his sword and whirled back, but the fellow was half asleep, and still half drunk from whatever party he had been at before his tour of duty commenced. Once, Dennis knew, such a slovenly crea-ture would have been quickly discovered and sent to the farthest reaches of the Kingdom, but times had changed. There was a click of a latch, the scree-eeee of hinges as a door was drawn open, and then it boomed closed, cutting off the guard’s song just as he reached the chorus again.
Dennis sagged back in his niche for a moment, eyes closed, cheeks and forehead on fire, his feet twin blocks of ice.
For a few minutes there I didn’t think of my belly at all! he thought, and then had to slam both hands over his mouth to stifle a giggle.
He peeked out of his hiding place, saw no one about, and moved to a doorway down the corridor and on his right. He knew this doorway very well, although the empty rocker and needlework case outside it were new to him. The door led to the room where all of those napkins had been stored since the time of Kyla the Good. It had never been locked before, and was not now. Old napkins were apparently not considered worth locking up. He peered inside, hoping that his answer to Peyna’s key question still held true.
Standing there in the road on that bright morning five days ago, Peyna had asked him this: Do you know when they take fresh stores of napkins to the Needle, Dennis?
This seemed like a simple question indeed to Dennis, but you may have noticed that all questions seem simple if you know the answers, and most horribly difficult if you don’t. That Dennis knew the answer to this one was a testament to his honesty and honor, although those traits were so deeply ingrained in his character that he would have been surprised if someone had told him this. He had taken money-Anders Peyna’s money, in fact from Ben Staad to make sure those napkins were delivered. Only a guilder, true, but money was money and pay was pay. He had felt honor-bound to make sure, from time to time, that the service was continuing.
He told Peyna about the big storeroom (Peyna was flabbergasted to hear of it) and how each Saturday night around seven o’clock, a maid took twenty-one napkins, shook them, ironed them, folded them, and set them in a stack on a small wheeled cart. This cart stood just inside the room’s doorway. Early on Sunday morning-at six o’ the clock, less than two hours from right now-a servant boy would pull the cart to the Plaza of the Needle. He would rap at the bolted door at the base of the ugly stone tower, and one of the Lesser Warders would pull the cart inside and place the napkins on a table, where they would be doled out, meal by meal, through the week.
Peyna had been satisfied.
Dennis now hurried forward, feeling inside his shirt for the note he had written at the farmhouse. He had a bad moment or two when he couldn’t find it, but then his fingers closed over it and he sighed with relief. It had only slipped a little to one side.
He lifted the Sunday breakfast napkin. Sunday lunch. For a moment he almost passed over Sunday supper as well, and if he had done that, my tale would have had a very different ending, better or worse I cannot say, but surely different. In the end, however, Dennis decided three napkins deep was safe enough. He had found a pin in a crack between two boards in the farmhouse living room and had nipped it into one shoulder strap of the rough linsey camisole he wore as underwear (and if he had been thinking a little better, he would have nipped the note to his underwear with it in the bargain, and spared himself that bad moment, but as I may have told you, Dennis’s brains were sometimes a little lacking). Now he retrieved the pin and carefully attached the note to an inner fold of the napkin.
“Let it find you, Peter,” he murmured in the ghostly silence of that storeroom, piled high with napkins made in another age. “Let it find you, my King.”
Dennis knew he must lie low now. The castle would be waking up soon; stableboys would be stumbling out to the barns, washerwomen would be moving to the laundries, cooks’ apprentices would be stumbling puffy-eyed and sleepy to their fires (thinking of the kitchens made Dennis’s belly rumble anew-by now even the hateful turnips would have tasted quite nice-but food, he reckoned, would have to wait).
He worked his way farther back into the big room. The stacks were so high, the ways so zigzagging and irregular, that it was like working his way into a maze. The napkins gave off a sweet, dry, cottony smell. He finally reached one of the far corners, and here he reckoned he would be safe. He overspilled a stack of the napkins, spread them out, and took another handful for a pillow.
It was by far the most luxurious mattress he had ever lain upon, and, hungry as he was, he needed sleep much more than food after his long walk and the frights of the night. He was asleep in no time at all, and he was troubled by no dreams. We will leave him now, with the first part of his job well and bravely accomplished. We will leave him turned upon his side, right hand curled under his right cheek, sleeping on a bed of royal napkins. And I would like to make a wish for you, Reader that your sleep this night be as sweet and as blameless as his was all that day.