This crime was of an exceptionally terrible nature, but here was this boy, saying that no less a one than Anders Peyna might be willing to provide the bribe.
“One other thing,” Peter said softly. “I believe Peyna will do this because he is a man of honor. And if anything were to happen to me-if you and several of your Lesser Warders were to rush in here tonight, and beat me in revenge for the beating I have given you, for example-I believe that Peyna might take an interest in the matter.”
Peter paused.
“A personal interest in the matter.”
He looked closely at Beson.
“Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” Beson said, and then added: “my Lord.”
“Will you provide me with pen, inkpot, blotter, and paper?” “Yes.”
“Come here.”
With some trepidation, Beson came.
The Chief Warder’s stink was tremendous, but Peter did not draw away-the stink of the crime with which he had been accused had almost inured him to the smell of sweat and dirt, he had discovered. He looked at Beson with a hint of a smile.
“Whisper in my ear,” Peter said.
Beson blinked uneasily. “What shall I whisper, my Lord?”
“A number,” Peter said.
After a moment, Beson did.
55
One of the Lesser Warders brought Peter the writing implements he had asked for. He gave Peter the wary look of an alley cat that has been often kicked, and skittered away before he could receive a helping of the anger that had been heaped on Beson’s head.
Peter sat down at the rickety table by the window, breath puffing out in the deep cold. He listened to the restless whine of the wind around the tip of the Needle and looked down at the lights of the city.
Dear Judge-General Peyna, he wrote, and then stopped.
Will you see who this is from, crumple it in your hand, and throw it into the fire unread? Will you read it and then laugh contemptuously at the fool who murdered his father and then dared to expect help from the Judge-General of the land? Will you, perhaps, even see through the scheme, and understand what it is I’m up to?
Peter was in a cheerier frame of mind that evening, and thought the answer to all three questions would probably be no. His plan might well fail, but it was unlikely to be foreseen by such an orderly and methodical man as Peyna. The Judge-General would be as apt to imagine himself donning a dress and dancing a hornpipe in the Plaza of the Needle at the full of the moon as he was to guess what Peter was up to. And what I’m asking is so little, Peter thought. That ghost of a smile touched his lips again. At least I hope and believe it will seem so… to him.
Bending forward, he dipped the quill pen in the inkpot and began to write.
56
On the following evening, shortly after nine had struck, Anders Peyna’s butler answered an unaccustomedly late knock and looked down his long nose at the figure of the Chief Warder standing on the doorstep. Arlen-that was the butler’s name-had seen Beson before, of course; like Arlen’s master, Beson was a part of the Kingdom’s legal machinery. But Arlen did not recognize him now. The beating Peter had given Beson had had a day to set, and his face was a sunset of reds and purples and yellows. His left eye had opened a little, but was still little more than a slit. He looked like a dwarvish ghoul, and the butler began to swing the door shut almost at once.
“Wait,” Beson said in a hard growl that made the butler hesitate. “I come with a message for your master.”
The butler hesitated for a moment and then began to swing the door closed again. The man’s sullen, swollen face was frightening. Could he actually be a dwarf, down from the north country? Supposedly the last of those wild, fur-clad tribes had either died or been killed off in his grandfather’s time, but still… one never knew…
“It is from Prince Peter,” Beson said. “If you close this door, you will hear hard things later from your master, thinks”
Arlen hesitated again, torn between closing the door against the ghoul and the power the name of Prince Peter still held. If this man came from Peter, he must be the Needle’s Chief Warder. Yet
“You don’t look like Beson,” he said.
“You don’t look like your father, neither, Arlen, and it’s made me wonder more than once where your mother may have been,” the lumpish ghoul retorted rudely, and stuck a smudged envelope through the crack still open in the door. “Here… take it to ’im. I’ll wait. Close the door if you want, although it’s devilish cold out here.”
Arlen didn’t care if it was twenty below. He didn’t intend to have the horrible-looking fellow toasting his feet in front of the fire in the servants’ kitchen. He snatched the envelope, shut the door, bolted it, started away… then returned and double-bolted it.
57
Peyna was in his study, staring into the fire and thinking long thoughts. When Thomas had been crowned the moon had been new; it was not yet at the half, and already he did not like the way things were going. Flagg-that was the worst. Flagg. The magician already wielded more power than in the days of Roland’s reign. Roland had at least been a man, full of years, no matter how slow his thinking might have been. Thomas was only a boy, and Peyna feared that Flagg might soon control all Delain in Thomas’s name. That would be bad for the Kingdom… and bad for Anders Peyna, who had never concealed his dislike of Flagg.
It was pleasant here in the study, before the crackling fire, but Peyna thought he nonetheless felt a cold wind around his ankles. It was a wind which might rise and blow away… everything.
Why, Peter? Why, oh why? Why couldn’t you wait? And why did you have to seem so perfect on the outside, like a rose-red apple in autumn, and be so rotten below the skin? Why?
Peyna didn’t know… and would not admit to himself, even now, that doubts as to whether or not Peter really had been rotten were beginning to nibble at his heart.
There was a knock at the door.
Peyna roused himself, looked around, and called out impatiently: “Come! And it better be damned good!”
Arlen came in, looking ruffled and confused. He held an envelope in one hand.
“Well?”
“My Lord… there’s a man at the door… at least, he looks like a man… that is, his face is most awfully puffed and swelled, as if he had gotten a terrible beating… or…” Arlen’s voice trailed away.
“What’s that to do with me? You know I don’t receive this late. Tell him to go away. Tell him to go to the devil!”
“He says he’s Beson, my Lord,” Arlen said, more flustered than ever. He raised the smudged envelope, as if to use it as a shield. “He brought this. He says it’s a message from Prince Peter.”
Peyna’s heart leaped at that, but he only frowned more strenuously at Arlen.
“Well, is it?”
“From Prince Peter?” Arlen was almost gibbering now. His usual composure was utterly lost, and Peyna found this interesting. He wouldn’t have believed Arlen would lose his composure come fire, flood, or invasion of ravaging dragons. “My Lord, I would have no way of knowing… That is, I… I…”
“Is it Beson, you idiot?”
Arlen licked his lips-actually licked his lips. This was utterly unheard of. “Well, it might be, my Lord… it looks a bit like him… but the fellow on the doorstep is most awfully bruised and lumpy… I…” Arlen swallowed. “I thought he looked like a dwarf,” he said, bringing out the worst and then trying to soften it with a lame smile.
It is Beson, Peyna thought. It’s Beson and if he looks as if he’s been beaten it’s because Peter administered the beating. That’s why he brought the message. Because Peter beat him and he was afraid not to. A beating’s the only thing that convinces his sort.