Give not a sign! Ben’s eyes flashed.
Don’t look at me too long! Peter’s 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 boy’s heart, if the boy’s heart is large and kind and loyal. Ben Staad’s 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 guilder-all the money Ben had in the world, as a matter of fact-Dennis had arranged it.
“Don’t tell your father of this,” Ben cautioned Dennis.
“Why not?” Dennis had asked. “I tell my old Da’ almost everything… don’t you?”
“I did,” Ben said, remembering how his father had forbidden him to mention Peter’s name anymore in the house. “But when boys grow up, I think that sometimes changes. However that may be, you mustn’t tell him this, Dennis. He might tell Peyna, and then I’d be in a hot pot on a high-fire.”
“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 Dennis’s heart.
“That’s 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, wasn’t 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 don’t believe he did it,” Ben said. “Do you?”
To Ben’s 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 didn’t 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 boy -but 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 house’s front door-what 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 Peter’s.
“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. Ben’s eyes met Peter’s once more, and Peter trembled at the love he saw in his old friend’s 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 Peter’s 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, it’s 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, that’s 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 in-deed-Peter had to squint to read them, and guessed that Ben must have made them with the aid of a magnifying glass.
Peter-destroy this after you have read it. I don’t 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, Peter’s eyes filled with warm tears of gratitude. I think that real friendship always makes us feel such sweet grat-itude, 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 couldn’t think to say any-thing 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 noble-barely-but not royal; thus not immune from the headsman’s 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 couldn’t read even the large letters in a child’s 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 didn’t 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 Peter’s plan of escape, because you know a good deal more than Peyna did when he read Peter’s 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 didn’t have to be the Chief War-der; 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 wasn’t 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 work-but, of course, his mind was on other things. He could not help noticing that they were very old, and this was certainly a good thing-he 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.