The Eyes of the Dragon(33)

Shortly before dawn, the distracted woman laid her head in her arms and wept. After a bit, her sobbing faded as she fell into a troubled sleep.

36

Now tell me what's in that bucket, and be quick about it! We want no fooling, Dennis, d'you understand me?" was the first thing Brandon said when he entered Dennis's room and closed the door behind him.

"I'll show you, Dad," Dennis said, "but first, answer me one question: what sort of poison was it that killed the King?"

"No one knows."

"What were its ways?"

"Show me what's in the bucket, boy. Do it now." Brandon balled a great hard fist. He did not shake it; he only held it up. That was enough. "Show me now or be knocked aside."

Brandon looked at the dead mouse for a long time, saying nothing. Dennis watched, scared, as his dad's face grew paler, graver, grayer. The mouse's eyes had burned until they were nothing but charred black cinders. Its brown fur had been crisped black. Smoke still rose from its tiny ears, and its teeth, visible in its death grimace, were a sooty black, like the teeth in the grate of a stove.

Brandon made as if to touch it, and then pulled his hand back. He raised his face to his son and spoke in a hoarse whisper. "Where did you find this?"

Dennis began to stammer out bundles of phrases which didn't mean a thing.

Brandon listened a moment and then squeezed his son's shoulder.

"Draw you a deep breath and put your thoughts all in a row, Denny," he said. "I'm on yer side in this, as I am in all else, yer know. Yer did right to keep the sight of this poor thing from yer mom. Now tell me how you found it, and where you found it.

Eased and reassured, Dennis was able to tell his father the story. His telling was a bit shorter than mine, but it still took several minutes. His father sat in a chair, one knuckle digging into his forehead, shading his eyes. He asked no questions, did not even grunt.

When Dennis had finished, his father muttered four words in an undertone. Just four words-but they froze the boy's heart into a cold blue cake-or so it felt to him at the time. "Just like the King."

Brandon's lips were trembling with fright, but he seemed to be trying to smile.

"Do you suppose yonder animal was a King of Mice, Denny?"

"Dad... Daddy, I... I..."

"There was a box, you said."

"Yes."

"And a packet."

"Yes."

"And the packet was charred, but not burned."

"Yes."

"And tweezers."

"Yes, like Mamma uses to pluck the hairs from out'n her nose

"Shh," Brandon said, and dug his knuckle into his forehead again. "Let me think."

Five minutes went by. Brandon sat motionless, almost as if he had gone to sleep, but Dennis knew better. Brandon did not know that Peter's mother had given him the engraved box or that Peter had lost it when he was small; both of those things had happened long before Peter entered his half-manhood and Brandon came into his service. He did know about the secret panel; he had happened on this in the very first year he had served Peter (and not very far into that year, either). As I may have said, it wasn't really a very secret compartment, as those things went just enough to satisfy such an open boy as Peter.

Brandon knew about it, but had never looked into it after that first time, when it had contained nothing more than the glorified junk that any boy calls his treasures-a Tarot deck with a few cards missing, a bag of marbles, a lucky coin, a braided bit of hair from Peony's mane. If a good butler understands anything, he understands that quality we call discretion, which is a respect for the borders of other people's lives. He had never looked in that compartment again. It would have been like stealing. At last Dennis asked: "Should we go over, Father, so you can look in the box?" "No. We must go to the judge-General with this mouse, and you must tell your story to him just as you've told it to me."

Dennis sat down heavily on his bed. He felt as if he had been punched in the belly. Peyna, the man who ordered jail terms and beheadings! Peyna, with his white, forbidding face and his tall, waxy brow! Peyna, who was, below the King himself, the greatest authority in the Kingdom!

"No," he whispered at last. "Dad, I couldn't... I... I..."

"You must," his father said sternly. "This is a turrible business-the most turrible business I've ever known of, but it must be reckoned with and set right. You'll tell him just as you've told me, and then it'll be in his hands."

Dennis looked in his father's eyes and saw that Brandon meant it. If he refused to go, his father would lay hold of the scruff of his neck and drag him to Peyna like a kitten, twenty years old or no.

"Yes, Dad," he said miserably, thinking that when Peyna's cold, calculating eyes fell on him, he would simply drop dead of a heart attack. Then (with rising panic) he remembered that he had stolen an ash bucket from the prince's rooms. If he didn't die of fright the moment Peyna commanded him to speak, he would probably spend the rest of his life in the castle's deepest dungeon for theft.

"Be easy in your mind, Denny-easy as you can be, anyway. Peyna's a hard man, but he's fair. You've done nothing to be ashamed o? Just tell him as you've told me."

"All right," Dennis whispered. "Are we going now?"