The Eyes of the Dragon(49)

"Peyna is not my friend," Peter went on. "I won't even try to tell you that he is. I've been convicted of murdering my father, the King, and I shouldn't think I have a friend left in all of Delain, from north to south. Would you agree, Mr. Chief Warder Beson?"

"Yes," Beson said stonily. "I would."

"Nevertheless, I believe that Peyna will undertake to provide you with the bit of cash you are used to receiving from your inmates."

Beson nodded. When a noble was imprisoned in the Needle for any length of time, Beson would commonly see that the prisoner got a better grade of food than the fatty meat and watery ale, fresh linen once a week, and sometimes a visit from a wife or a sweetheart. He did not do this free, of course. Imprisoned nobles almost always came from rich families, and there was always someone in those families willing to pay Beson for Be-son's services, no matter what the crime had been.

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.

Chapter 9

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."