The Eyes of the Dragon(67)

Arlen cleared his throat. "I know the boy. It is Dennis, son of Brandon. It is the King's butler who calls."

Peyna stared at Arlen, hardly believing what he had heard. Perhaps he was growing deaf even faster than he had thought. He asked Arlen to repeat, and it came out sounding just the same.

"I'll see him. Send him in."

"Very good, my Lord." Arlen turned to leave.

The similarity to the night Beson had come with Peter's note -even down to the cold wind screaming outside-came strongly to Peyna now. "Aden," he called.

Arlen turned back. "My Lord?"

The right corner of Peyna's mouth quirked the smallest bit. "Are you quite sure it's not a dwarf-boy?"

"Quite sure, my Lord," Arlen replied, and the left corner of his own mouth twitched the tiniest bit. "There are no dwarves left in the known world. Or so my mother told me."

"Obviously she was a woman of good sense and clear dis-cernment, dedicated to raising her son properly and not to be held responsible for any inherent flaws in the material she had to work with. Bring the boy here directly."

"Yes, my Lord." The door closed.

Peyna looked into his fire again and rubbed his old, arthritis-crippled hands together in a gesture of unaccustomed agitation. Thomas's butler. Here. Now. Why?

But there was no sense in speculating; the door would open in a moment, and the answer would come walking through it in the form of a man-boy who would be shaking with the cold, perhaps even frostbitten.

Dennis would have found it a good deal easier to reach Peyna if Peyna had still been at his fine house in the castle city, but his house had been sold from beneath him for "unpaid taxes" following his resignation. Only the few hundred guilders he had put away over the course of forty years had allowed him to buy this small, drafty farmhouse and continue to pay Beson. It was technically in the Inner Baronies, but he was still many miles west of the castle... and the weather had been very cold.

In the hallway beyond the door, he heard the murmur of approaching voices. Now. Now the answer would come through the door. Suddenly that absurd feeling-that feeling of hope, like a ray of strong light shining in a dark cave-came back to him. Now the answer will come through the door, he thought, and for a moment he found himself believing that was really true.

As he drew his favorite pipe from the rack beside him, Anders Peyna saw that his hands were trembling.

82

The boy was really a man, but Arlen's use of the word was not unjustified-at least not on this night. He was cold, Peyna saw, but he also knew that the cold alone does not make anyone shudder as Dennis was shuddering.

"Dennis!" Peyna said, sitting forward sharply (and ignoring the twinge in his back the sudden movement caused). "Has something happened to the King?" Dreadful images, awful possibilities suddenly filled Peyna's old head-the King dead, either from too much wine, or possibly by his own hand. Everyone in Delain knew that the young King was deeply moody.

"No... that is... yes... but no... not the way you mean... the way I think you mean..."

"Come in here close to the fire," Peyna snapped. "Arlen, don't just stand there gawking! Get a blanket! Get two! Wrap this boy up before he shakes himself to death like a buggerlug bug!"

"Yes, my Lord," Arlen said. He had never gawked in his life-he knew it, and Peyna did, too. But he recognized the gravity of this situation and left quickly. He stripped the two blankets from his own bed-the only other two in this glorified peasant's but were the ones on Peyna's-and brought them back. He took them to where Dennis crouched as close to the fire as he could without bursting into flames. The deep frost which had covered his hair had begun to melt and to run down his cheeks like tears. Dennis wrapped himself in the blankets.

"Now, tea. Strong tea. A cup for me, a pot for the boy."

"My Lord, we only have half a canister left in the whole-"

"Bugger how much we have left! A cup for me, a pot for the boy." He considered. "And make a cup for yourself, Arlen, and then come in here and listen."

"My Lord?" Even all of his breeding could not keep Arlen from looking frankly astounded at this.

"Damn!" Peyna roared. "Would you have me believe you're as deaf as I've become? Get about it!"

"Yes, my Lord," Arlen said, and went to brew the last tea in the house.

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Peyna had not forgotten everything he had ever known about the fine art of questioning; in point of fact, he had forgotten damned little of that, or anything else. He had had long sleepless nights when he wished that he could forget some things.

While Arlen made the tea, Peyna went about the task of putting this frightened-no; this terrified-young man at his ease. He asked after Dennis's mum. He asked if the drainage problems which had so plagued the castle of late had improved. He asked Dennis's opinion on the spring plantings. He steered clear of any and all subjects which might be dangerous... and little by little, as he warmed, Dennis calmed.

When Arlen served the tea, hot and strong and steaming, Dennis slurped half the cup at a gulp, grimaced, then slurped the rest. Impassive as ever, Arlen poured more.

"Easy, my lad," Peyna said, lighting his pipe at last. "Easy's the word for hot tea and skittish horses."

"Cold. Thought I was going to freeze coming out here."