The Eyes of the Dragon(68)

"You walked?" Peyna was unable to conceal his surprise.

"Yes. Had my mother leave word with the lesser servants that I was home with the grippe. That'll hold all for a few days, it being so catching this time of year... or should do. Walked. Whole way. Didn't dare ask a ride. Didn't want to be remem-bered. Didn't know it was quite this far. If I'd known, I might have taken a ride after all. I left at three of the clock." He strug-gled, his throat working, and then burst out: "And I'm not going back, not ever! I seen the way he looks at me since he come back! Narrow and on the side, his eyes all dark! He never used to look at me that way-never used to look at me at all! He knows I seen something! Knows I heard something! He don't know what, but he knows there's something! He hears it in my head, like I'd hear the bell ringin' out from the Church of the Great Gods! If I stay, he'll get it out of me! I know he will!"

Peyna stared at the boy under furrowed brows, trying to sort out this amazing flood of declaration.

Tears were standing in Dennis's eyes. "I mean F-"

"Softly, Dennis," Peyna said. His voice was mild, but his eyes were not. "I know who you mean. Best not to speak his name aloud."

Dennis looked at him with dumb, simple gratitude.

"You'd better tell me what you came to say," Peyna told him.

"Yes. Yes, all right."

Dennis hesitated for a moment, trying to get himself under control and to arrange his thoughts. Peyna waited impassively, trying to control his rising excitement.

"You see," Dennis began at last, "three nights ago Thomas called me to come and stay with him, as he sometimes does. And at midnight, or sometime thereabouts-"

84

Dennis told what you have already heard, and to his credit, he did not try to lie about his own terror, or gloss it over. As he spoke, the wind whined outside and as the fire burned low Peyna's eyes burned hotter and hotter. Here, he thought, were worse things than he ever could have imagined. Not only had Peter poisoned the King, Thomas had seen it happen.

No wonder the boy King was so often moody and depressed. Perhaps the rumors that passed in the meadhouses, rumors that had Thomas more than half mad already, were not so farfetched as Peyna had thought.

But as Dennis paused to drink more tea (Aden refilled his cup from the bitter lees of the pot), Peyna drew back from that idea. If Thomas had witnessed Peter poisoning Roland, why was Dennis here now... and in such deadly terror of Flagg?

"You heard more," Peyna said.

"Aye, my Lord Judge-General," Dennis said. "Thomas... he raved quite some time. We were closed up in the dark together long."

Dennis struggled to be clearer, but found no words to convey the horror of that closed-in passageway, with Thomas shrieking in the darkness before him and the dead King's few surviving dogs barking below them. No words to describe the smell of the place-a smell of secrets which had gone rancid like milk spilled in the dark. No words to tell of his growing fear that Thomas had gone mad while in the grip of his dream.

He had screamed the name of the King's magician over and over again; had begged the King to look deep into the goblet and see the mouse that simultaneously burned and drowned in the wine. Why do you stare at me so? he had shrieked. And then: I brought you a glass of wine, my King, to show you that I, too, love you. And finally he had shrieked out words that Peter himself would have recognized, words better than four hundred years old: 'Twas Flagg! Flagg! 'Twas Flagg!

Dennis reached for his cup, got it halfway to his mouth, and then dropped it. The cup shattered on the hearthstones.

The three of them looked at the shards of crockery.

"And then?" Peyna asked, in a deceptively gentle voice.

"Nothing for a long, long time," Dennis said in a halting voice. "My eyes had... had gotten used to the darkness, and I could see him a little. He was asleep... asleep at those two little holes, with his chin on his breast and his eyes closed."

"And he remained so for how long?"

"My Lord, I know not. The dogs had all quieted again. And perhaps l... I..."

"Dozed a bit yourself? I think it is likely, Dennis."

"Then, later, he seemed to wake. His eyes opened, at any rate. He closed the little panels and all was dark again. I heard him moving and I drew my legs back so he would not trip over them... his nightshirt... it brushed my face..."

Dennis grimaced as he remembered a feeling like cobwebs drawn in a whisper over his left cheek.

"I followed him. He let himself out... I followed still. He closed the door so that it looked like only plain stone wall again. He went back to his apartments and I followed him."

"Did you meet anyone?" Peyna rapped so sharply that Dennis jumped. "Anyone at all?"

"No. No, my Lord Judge-General. No one at all."

"Ah" Peyna relaxed. "That is very well. And did anything else happen that night?"

"No, my Lord. He went to bed and slept like a dead man." Dennis hesitated and then added, "I didn't sleep a wink, meself, and haven't slept many since, either."

"And in the morning he-?"

"Remembered nothing."

Peyna grunted. He steepled his fingers and looked at the dying fire through the little finger-building he had built.

"And did you go back to that passageway?"