The Eyes of the Dragon(86)

"You met no one? No one at all?" Dennis asked anxiously.

"No one," Ben said. "I ranged a little bit ahead to keep an eye out. I saw guards several times, but we always had plenty of time to get to some cover before they could see us. In truth, I think we could have come directly here and passed twenty guards and only have been challenged once or twice. Most of them were drunk."

Naomi nodded. "Guards o' the Watch," she said. "Drunk. And not drunk out on picket along the northern borders of some pissy little barony no one ever heard of; drunk in the castle. Right in the castle!"

Dennis, remembering the toneless, nose-blowing singer, nodded gloomily. "I suppose we should be glad. If the Guard o' the Watch was now what it was in Roland's day, we'd all be in the Needle along wi' Peter. But I can't be glad, somehow."

"I'll tell you this," Ben said in a soft voice, "if I were Thomas, I'd quake in my boots every time I looked north, if such as we saw tonight are all he has around him."

Naomi looked very troubled at this. "Pray the gods it never comes to that," she said.

Ben nodded.

Dennis reached out and stroked Frisky's head. "Followed me all the way from Peyna's, did you? What a smart dog you are, ayes"

Frisky thumped her tail happily.

Naomi said: "I would hear this story of the sleepwalking King, Dennis, if you would tell it again."

So Dennis told his story, much as he told it to Peyna and as I have told it to you, and they listened as spellbound as children hearing the tale of the talking wolf in the gammer's nightcap.

108

By the time he had finished, it was seven o'clock.

Outside, a dim gray glow had come over Delain-that clotted storm-light was as bright at seven as it would be at noon, for the greatest storm of that winter-and perhaps the greatest in history-had come to Delain. The wind howled around the eaves of the castle like a tribe of banshees. Even down here, the fugitives could hear it. Frisky raised her head and whined uneasily.

"What do we do now?" Dennis asked.

Ben, who had gone over Peter's brief note again and again, said: "Until tonight, nothing. The castle's awake by now, and there's no way we could get out of here without being seen under any circumstances. We sleep. Get our strength back. And tonight, before midnight-"

Ben spoke briefly. Naomi grinned; Dennis's eyes grew bright with excitement. "Yes!" Dennis said. "By the gods! You're a genius, Ben!"

"Please, I wouldn't go that far," Naomi said, but by then her grin was so broad it seemed in danger of splitting her head in two. She reached over, put her arms around Ben, and kissed him soundly.

Ben turned an absolutely alarming shade of red (he looked as if he might be on the verge of "bursting his brains," as they said in Delain in those long-ago days)-I must tell you, though, that he also looked delighted.

"Will Frisky help us?" Ben asked when he got his breath back.

At the sound of her name, Frisky looked up again.

"Of course she will. But we'll need..."

They discussed this new plan for some time longer, and then Ben's lower face seemed to almost disappear in a great yawn. Naomi also looked tired out. They had been awake for over twenty-four hours by then, you will remember, and had come a great distance.

"Enough," Ben said. "It's time for sleep."

"Hooray!" Naomi said, beginning to arrange more napkins in a mattress for herself beside Frisky. "My legs feel as if-"

Dennis cleared his throat politely.

"What is it?" Ben asked.

Dennis looked at their packs-Ben's big one, Naomi's slightly smaller one. "I don't suppose you've got... um, anything to eat in there, do you?"

Impatiently, Naomi said: "Of course we do! What do you think-" Then she remembered that Dennis had left Peyna's farmhouse six days ago, and that the butler had been skulking and hiding ever since. He had a pallid, undernourished look, and his face was too narrow and too bony. "Oh, Dennis, I'm sorry, we're idiots! When did you eat last?"

Dennis thought about this. "I can't remember exactly," he said. "But the last sit-down meal I had was my lunch, a week ago.

"Why didn't you say so first thing, you dolt?" Ben exclaimed.

"I guess because I was so excited to see you," Dennis said, and grinned. As he watched the two of them open their packs and begin rooting through the remainder of their supplies, his stomach gurgled noisily. Saliva squirted into his mouth. Then a thought struck him.

"You didn't bring any turnips, did you?"

Naomi turned to look at him, puzzled. "Turnips? I don't have any. Do you, Ben?"

No. A gentle and supremely happy smile spread across Dennis's face. "Good," he said.

109

That was a mighty storm indeed, and it's still told of in Delain today. Five feet of new snow had fallen by the time an early, howling dark came down on the castle keep. Five feet of new snow in one day is mighty enough, but the wind made drifts that were much, much bigger. By the time dark fell, the wind was no longer blowing a force-gale; it was blowing a hurricane. In places along the castle walls, snow was piled twenty-five feet deep, and covered the windows of not just first and second floors, but the third-floor windows as well.