The Eyes of the Dragon(87)

You might think this would have been good for Peter's escape plans, and it might have been if the Needle hadn't stood all alone in the Plaza. But it did, and here the wind blew its hardest. A strong man couldn't have stood against that wind; he would have been sent rolling, head over heels, until he crashed against the first stone wall on the far side of the Plaza. And the wind had another effect, as well-it was like a giant broom. As fast as the snow fell, the wind blew it out of the Plaza. By dark there were huge drifts piled against the castle and clogging most of the alleys on the west side of the castle keep, but the Plaza itself was clean as a whistle. There were only the frozen cobbles, waiting to break Peter's bones if his rope should break.

And I must tell you now that Peter's rope was bound to break. When he tested it, it had held his weight... but there was one fact about that mystic thing called "breaking strain" that Peter didn't know. Yosef hadn't known, either. The ox drivers knew it, though, and if Peter had asked them, they would have told him an old axiom, one known to sailors, loggers, seamstresses, and anyone else who works with thread or rope: The longer the cord, the sooner the break.

Peter's short test rope had held him.

The rope to which he meant to entrust his life-the very thin rope-was about two hundred and sixty-five feet long.

It was bound to break, I tell you, and the cobbles below waited to catch him, and break his bones, and bleed away his life.

110

There were many disasters and near-disasters on that long, stormy day, just as there were many acts of heroism, some successful and some doomed to failure. Some farmhouses in the Inner Baronies blew over, as the houses of the indolent pigs were blown over by the wolf's hungry breath in the old story. Some of those who were thus rendered homeless managed to work their way across the white wastes to the castle keep, roped together for safety; others wandered off the Delain Great Road and into the whiteness, where they were lost-their frozen, wolf-gnawed bodies wouldn't be found until the spring.

But by seven that evening, the snow had finally begun to abate a little, and the wind to fall. The excitement was ending, and the castle went to bed early. There was little else to do. Fires were banked, children tucked in, last cups of field-tea drunk, prayers said.

One by one, the lights went out. The Crier called in his loudest voice, but the wind still tore his voice out of his mouth at eight o' the clock and again at nine; it was not until ten that he could be heard again, and by then, most people were asleep.

Thomas was also asleep-but his sleep was not easy. There was no Dennis to stay with him and comfort him this night; Dennis was still home ill. Thomas had thought several times of sending a page to check on him (or even to go himself; he liked Dennis very much), but something always seemed to come up, -papers to sign... petitions to hear... and, of course, bottles of wine to be drunk. Thomas hoped Flagg would come and give him a powder to help him sleep... but ever since Flagg's useless trip into the north, the magician had been strange and distant. It was as if Flagg knew there was something wrong, but could not quite tell what it was. Thomas hoped the magician would come, but hadn't dared to summon him.

As always, the shrieking wind reminded Thomas of the night his father died, and he feared he would have a hard time getting to sleep... and that, once he was asleep, horrible nightmares might come, dreams in which his father would scream and rant and finally burst into flames. So Thomas did what he had grown accustomed to doing; he spent the day with a glass of wine always in his hand, and if I told you how many bottles of wine this mere boy consumed before he finally went to bed at ten o' the clock, you probably wouldn't believe me-so I won't say. But it was a lot.

Lying there miserably on his sofa, wishing that Dennis was in his accustomed place on the hearth, Thomas thought: My head aches and my stomach feels sick... Is being King worth all this? I wonder. You might wonder, too... but before Thomas himself could wonder anymore, he fell heavily asleep.

He slept for almost an hour... and then he rose and walked. Out the door he went and down the halls, ghostly in his long white nightshirt. This night a late-going maid with an armload of sheets saw him, and he looked so much like old King Roland that the maid dropped her sheets and fled, screaming.

Thomas's darkly dreaming mind heard her screams and thought they were his father's.

He walked on, turning into the less used corridor. He paused halfway down and pushed the secret stone. He went into the passageway, closed the door behind him, and walked to the end of the corridor. He pushed aside the panels which were behind Niner's glass eyes, and though he was still asleep, he pushed his face up to the holes, as if looking into his dead father's sitting room. And here we will leave the unfortunate boy for a while, with the smell of wine surrounding him and tears of regret run-ning from his sleeping eyes and down his cheeks.

He was sometimes a cruel boy, often a sad boy, this pretend King, and he had almost always been a weak boy... but even now I must tell you that I do not believe he was ever really a bad boy. If you hate him because of the things he did-and the things he allowed to be done-I will understand; but if you do not pity him a little as well, I will be surprised.

111

At quarter past eleven on that momentous night, the storm breathed its last gasp. A tremendous cold gust of wind swept down on the castle. It ran in excess of a hundred miles an hour. It tore the thinning clouds overhead apart like the swipe of a great hand. Cold, watery moonlight shone through.