He almost swooned* almost* but not quite.

Somewhere below him, he heard barking dogs and realized they were above the old King's kennels. The few of Roland's dogs still alive had never been moved outside again. They were the only living beings-besides Dennis himself-that had heard those wild shrieks. But the dogs were real, not ghosts, and Dennis held on to that thought the way a drowning man might hold on to a floating mast.

A moment or two later, he realized that Thomas was not just shrieking-he was crying out words. At first Dennis could make out only a single phrase, howled out again and again: "Don't drink the wine! Don't drink the wine! Don't drink the wine!"

Three nights later, a light knock came at the closed sitting-room door of a farm in one of the Inner Baronies, a farm quite close to where the Staad family had lived not so long ago.

"Come!" Anders Peyna growled. "And it better be d.a.m.ned good, Arlen!"

Arlen had aged in the years since Beson had appeared at Peyna's door with Peter's note. The changes in him, however, were slight when compared with the changes in Peyna. The former Judge General's hair was almost all gone. His spareness of frame had become gauntness. The loss of hair and weight were very little, however, when compared with the changes in his face. Formerly he had been stern. Now he was grim. Dark-brown hollows floated below his eyes. The stamp of despair was clear on his face, and there was good reason for this. He had seen the things he had spent his life defending brought to ruin* and this ruin had been accomplished with shocking ease, and in a shockingly brief period of time. Oh, I suppose all men of intelligence know how fragile such things as Law and Justice and Civilization really are, but it's not a thing they think of willingly, because it disturbs one's rest and plays hob with one's appet.i.te.

Seeing his life's work knocked casually apart like a child's tower of blocks was bad enough, but there was another thing which had haunted Peyna these last four years, something that was even worse. This was the knowledge that Flagg had not achieved all the dark changes in Delain alone. Peyna had helped him. For who else had seen Peter brought to a trial which was perhaps too speedy? Who else had been so convinced of Peter's guilt* and not so much by the evidence as by a young boy's shocked tears?

Since the day Peter had been led to the top of the Needle, the chopping block in the Plaza of the Needle had been stained a sinister rusty color. Not even the hardest rain could wash it clean. And Peyna thought he could detect that sinister red stain spreading out from the block-spreading out to cover the Plaza, the market streets, the alleys. In his troubled dreams Peyna saw rills of fresh blood washing in bright, accusing threads between the cobblestones and running down the gutters in streamlets. He saw the redans of Castle Delain gleaming b.l.o.o.d.y in the sun. He saw the carp in the moat floating belly-up, poisoned by the blood which poured out of the sewers in floods and which rose from the springs in the earth itself. He saw the blood rising every-where, staining the fields and forests. In these unhappy dreams even the sun began to look like a bloodshot, dying eye.

Flagg had let him live. In the meadhouses, people whispered behind their hands that he had reached an agreement with the magician-that he had perhaps given Flagg the names of certain traitors, or that perhaps Peyna "had something" on Flagg, some secret that would come out if Peyna died suddenly. This was, of course, ridiculous. Flagg was not a man to be threatened -not by Peyna, not by anyone. There were no secrets. There ha been no agreements or deals. Flagg had simply let him live* and Peyna knew why. Dead, he would perhaps have been at peace. Alive, he was left to twist on the rack of his own bad conscience. He was left to watch the terrible changes Flagg had wrought on Delain.

"Well?" he asked irritably. "What is it, Arlen?"

"A boy has come, my Lord. He says he must see you."

"Send him away," Peyna said moodily. He reflected that, even a year ago, he would have heard a knock at the front door, but it seemed that he became more deaf with every pa.s.sing day. "I see no one after nine, you know that. Much has changed, but not that."

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 discernment, 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.

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 b.u.g.g.e.rlug 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-"

"b.u.g.g.e.r 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.

"d.a.m.n!" 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.

Peyna had not forgotten everything he had ever known about the fine art of questioning; in point of fact, he had forgotte d.a.m.ned 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. Impa.s.sive 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."

"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 remembered. 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 struggled, 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 G.o.ds! 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 grat.i.tude.

"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 impa.s.sively, 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"

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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sageway, 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 gla.s.s 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 I* 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 pa.s.sageway?"

Curiously, Dennis asked: "Would you have gone back, my Lord?"

"Yes," Peyna said dryly. "The question is, did you?"

"I did."

"Of course you did. Were you seen?"

"No. A chambermaid pa.s.sed me in the hallway. The laundry is down that way, I think. I smelled lye soap, like my mum uses. When she was gone, I counted up four from the chipped stone and went in."

"To see what Thomas had seen."

"Aye, my Lord."

"And did you?"

"Aye, my Lord."

"And what was it?" Peyna asked, knowing. "When you slid aside those panels, what did you see?"

"My Lord, I saw King Roland's sitting room," Dennis said. "With all them heads on the walls. And* my Lord*" In spite of the heat of the dying fire, Dennis shuddered. "All of them heads* they seemed to be looking at me."

"But there was one head you didn't see," Peyna said.

"No, my Lord, I saw them a-" Dennis stopped, eyes widening. " Niner!" He gasped. "The peepholes-" He stopped, his eyes now almost as big as saucers.

Silence fell again inside. Outside, the winter wind moaned and whined. And miles away, Peter, rightful King of Delain, hunched over a tiny loom high in the sky and wove a rope almost too fine to see.

At last, Peyna fetched a deep sigh. Dennis was looking up at him from his place on the hearth pleadingly* hopefully* fearfully. Peyna bent forward slowly and touched his shoulder.

"You did well to come here, Dennis, son of Brandon. You did well to make a reason for your absence-quite a plausible one, I think. You'll sleep here with us tonight, in the attic, under the eaves. It'll be cold, but I think you'll sleep better than you have of late. Am I wrong?"

Dennis shook his head slowly once, and a tear spilled from his right eye and ran slowly down his cheek.

"And your mum knows naught of your reason for needing to be away?"

No.'

"Then the chances are very good she'll not be touched by it. Arlen will take you up. Those are his blankets, I think, and you'll have to return them. But there's straw above, and it's clean.

"I'll sleep just as well with only one blanket, my Lord," Arlen said.

"Hush! Young blood runs hot even in its sleep, Arlen. Your blood has cooled. And you may want your blankets* in case dwarves and trolls come in your dreams."