by Stephen King
"I want to give you a note to take to Anders Peyna," Peter said. "You'll come back for it tonight, I hope."
Beson said nothing, but he was trying very hard to think. This was the most unsettling twist yet. Peyna! A note to Peyna! He had had a cold moment when Peter reminded him that he was the brother of the King, but it had been nothing compared with this. Peyna, by the gods!
The more he thought of it the less he liked it.
King Thomas might not much care if his older brother was roughed up in the Needle. The older brother had murdered their father, for one thing; Thomas probably didn't feel much brotherly love right now. And more important, Beson felt little or no fright when the name of King Thomas the Light-Bringer was invoked. Like almost everyone else in Delain, Beson had already begun to view Thomas with a certain contempt. But Peyna, now . . . Peyna was different.
To the likes of Beson, Anders Peyna was more frightening than a whole marching regiment of Kings, anyway. A King was a distant sort of being, bright and mysterious, like the sun. It didn't matter if the sun went behind the clouds and froze you, or came out all hot and white to bake you ative--either way you only accepted, because what the sun did was far beyond the ability of mortal creatures to understand or to change.
Peyna was a more earthly being. The sort of being Beson could understand . . . and fear. Peyna with his narrow face and his ice-blue eyes, Peyna with his high-collared judge's robes, Peyna who decided who would live and who would go under the headsman's axe.
Could this boy really command Peyna from his cell here at the top of the Needle? Or was it only a desperate bluff?
How can it be a bluff if he means to write him a note I shall myself deliver?
"If I were King, Peyna would have served me in any way I commanded," Peter said. "I am not a King now, only a prisoner. Still, not long ago I did him a favor for which I think he is very grateful."
"I see," Beson replied, as noncommittally as he could.
Peter sighed. Suddenly he felt very weary, and wondered what sort of foolish dream he was pursuing here. Did he really believe he was taking the first few steps on the road to freedom by beating up this stupid warder and then bending him to his will? Did he have any real guarantee that Peyna would do even the smallest thing for him? Perhaps the concept of a favor owed was only in Peter's own mind.
But it had to be tried. Hadn't he decided, on his long, lonely nights of meditation as he grieved for both his father and himself, that the only real sin would be in not trying?
"Peyna is not my friend," Peter went on. "I won't even try to tell you that he is. I've been convicted of murdering my father, the King, and shouldn't think I have a friend left in all of Delain, from north to south. Would you agree, Mr. Chief Warder Beson?"
"Yes," Beson said stonily. "I would."
"Nevertheless, I believe that Peyna will undertake to provide you with the bit of cash you are used to receiving from your inmates."
Beson nodded. When a noble was imprisoned in the Needle for any length of time, Beson would commonly see that the prisoner got a better grade of food than the fatty meat and watery ale, fresh linen once a week, and sometimes a visit from a wife or a sweetheart. He did not do this free, of course. Imprisoned nobles almost always came from rich families, and there was always someone in those families willing to pay Beson for Beson's services, no matter what the crime had been.
This crime was of an exceptionally terrible nature, but here was this boy, saying that no less a one than Anders Peyna might be willing to provide the bribe.
"One other thing," Peter said softly. "I believe Peyna will do this because he is a man of honor. And if anything were to happen to me--if you and several of your Lesser Warders were to rush in here tonight, and beat me in revenge for the beating I have given you, for example--I believe that Peyna might take an interest in the matter."
Peter paused.
"A personal interest in the matter."
He looked closely at Beson.
"Do you understand me?"
"Yes," Beson said, and then added: "my Lord."
"Will you provide me with pen, inkpot, blotter, and paper?"
"Yes".
"Come here."
With some trepidation, Beson came.
The Chief Warder's stink was tremendous, but Peter did not draw away--the stink of the crime with which he had been accused had almost inured him to the smell of sweat and dirt, he had discovered. He looked at Beson with a hint of a smile.
"Whisper in my ear," Peter said.
Beson blinked uneasily. "What shall I whisper, my Lord?"
"A number," Peter said.
After a moment, Beson did.
55
One of the Lesser Warders brought Peter the writing implements he had asked for. He gave Peter the wary look of an alley cat that has been often kicked, and skittered away before he could receive a helping of the anger that had been heaped on Beson's head.
Peter sat down at the rickety table by the window, breath puffing out in the deep cold. He listened to the restless whine of the wind around the tip of the Needle and looked down at the lights of the city.
Dear Judge-General Peyna, he wrote, and then stopped.
Will you see who this is from, crumple it in your hand, and throw it into the fire unread? Will you read it and then laugh contemptuously at the fool who murdered his father and then dared to expect help from the Judge-General of the land? Will you, perhaps, even see through the scheme, and understand what it is I'm up to?
Peter was in a cheerier frame of mind that evening, and thought the answer to all three questions would probably be no. His plan might well fail, but it was unlikely to be foreseen by such an orderly and methodical man as Peyna. The Judge-General would be as apt to imagine himself donning a dress and dancing a hornpipe in the Plaza of the Needle at the full of the moon as he was to guess what Peter was up to. And what I'm asking is so little, Peter thought. That ghost of a smile touched his lips again. At least I hope and believe it will seem so . . . to him.
Bending forward, he dipped the quill pen in the inkpot and began to write.
56
On the following evening, shortly after nine had struck, Anders Peyna's butler answered an unaccustomedly late knock and looked down his long nose at the figure of the Chief Warder standing on the doorstep. Arlen--that was the butler's name--had seen Beson before, of course; like Aden's master, Beson was a part of the Kingdom's legal machinery. But Arlen did not recognize him now. The beating Peter had given Beson had had a day to set, and his face was a sunset of reds and purples and yellows. His left eye had opened a little, but was still little more than a slit. He looked like a dwarfish ghoul, and the butler began to swing the door shut almost at once.
"Wait," Beson said in a hard growl that made the butler hesitate. "I come with a message for your master."
The butler hesitated for a moment and then began to swing the door closed again. The man's sullen, swollen face was frightening. Could he actually be a dwarf, down from the north country? Supposedly the last of those wild, fur-clad tribes had either died or been killed off in his grandfather's time, but still . . . one never knew. . . .
"It is from Prince Peter," Beson said. "If you close this door, you will hear hard things later from your marster, thinks I."
Arlen hesitated again, torn between closing the door against the ghoul and the power the name of Prince Peter still held. If this man came from Peter, he must be the Needle's Chief Warder. Yet--
"You don't look like Beson," he said.
"You don't look like your father, neither, Arlen, and it's made me wonder more than once where your mother may have been," the lumpish ghoul retorted rudely, and stuck a smudged envelope through the crack still open in the door. "Here . . . take it to'im. I'll wait. Close the door if you want, although it's devilish cold out here."
Arlen didn't care if it was twenty below. He didn't intend to have the horrible-looking fellow toasting his feet in front of the fire in the servants'
kitchen. He snatched the envelope, shut the door, bolted it, started away . . . then returned and double-bolted it
57
Peyna was in his study, staring into the fire and thinking long thoughts. When Thomas had been crowned the moon had been new; it was not yet at the half, and already he did not like the way things were going. Flagg--that was the worst. Flagg. The magician already wielded more power than in the days of Roland's reign. Roland had at least been a man, full of years, no matter how slow his thinking might have been. Thomas was only a boy, and Peyna feared that Flagg might soon control all Delain in Thomas's name. That would be bad for the Kingdom . . . and bad for Anders Peyna, who had never concealed his dislike of Flagg.
It was pleasant here in the study, before the crackling fire, but Peyna thought he nonetheless felt a cold wind around his ankles. It was a wind which might rise and blow away . . . everything.
Why, Peter? Why, oh why? Why couldn't you wait? And why did you have to seem so perfect on the outside, like a rose-red apple in autumn, and be so rotten below the skin? Why?
Peyna didn't know . . . and would not admit to himself, even now, that doubts as to whether or not Peter really had been rotten were beginning to nibble at his heart.
There was a knock at the door.
Peyna roused himself, looked around, and called out impatiently: "Come! And it better be damned good!"
Arlen came in, looking ruffled and confused. He held an envelope in one hand.
"Well?"
"My Lord . . . there's a man at the door . . . at least, he looks like a man . . . that is, his face is most awfully puffed and swelled, as if he had gotten a terrible beating . . . or . . ." Arlen's voice trailed away.
"What's that to do with me? You know I don't receive this late. Tell him to go away. Tell him to go to the devil!"
"He says he's Beson, my Lord," Arlen said, more flustered than ever. He raised the smudged envelope, as if to use it as a shield. "He brought this. He says it's a message from Prince Peter."
Peyna's heart leaped at that, but he only frowned more strenuously at Arlen.
"Well, is it?"
"From Prince Peter?" Arlen was almost gibbering now. His usual composure was utterly lost, and Peyna found this interesting. He wouldn't have believed Arlen would lose his composure come fire, flood, or invasion of ravaging dragons. "My Lord, I would have no way of knowing. . . . That is, I . . . I . . ."
"Is it Beson, you idiot?"
Arlen licked his lips--actually licked his lips. This was utterly unheard of. "Well, it might be, my Lord . . . it looks a bit like him . . . but the fellow on the doorstep is most awfully bruised and lumpy. . . . I . . ." Arlen swallowed. "I thought he looked like a dwarf," he said, bringing out the worst and then trying to soften it with a lame smile.
It IS Beson, Peyna thought. It's Beson and if he looks as if he's been beaten it's because Peter administered the beating. That's why he brought the message. Because Peter beat him and he was afraid not to. A beating's the only thing that convinces his sort.
There came a sudden feeling of exultation in Peyna's heart: he felt as one might feel in a dark cave when a light suddenly shines out
"Give me the letter," he said.
Arlen did. He then made as if to scuttle out, and this was also something new, because Arlen did not scuttle. At least, Peyna thought, his mind lawyerly as always, I have never KNOWN him to scuttle.
He let Arlen get as far as the study door, as a veteran fisherman will let a hooked fish run, and then pulled him up short. "Arlen."
Arlen turned back. He looked braced, as if to receive a reprimand.
"There are no more dwarves. Did your mother not tell you so?"
"Yes," Arlen said reluctantly.
"Good for her. A wise woman. These dreams in your head must have come from your father. Let the Chief Warder in. To the servants' kitchen," he added hastily. "I have no wish to have him in here. He stinks. But let him into the servants' kitchen so he may warm himself. The night is cold." Since the death of Roland, Peyna reflected, all the nights had been cold, as if in reproach for the way the old King had burned, from the inside out.
"Yes, my Lord," Arlen said with marked reluctance.
"I'll ring for you shortly and tell you what to do with him."
Arlen went out, a humbled man, and closed the door behind him.
Peyna turned the envelope over in his hands several times without opening it. The dirt was no doubt from Beson's own greasy fingers. He could almost smell the villain's sweat on the envelope. It had been sealed shut with a blot of common candle wax.
He thought, I would do better, perhaps, to throw this directly into the fire, and think of it no more. Yes, throw it into the fire, then ring Arlen and tell him to give the little hunched-over Chief Warder--he really DOES look like a dwarf, now that I think of it--a hot toddy and send him away. Yes, that is what I should do.
But he knew that he wouldn't. That absurd feeling--that feeling that here was a ray of light in hopeless darkness--would not leave him. He put his thumb under the flap of the envelope, broke the seal, took out a brief letter, and read it by firelight.
58
Peyna,
I have decided to live.
I had read only a little about the Needle before I actually found myself in the place, and although I had heard a bit more, most of it was only gossip. One of the things I heard was that certain small favors might be purchased. It seems this really is so. I of course have no money, but I thought you might perhaps defray my expenses in this matter. I did you a favor not long ago, and if you were to pay the Chief Warder a sum of eight guilders--such sum to be paid anew at the beginning of each year I spend in this unhappy place--I would consider the favor repaid. This sum, you will notice, is very small. That is because I require only two things. If you will arrange for Beson to "wet his beak" so that I may have them, I'll trouble you no more.
I am aware that you would be put in a bad light if it came out that you have helped me, even in a small way. I suggest that you make my friend Ben your go-between, if you decide to do as I ask. I have not spoken to Ben since my arrest, but I think and hope he remains true to me. I would ask him rather than you, but the Staads are not well off, and Ben has no money of his own. It shames me to ask money from anyone, but there is no other to whom I may turn. If you feel you cannot do as I request, I will understand.
I did not murder my father.
Peter
59
Peyna looked at this amazing letter for quite some time. His eyes kept returning to the first line, and the last.
I have decided to live.
I did not murder my father.
It did not surprise him that the boy continued to protest--he had known criminals to go on for years and years protesting their innocence of crimes of which they were patently guilty. But it was not like a guilty man to be so bald in his own defense. So . . . so commanding.
Yes, that was what bothered him most about the letter--its tone of command. A true King, Peyna felt, would not be changed by exile; not by prison; not even by torture. A true King would not waste time justifying or explaining. He would simply state his will.
I have decided to live.
Peyna sighed. After a long time, he drew his inkpot to him, took a sheet of fine parchment from his drawer, and wrote upon it. His note was even shorter than Peter's had been. It took him less than five minutes to write it, blot it, sand it, fold it, and seal it shut. With that done, he rang for Arlen.
Arlen, looking much chastened, appeared almost at once.
"Is Beson still here?" Peyna asked.
"I think so, sir," Arlen sad. In fact he knew Beson was still there, because he had been peeking through the keyhole at the man, watching him lurch back and forth restlessly from one end of the servants' kitchen to the other with a cold chicken leg clutched like a club in one hand. When the meat on the leg was all gone, Beson had crunched the bones--horrible splintering sounds they made--and sucked contentedly at the
marrow.
Arlen was still not utterly convinced the man was not a dwarf . . . perhaps even a troll.
"Give him this," Peyna said, handing Arlen the note, "and this for his trouble." Two guilders clinked into Arlen's other hand. "Tell him there may be a reply. If so, he's to bring it at night, as he did this one."
"Yes, my Lord."
"Don't linger and chat with him, either," Peyna said. It was as close as he was able to come to making a joke.
"No, my Lord," Arlen said glumly, and went out. He was still thinking of the crunching sounds the chicken bones had made when Beson bit through them.
60
Here," Beson said grumpily when he came into Peter's cell the next day, thrusting the envelope at Peter. In truth, he felt grumpy. The two guilders handed to him by Arlen had been an unexpected windfall, and Beson had spent most of the night drinking it up. Two guilders bought a great lot of mead, and today his head felt large and very painful. "Damned messenger boy is what I'm turning into."
"Thank you," Peter said, holding the envelope.
"Well? Ain'tcher going to open it?"
"Yes. When you leave."
Beson bared his teeth and clenched his fists. Peter simply stood there, looking at him. After a moment, Beson lowered his fists. "Damned messenger boy, is all!" he repeated, and went out, slamming the heavy door behind him. There was the thud of iron locks being turned, followed by the sliding sound of bolts--three of them, each as thick as Peter's wrist--being slid into place.
When the sounds had stopped, Peter opened the note. It was only three sentences long.
I am aware of the long-standing customs of which you speak. The sum you mentioned could be arranged. I will do so, but not until I know what favors you expect to buy from our mutual friend.
Peter smiled. Judge-General Peyna was not a sly man--slyness was not at all in his nature, as it was in Flagg's--but he was exceedingly careful. This note was the proof of that. Peter had expected Peyna's condition. He would have felt wary if Peyna had not asked what he wanted. Ben would be the go-between, Peyna would cease to actually be a part of the bribe very shortly, but still he walked carefully, as a man might walk on loose stones which might slide out from under his feet at any moment.