by Stephen King
Flagg opened the engraved box and very carefully shredded one corner of the packet's flap. Now it looked as if a mouse had been chewing at it. Flagg closed the lid again and put the box in the recessed space. "You cried so when you lost this box, dear Peter," he murmured. "I think you may cry even more when it's found." He giggled.
He put the sleeping mouse beside the box, closed the compartment, and put the books neatly back in place.
Then he left, and slept well. Great mischief was afoot, and he felt confident that he had moved as he liked to move--behind the scenes, seen by no one.
31
For the next three days, King Roland seemed healthier, more vigorous, and more decisive than anyone had seen him in years--it was the talk of the court. Visiting his ill and feverish brother in his apartments, Peter remarked to Thomas in awe that what remained of their father's hair actually seemed to be changing color, from the baby-fine wispy white it had been for the last four years or so to the iron gray it had been in Roland's middle years.
Thomas smiled, but a fresh chill raced through him. He asked Peter for another blanket, but it wasn't really a blanket he needed; he needed to unsee that final strange toast, and that, of course, was impossible.
Then, after dinner on the third day, Roland complained of indigestion. Flagg offered to have the court physician summoned. Roland waved the suggestion away, saying that he felt fine, actually, better than he had in months, in years--
He belched. It was a long, arid, rattling sound. The convivial crowd in the ballroom fell silent with wonder and apprehension as the King doubled over. The musicians in the corner ceased playing. When Roland straightened up, a gasp ran through those present. The King's cheeks were aflame with color. Smoking tears ran from his eyes. More smoke drifted from his mouth.
There were perhaps seventy people in that great dining hall--rough-dressed Riders (what we would call knights, I suppose), sleek courtiers and their ladies, attendants upon the throne, courtesans, jesters, musicians, a little troupe of actors in one corner who had been going to put on a play later, servants in great numbers. But it was Peter who ran to his father; it was Peter they all saw going to the doomed man, and this did not displease Flagg at all.
Peter. They would remember it had been Peter.
Roland clutched his stomach with one hand and his chest with the other. Smoke suddenly poured out of his mouth in a gray-white plume. It was as if the King had learned some amazing new way of telling the story of his greatest exploit.
But it was no trick, and there were screams as smoke poured not only from his mouth but from his nostrils, ears, and the corners of his eyes. His throat was so red it was nearly purple.
"Dragon!" King Roland shrieked as he collapsed into his son's arms. "Dragon!"
It was the last word he ever spoke.
32
The old man was tough--incredibly tough. Before he died he was throwing off so much heat that no one, not even his most loyal servants, could approach closer to his bed than four feet. Several times they threw buckets of water on the poor dying King when they saw the bedclothes beginning to smolder. Each time, the water turned instantly to steam that billowed through his bedchamber and out into the sitting room where courtiers and Riders stood in numb silence and ladies clustered, weeping and wringing their hands.
Just before midnight, a jet of green flame shot from his mouth and he died.
Flagg went solemnly to the door between the bedchamber and the sitting room and announced the news. There followed an utter silence that stretched out for more than a minute. It was broken by a single word which came from somewhere in the gathered crowd. Flagg did not know who spoke that one word, and he did not care. It was enough that it had been spoken. Indeed, he would have bribed a man to speak it if such could have been done with no danger to him.
"Murder!" this someone said.
There was a universal gasp.
Flagg raised a solemn hand to his mouth to hide a smile.
33
The court physician amplified one word to three: Murder by poison. He did not say Murder by Dragon Sand, for the poison was unknown in Delain, except to Flagg.
The King died shortly before midnight, but by dawn the charge was rife in the city and spreading outward toward the far reaches of the Eastern, Western, Southern, and Northern Baronies: Murder, regicide, Roland the Good dead by poison.
Even before then, Flagg had organized a search of the castle, from the highest point (the Eastern Tower) to the lowest (the Dungeon of Inquisition, with its racks and manacles and squeezing boots). Any evidence bearing on this terrible crime, he said, must be searched out and reported at once.
The castle rang with the search. Six hundred grimly eager men combed through it. Only two small areas of the castle were exempt; these were the apartments of the two princes, Peter and Thomas.
Thomas was barely aware of this; his fever had worsened to the point where the court physician had become deeply alarmed. He lay in a delirium as dawn's first light fingered its way into his windows. In his dreams, he saw two glasses of wine raised high, heard his father say again and again: Did you spice it? It tasted mulled.
Flagg had ordered the search, but by two in the morning, Peter had recovered enough of his wits to take charge of it. Flagg let him. These next few hours would be terribly important, a time when all could be won or lost, and Flagg knew it. The King was dead; the Kingdom was momentarily headless. But not for long; this very day, Peter would be crowned King at the foot of the Needle, unless the crime was brought home to the boy quickly and conclusively.
Under other circumstances, Flagg knew, Peter would have been under suspicion at once. People always suspect those who have the most to gain, and Peter had gained a great deal by his father's death. Poison was horrible, but poison might have won him a kingdom.
But in this case, the people of the Kingdom spoke of the boy's loss rather than the boy's gain. Of course, Thomas had lost his father, too, they might add after a pause--almost as if they were ashamed of the momentary lapse. But Thomas was a sullen, sulky, awkward boy who had often argued with his father. Peter's affection and respect for Roland, on the other hand, were known far and wide. And why, people would ask--if the monstrous idea was even raised, and so far it had not been--why would Peter kill his father for the crown when he would surely inherit it in a year, or three, or five?
If evidence of the crime were to be found in a secret place that only Peter knew, however--a place in the prince's own rooms--the tide would turn quickly. People would begin to see a murderer's face beneath a mask of affection and respect. They would point out that, to the young, a year may seem like three, three like nine, five like twenty-five. Then they would point out that the King had seemed, in the last few days of his life, to be coming out of a long, dark time--had seemed to be growing hale and vigorous again. Perhaps, they would say, Peter had believed his father was entering a long, healthy Indian summer, had panicked and done something as foolish as it was monstrous.
Flagg knew something else; he knew that people have a deep and instinctive distrust of all Kings and princes, for these are people who may order their deaths with a single nod, and for crimes as petty as dropping a handkerchief in their presence. Great Kings are loved, lesser Kings are tolerated; Kings-to-be represent a scary unknown quantity. They might come to love Peter if given a chance, but Flagg knew they would also condemn him quickly if shown enough evidence.
Flagg thought such evidence would be forthcoming soon.
Nothing more than a mouse. Small . . . but big enough in its way to shake a kingdom to its foundations.
34
In Delain there were only three stages of being: childhood, half-manhood or -womanhood, and adulthood. These "half-years" lasted from fourteen to eighteen.
When Peter entered half-manhood, the scolding nannies were replaced with Brandon, his butler, and Dennis, Brandon's son. Brandon would be Peter's butler for years yet, but probably not forever. Peter was very young, and B
randon was nearing fifty. When Brandon was no longer able to buttle, Dennis would take over. Brandon's family had buttled high royalty for nearly eight hundred years, and were justifiably proud of the fact.
Dennis rose each morning at five o'clock, dressed, laid out his father's suit, and shined his father's shoes. Then he wandered blearily into the kitchen and ate breakfast. At quarter to six, he set out from the family's home on the west side of the castle keep and entered the castle proper by the Lesser West Door.
Promptly at six o'clock he would reach Peter's rooms, let himself quietly in, and go about the early chores--building a fire, making half a dozen breakfast muffins, heating water for tea. Then he would quickly circle the three rooms, setting them to rights. This was usually easy, because Peter was not a messy boy. Last of all, he would return to the study and lay out breakfast, for the study was where Peter liked to eat the meals he took in his rooms--usually at his desk by the east windows, with a history book open before him.
Dennis didn't like getting up early, but he liked his job very much, and he liked Peter, who was always patient with him, even when he made a mistake. The only time he had ever raised his voice to Dennis was when Dennis had brought him a light lunch and had neglected to put a napkin on the tray.
"I'm very sorry, y'Highness," Dennis had said on that occasion. "I just never thought--"
"Well next time, do think!" Peter said. He was not shouting, but it was a close thing. Dennis had never neglected to put a napkin on Peter's tray again--and sometimes, just to be safe, he put on two.
Morning chores done, Dennis faded into the background and his father took over. Brandon was every bit the perfect butler, with his cravat neatly knotted, his hair pulled tightly back and rolled in a bun at the nape of his neck, his coat and breeches without a speck, his shoes shined to a mirror gloss (a mirror gloss Dennis was responsible for). But at night, with his shoes off, his coat hung in the closet, his cravat loosened, and a glass of bundle-gin in his hand, he looked to Dennis a much more natural man.
"Tell you something to always be remembrun, Denny," he had said to his son on many occasions while in this comfortable state. "There may be as many's a dozen things in this world which last, but surely no more, and may be less. Passey-o-nut love of a woman don't last, and a runner's wind don't last, nor does a braggart's wind, nor does haytime in the summer or sugartime in spring thaw. But two things that do last is one, royalty, and another, service. If you stick with your young man until he's an old man, and if you take care of him proper, he'll take care of you proper. You serve him an' he'll serve you, if you take the turn o' my mind. Now pour me another glass, and take a drop for yourself, if you like, but no more than a drop or your mother'll skin us both alive."
Undoubtedly, some sons would quickly have grown bored with this catechism, but Dennis did not. He was the rarest of sons, a boy who had reached twenty and still thought his father wiser than himself.
On the morning after the King's death, Dennis hadn't had to force himself blearily out of bed at five o'clock; he had been awakened at three by his father, with the news of the King's death.
"Flagg's rared up a search party," his father said, eyes full of bloodshot distress, "and that's right enough. But my master will be leading it soon enough, I'll warrant, and I'm off to help him hunt for the fiend who done it, if he'll have me."
"Me, too!" Dennis cried, grabbing for his breeches.
"Not at all, not at all," his father said with a hard sternness that made Dennis subside at once. "Things'll go forrad here just as they always have, murder or no--the old ways must be kept to now more than ever. My master and your master will be crowned King at noon, and that's well enough, although he comes to the crown in a bad time. But the death of a King by violence is always an evil thing if it comes not on the field of battle. The old ways will hold, doubt it not, but there may be trouble in the meantime. What's best for you, Dennis, is to go about your work just the same as always."
He was gone before Dennis could protest.
And when five o'clock came, Dennis told his mother what his father had said and told her he should get about his morning round, even though he knew Peter would be gone. Dennis's mother was more than agreeable. She was dying for news. She told him to go, of course . . . go and then come back to her no later than eight of the clock, and tell her all he heard.
So Dennis went to Peter's rooms, which were utterly deserted. Nevertheless, he observed his regular routine, finishing by setting breakfast in the prince's study. He looked ruefully at the plates and glasses, the jams and jellies, reflecting that surely none of those things would be used that morning. Still, going about his ordered course had made him feel better for the first time since his father had turned him out of bed, for he now understood that, for better or worse, things were never going to be the same again. Times had changed.
He was preparing to leave when he heard a sound. It was so muffled he couldn't rightly tell where it was--only the general area from which it came. He looked toward Peter's bookcase, and his heart leaped in his chest.
Tendrils of smoke were drifting from between the loosely shelved books.
Dennis leaped across the room and began pulling books out by double handfuls. He saw that the smoke was issuing from cracks at one side of the bookcase's back. Also, that sound was clearer with the books gone. It was some sort of animal, squeaking in pained distress.
Dennis clawed and pawed at the bookcase, his fright spiraling toward panic. If there was one thing people were afraid of in that time and place, it was fire.
Soon enough his fingers happened on the secret spring. Flagg had foreseen this, too--after all, the secret panel wasn't really very secret--enough to amuse a boy, but not much more. The back of the bookcase slid to the right a bit, and a puff of gray smoke wafted out. The smell that escaped with the smoke was extremely unpleasant--a mixture of cooking meat, frying fur, and smoldering paper.
Not thinking, Dennis swept the panel all the way open. Of course, when he did that, more air got in. Things which had been only smolderng before now showed the first winks of flame.
This was the crucial point, the one place where Flagg had to be content not with what he was sure would happen but with his best guess of what would probably happen. All his efforts of the last seventy-five years now swung upon the fragile hinge of what a butler's son might or might not do in the next five seconds. But the Brandons had been butlers since time out of mind, and Flagg had decided he must depend on their long tradition of impeccable behavior.
If Dennis had frozen in horror at the sight of those blossoming flames, or if he had turned and run for a pitcher of water, all of Flagg's carefully planted evidence might have burned in greenish-tinted flames. The murder of Peter's father would never have been laid at Peter's door and he would have been crowned King at noon.
But Flagg's judgment was right. Instead of freezing or going for water, Dennis reached in and beat the flames out with his bare hands. It took less than five seconds, and Dennis was barely singed. The doleful squeaking went on, and the first thing he saw when he had waved the smoke aside was a mouse, lying on its side. It was in its death agonies. It was only a mouse, and Dennis had killed dozens of them in the line of duty without the slightest feeling of pity. Yet he felt sorry for this poor little bugger. Something terrible, something he could not even begin to understand, had happened to it and was still happening to it. Smoke rose from its fur in fine ribbons. When he touched it, he drew his hand back with a hiss--it was like touching the side of a tiny stove, such as the one in Sasha's dollhouse.
More smoke drifted lazily from an engraved wooden box with its lid slightly ajar. Dennis lifted the lid a little. He saw the tweezers, the packet. A number of brownish spots had flowered on the packet and it smoldered sluggishly, but had not burst into flame . . . nor did it now. The flames had come from Peter's letters, which were, of course, not enchanted at all. It was the mouse that had set these alight with its fearfully hot body. Now there was only th
e sullenly smoldering packet, and something warned Dennis not to touch it.
He was afraid. There were things here that he didn't understand, things he was not sure he wanted to understand. The one thing he knew for sure was that he badly needed to speak to his father. His father would know what to do.
Dennis took the ash bucket and a small shovel from beside the stove and went back to the secret panel. He used the shovel to pick up the smoking body of the mouse and drop it into the ash bucket. He wet the charred corners of the letters once more, just to be sure. Then he closed the panel, replaced the books, and left Peter's apartments. He took the ash bucket with him, and now he did not feel like Peter's loyal servant but like a thief--his booty was a poor mouse that died even before Dennis got back out the West Gate of the castle.
And before he had even reached his house on the far side of the castle keep, a horrible suspicion had dawned in his mind--he was the first in Delain to feel this suspicion, but he would not be the last.
He tried to push the thought out of his head, but it kept coming back. What sort of poison, Dennis wondered, had killed King Roland, anyway? Exactly what sort of poison had it been?
By the time he got back to the Brandon house, he was in a bad state indeed, and he would answer none of his mother's questions. Nor would he show her what was in the ash bucket. He told her only that he must see his father the moment he came in--it was dreadfully important. Then he went into his room and wondered exactly what sort of poison it had been. He only knew one thing about it, but that one thing was enough. It had been something hot.
35
Brandon arrived just before ten o'clock, short-tempered, exhausted, and in no mood for foolishness. He was dirty and sweaty, there was a thin cut across his forehead, and cobwebs flew from his hair in long strings. They had found no sign of the assassin at all. His only news was that preparations for Peter's coronation were going full speed ahead in the Plaza of the Needle, under the direction of Anders Peyna, Delain's Judge-General.
