The Eyes of the Dragon - Stephen King [78]
Perhaps Peyna would not be around a great deal longer, however. In the meadhouses and wineshops, Beson had begun to hear whispers that Flagg's shadow had fallen on the judge General, and that if Peyna was not very, very careful, he might soon be watching the proceedings at court from an even more commanding angle than the bench upon which he now sat-he might be looking in the window, these wags said behind their hands, from one of the spikes atop the castle walls. n the eighteenth day of Thomas's reign, the first napkin was on Peter's breakfast tray when it was delivered in the morning. It was so large and the breakfast so small that it actually covered the meal completely. Peter smiled for the first time since he had come to this cold, high place. His cheeks and chin were shadowed with the beginnings of a beard which would grow full and long in these two drafty rooms, and he looked quite a desperate character until he smiled. The smile lit his face with magical power, made it strong and radiant, a beacon to which one could imagine soldiers rallying in battle.
"Ben," he muttered, picking the napkin up by one corner. His hand shook a bit. "I knew you'd do it. Thank you, my friend. Thank you."
The first thing Peter did with his first napkin was to wipe away the tears that now ran freely down his cheeks.
The peephole in the stout wooden door popped open. Two Lesser Warders appeared again like the two heads of Flagg's parrot, packed into the tiny space cheek to scruffy cheek.
"Hope that baby won't forget to wipe his chinny -chin!" one cried in a cracked, warbling voice.
"Hope that baby won't forget to wipe the eggy off his shirty!" the other cried, and then both screamed with derisive laughter. But Peter did not look at them, and his smile did not fade.
The warders saw that smile and made no more jokes. There was something about it which forbade joking.
Eventually they closed the peephole and left Peter alone.
A napkin came with his lunch that day.
{insert image from page 183}
With his dinner that night.
The napkins came to Peter in his lonely cell in the sky for the next five years.
The dollhouse arrived on the thirtieth day of Thomas the Light-Bringer's reign. By then modils, those first harbingers of Spring (which we call bluets) were coming up in pretty little roadside bunches. Also by then Thomas the Light-Bringer had signed into law the Farmers' Tax Increase, which quickly became known as Tom's Black Tax. The new joke told in the meadhouses and wineshops was that the King would soon be changing his royal name to Thomas the Tax-Bringer. The increase was not eight percent, which might have been fair, or eighteen percent, which might have been bearable, but eighty percent. Thomas had had some doubts about it at first, but it hadn't taken Flagg long to convince him.
"We must tax them more on what they admit they own, so we can collect at least some of what's due us on all they hide from the tax collector," Flagg said. Thomas, his head fuddled by the wine that now flowed constantly in the court chambers of the castle, had nodded with what he hoped was a wise expression on his face.
For his part, Peter had begun to fear that the dollhouse had been lost after all these years-and that was almost the truth. Ben Staad had commissioned Dennis to find it. After several days of fruitless searching, Dennis had confided in his good old da '-the only person he dared trust with such a serious matter. It had taken Brandon another five days to find the dollhouse in one of the minor storage rooms on the ninth floor, west turret, where its cheerful pretend lawns and long, rambling wings were hidden under an ancient (and slightly moth-eaten) dustcloth