The Eyes of the Dragon

15

Perhaps you are wondering what Thomas was like, and some of you may already be casting him in a villain’s part, as a willing co-schemer in Flagg’s plot to snatch the crown away from its rightful owner.

That was not really the case at all, although to some it always seemed so, and of course Thomas did play a part. He did not seem, I admit, to be a really good boy-at least, not at first glance. He was surely not a good boy in the way that Peter was a good boy, but no brother would have looked really good beside Peter, and Thomas knew it well by the time he was four-that was the year after the famous sack-race, and the one in which the famous stableyard incident took place. Peter rarely lied and never cheated. Peter was smart and kind, tall and handsome. He looked like their mother, who had been so deeply loved by the King and the people of Delain.

How could Thomas compare with goodness like that? A simple question with a simple answer. He couldn’t.

Unlike Peter, Thomas was the spitting image of his father. This pleased the old man a little, but it didn’t give him the pleasure most men feel when they have a son who carries the clear stamp of their features. Looking at Thomas was too much like looking into a sly mirror. He knew that Thomas’s fine blond hair would gray early and then begin to fall out; Thomas would be bald by the time he was forty. He knew that Thomas would never be tall, and if he had his father’s appetite for beer and mead, he would be carrying a big belly before him by the time he was twenty-five. Already his toes had begun to turn in, and Roland guessed Thomas would walk with his own bowlegged swagger.

Thomas was not exactly a good boy, but you must not think that made him a bad boy. He was sometimes a sad boy, often a confused boy (he took after his father in another way, as well, hard thinking made his nose stuffy and his head feel like boulders were rolling around inside), and often a jealous boy, but he wasn’t a bad boy.

Of whom was he jealous? Why, of his brother, of course. He was jealous of Peter. It wasn’t enough that Peter would be King, Oh no! It wasn’t enough that their father liked Peter best, or that the servants liked Peter best, or that their teachers liked Peter best because he was always ready at lessons and didn’t need to be coaxed. It wasn’t enough that everyone liked Peter best, or that Peter had a best friend. There was one more thing.

When anyone looked at Thomas, his father the King most of all, Thomas thought he knew they were thinking: We loved your mother and you killed her in your coming. And what did we get out of the pain and death you caused her? A dull little boy with a round face that has hardly any chin, a dull little boy who couldn’t make all fifteen of the Great Letters until he was eight. Your brother Peter was able to make them all when he was six. What did we get? Not much. Why did you come, Thomas? What good are you? Throne insurance? Is that all you are? Throne insurance in case Peter the Precious should fall off his limping nag and crack his head open? Is that all? Well, we don’t want you. None of us want you. None of us want you…

The part Thomas played in his brother’s imprisonment was dishonorable, but even so he was not a really bad boy. I believe this, and hope that in time you will come to believe it, too.