The Eyes of the Dragon

41

At three that afternoon, a strange meeting took place in the Royal Court of Delain at the base of the Needle-a great room which, over the years, had become known simply as “Peyna’s Court.”

Meeting-I don’t like that word. It’s too tame and small to describe the momentous decision that was arrived at that after-noon. I cannot call it a hearing or a trial, because that gathering had no legal meaning at all, but it was very important, as I think you will agree.

The room was large enough to hold five hundred, but there were only seven there that afternoon. Six of them huddled close together, as if it made them nervous to be so few in a place meant for so many. The royal arms of the Kingdom-a unicorn spearing a dragon-hung on one of the circular stone walls, and Peter found his gaze returning to this again and again. Besides himself, Peyna was there, and Flagg (it was Flagg, of course, who sat slightly apart from the others), and four of the Kingdom’s Great Lawyers. There were ten Great Lawyers in all, but the other six were at various far-flung places in Delain, hearing cases. Peyna had decided he couldn’t wait for them. He knew he had to move fast and decisively, or the Kingdom might bleed. He knew it, but it galled him to know he would need the help of this cool young murderer to avert such bloodshed.

That Peter was a murderer was something Anders Peyna had now decided in his own heart. It wasn’t the box, the green sand, or even the burning mouse that had decided him. It was Peter’s tears. Peter, to do him credit, looked neither guilty nor weak now. He was pale but calm, completely in charge of himself again.

Peyna cleared his throat. The sound echoed dully back from the forbidding stone walls of the court chamber. He pressed a hand to his forehead and was not entirely surprised to find a sheen of cold sweat there. He had heard testimony in hundreds of great and solemn cases; he had sent more men than he cared to remember beneath the headsman’s axe. But never had he thought he would have to attend a “meeting” such as this, or the trial of a prince for the murder of his royal father… and such a trial would surely follow if all went as he hoped this afternoon. It was right, he thought, that he be sweating, and right that the sweat should be cold.

Just a meeting. Nothing legal here; nothing official; nothing of the Kingdom. But none of them-not Peyna, not Flagg, not the Great Lawyers, not Peter himself-were fooled. This was the real trial. This meeting. The power was here. That burning mouse had set a great course of events in motion. That course would either be turned here, as a great river may be turned near its source when it is still a brook, or it would be allowed to run onward, gathering power as it went, until no force on earth could turn it or stand before it.

Just a meeting, Anders Peyna thought, and wiped more sweat from his forehead.