Thomas could take no more. He slammed shut the panels behind the dragon's glass eyes at the same moment his father took his eyes from Niner to look down at his own wasted body. Thomas crashed and blundered down the black corridor and slammed full force into the closed door, braining himself and falling in a heap. He was up in a moment, unaware of the blood pouring down his face from a cut in his forehead, pounding at the secret spring until the door popped open. He rushed out into the corridor, not even thinking to check if anyone was there to see him. All he could see was his father's glaring, bloodshot eyes, all he could hear was his father screaming Why do you stare at me?
He had no way of knowing that his father had already fallen into a sleep of deep drunkenness. When Roland woke up the next morning, he was still on the floor, and the first thing he did, in spite of his fiercely aching head and his throbbing, bruised body (Roland was far too old for such strenuous revels), was to look at the dragon's head. He rarely dreamed when he was drunk -there was only an interval of sodden darkness. But last night a terrible dream had come to him: the glass eyes of the dragon's head had moved and Niner came to life. The worm breathed its deadly breath down on him, and although he could not see that fire, he could feel it deep down inside him, hot and getting hotter.
With this dream still lingering fresh in his mind, he dreaded what he might see when he looked up. But all was as it had been for years now. Niner snarled his fearsome snarl, his forked tongue lolled between teeth almost as long as fence pickets, his green-gold eyes stared blankly across the room. Ceremoniously crossed above this fabulous trophy were Roland's great bow and the arrow Foe-Hammer, its tip and shaft still black with dragon blood. He mentioned this terrible dream once to Flagg, who only nodded and looked more thoughtful than usual. Then Ro-land simply forgot it.
Forgetting was not so easy for Thomas.
He was haunted for weeks by nightmares. In them, his father stared at him and shrieked, "See what you've done to me!" and threw his robe open to display his nakedness-old puckered scars, drooping belly, sagging muscles-as if to say this too had all been Thomas's fault, that if he hadn't spied...
"Why do you never want to see Father anymore?" Peter asked him one day. "He thinks you're mad at him."
"That I'm mad at him?" Thomas was astounded.
"That's what he said at tea today," Peter said. He looked at his brother closely, observing the dark circles under Thomas's eyes, the pallor of Thomas's cheeks and forehead. "Tom, what's wrong?"
"Maybe nothing," Thomas said slowly.
The next day he took tea with his father and brother. Going took all of his courage, but Thomas did have courage, and he sometimes found it-usually when his back was to the wall. His father gave him a kiss and asked him if anything was wrong. Thomas muttered that he hadn't been feeling well, but now he felt fine. His father nodded, gave him a rough hug, then went back to his usual behavior-which consisted mostly of ignoring Thomas in favor of Peter. For once, Thomas welcomed this -he didn't want his father looking at him any more than necessary, at least for a while. That night, lying awake for a long time in bed and listening to the wind moan outside, he came to the conclusion that he had had a very close shave... but that he had somehow gotten away with it.
But never again, he thought. In the weeks after, the nightmares came less and less frequently. Finally they stopped altogether.
Still, the castle's head groom, Yosef, was right about one thing: boys are sometimes better at pledging vows than they are at keeping them, and Thomas's desire to spy on his father at last grew stronger than both his fears and his good intentions. And that is how it happened that on the night Flagg came to Roland with the poisoned wine, Thomas was watching.
29
When Thomas got there and slid aside the two little panels, his father and his brother were just finishing their nightly glass of wine together. Peter was now almost seventeen, tall and handsome. The two of them sat by the fire, drinking and talking like old friends, and Thomas felt the old hate fill his heart with acid. After some little time, Peter arose and took courteous leave of his father.
"You leave earlier and earlier these nights, "Roland remarked.
Peter made some demurral.
Roland smiled. It was a sweet, sad smile, mostly toothless. "I hear," said he, "that she is lovely."
Peter looked flustered, which was uncommon with him. He stammered, which was even less common.
"Go," Roland interrupted. "Go. Be gentle with her, and be kind... but be hot, if there is ardor in you. Later years are cold years, Peter. Be hot while your years are green, and fuel is plentiful, and the fire may burn high."
Peter smiled. "You speak as if you are very old, Father, but you still look strong and hale to me."
Roland embraced Peter. "I love you," he said.
Peter smiled with no awkwardness or embarrassment. "I love you, too, Dad," he said, and in his lonely darkness (spying is always lonely work, and the spyer almost always does it in the dark), Thomas pulled a horrible face.
Peter left, and for an hour or more not much happened. Roland sat morosely by the fire, drinking glass after glass of beer. He did not roar or bellow or talk to the heads on the walls; there was no destruction of furniture. Thomas had almost made up his mind to leave, when there was a double rap at the door.