Peter grew angry. All the things that had happened to him over the last ten days seemed to slam together in his head, and for a moment he was almost-not quite, but almost-angry enough to kill the brutish Chief Warder instead of just teaching him a lesson he would never, never forget.
As Beson turned, he was rocked by left looks and right jabs. The jabs would ordinarily have done little damage, but the pound and a half of metal in Peter's fist turned them into torpedoes. His knuckles sprung Beson's jaw. Beson roared with pain and again tried to close with Peter. This was a mistake. There was a crunch as his nose broke and blood flooded over his mouth and chin. It dripped onto his filthy jerkin. Then a bright flare of pain as that heavy right hand smashed his lips back. Beson spat a tooth onto the floor and tried to circle away. He had forgotten that his Lesser Warders were watching, afraid to interfere. Beson had forgotten his anger at the young prince's attitude, had lost his former desire to teach the young prince a lesson.
For the first time in his tenure as Chief Warder, he had for-gotten everything but a blind desire to survive. For the first time in his tenure as Chief Warder, Beson was afraid.
Nor was it the fact that Peter was now punching him at will that frightened him. He had taken bad beatings before, although never at the hands of a prisoner. No, it was the look in Peter's eyes that had so terrified him. It is the look of a King. Gods protect me, it is the face of a King-his fury blazes almost with the heat of the sun.
Peter drove Beson against the wall, measured the distance to Beson's chin, and then drew back his weighted right fist.
"Do you need more convincing, turnip?" Peter asked grimly. "No more," Beson replied groggily, through his rapidly puffing lips. "No more, my King, I cry your mercy, I cry your mercy.
"What?" Peter asked, flabbergasted. "What did you call me?"
But Beson was sliding slowly down the curved stone wall. When he had called Peter my King, he had done so as unconsciousness stole over him. He would not remember saying it, but Peter never forgot.
54
Beson was unconscious for over two hours. If not for his thick, snoring breaths, Peter would have been afraid that perhaps he really had killed the Chief Warder. The man was a gross, vicious, underhanded pig... but for all of that, Peter had no wish to kill him. The Lesser Warders took turns staring in the little window in the oaken door, their eyes wide and round-the eyes of small boys looking at the man-eating Anduan tiger in the King's Menagerie. Niether made any effort to rescue their superior, and their faces told Peter that they expected him to leap on the unconscious Beson at any moment and tear his throat out. Perhaps with his teeth.
Well, why shouldn't they think such things? Peter asked himself bitterly. They think I killed my own father, and a man who would do such a thing might stoop to any low act, even that of killing an unconscious opponent.
Finally Beson began to moan and stir. His right eye fluttered and came open-the left couldn't open, and wouldn't completely for some days.
The right eye looked at Peter not with hate, but with unmistakable alarm.
"Are you ready to speak reasonably?" Peter asked.
Beson said something Peter couldn't understand. It sounded like mush.
"I don't understand you."
Beson tried again. "You could have killed me."
"I've never killed anyone," Peter said. "The time may come when I'll have to, but if it ever does, I hope I don't have to start with unconscious warders."
Beson sat against the wall, looking at Peter with his one open eye. An expression of deep thought, absurd and a little frightening on his swelled and battered features, settled over his face.
At last he managed another mushy phrase. Peter thought he understood this one, but wanted to be absolutely sure.
"Repeat that, please, Mr. Chief Warder Beson."
Beson looked startled. As Yosef had never been called Lord High Groom before Peter, so Beson had never been called Mr. Chief Warder.
"We can do business," he said.
"That is very well."
Beson struggled slowly to his feet. He wanted no more to do with Peter, at least not today. He had other problems. His Lesser Warders had just watched him take a bad beating at the hands of a boy who hadn't had anything to eat for a week. Watched and no more, the cowardly sots. His head ached, and he might well have to whip those poor fools into line before he could slink off to bed.
He had started out when Peter called to him.
Beson turned back. That turning was really all it took. Both of them knew who was in charge here. Beson had been beaten. When his prisoner told him to wait, he waited.
"I have something I want to say to you. It will be good for both of us if I do."
Beson said nothing. He only stood and watched Peter warily.
"Tell them"-Peter jerked his head toward the door-"to close the spyhole