The Eyes of the Dragon

11

Not long after Flagg made his disparaging comments about dollhouses and royal sissies, Roland crept into the dead Queen’s morning room unseen and watched his son at play. The King stood just inside the door, his brow deeply furrowed. He was thinking much harder than he was used to thinking, and that meant the boulders were rolling around in his head and his nose was stuffy.

He saw that Peter was using the dollhouse to tell himself stories, to make believe, and that the stories he made up were not sissy stories at all. They were stories of blood and thunder and armies and dragons. They were, in other words, stories after the King’s own heart. He discovered in himself a wistful desire to join his son, to help him make up even better tales in which the dollhouse and all its fascinating contents and its make-believe family figured. Most of all, he saw that Peter was using Sasha’s dollhouse to keep Sasha alive in his heart, and Roland approved of this most of all, because he missed his wife sorely. Sometimes he was so lonely he almost cried. Kings, of course, do not cry… and if, on one or two occasions after Sasha had died, he awoke with the case on his pillow damp, what of that?

The King left the room as silently as he had come. Peter never saw him. Roland lay awake most of that night, thinking deeply about what he had seen, and although it was hard for him to endure Flagg’s disapproval, he saw him the next morning in a private audience, before his resolve could weaken, and told him he had thought the matter over carefully and decided Peter should be allowed to play with the dollhouse as long as he wished. He said he believed it was doing the boy no harm.

With that out, he settled back uneasily to wait for Flagg’s rebuttal. But no rebuttal came. Flagg only raised his eyebrows, -this Roland barely saw in the deep shadow of the hood Flagg always wore-and said, “Your will, Sire, is the will of the King-dom.”

Roland knew from the tone that Flagg thought his decision was a bad one, but the tone also told him Flagg would not dispute it further. He was deeply relieved to be let off so cheaply. Later that day, when Flagg suggested that the farmers of the Eastern Barony could stand higher taxes in spite of the drought that had killed most of their crops the year before, Roland agreed eagerly.

In truth, having the old fool (for so Flagg thought Roland to be in his deeper thoughts) go against his wishes in the matter of the dollhouse seemed a very minor thing to the magician. The rise in taxes for the Eastern Barony was the important thing. And Flagg had a deeper secret, one which pleased him well. In the end he had succeeded in murdering Sasha, after all.