Characters in The Eyes of the Dragon

… But Vatera’s supposed crime had happened in the reign of Alan II— —and Alan II had ruled Delain four hundred and fifty years ago.

… His only news was that preparations for Peter’s coronation were going full speed ahead in the Plaza of the Needle, under the direction of Anders Peyna, Delain’s Judge-General.

… Ben’s family was not royalty, and though Andrew Staad, Ben’s father, had some faint claim to the High Blood of the kingdom on his mother’s side, they could not even rightly be called nobility. “Squire” was probably the kindest term one could have applied to Andy Staad, and “squire’s son” …

… But the only people in the Kingdom who really knew the circumstances of Sasha’s death were Anna Crookbrows, the midwife, and Flagg, the King’s magician. Flagg’s patience with Sasha’s meddling had finally run out.

… Arlen—that was the butler’s name—had seen Beson before, of course; like Aden’s master, Beson was a part of the Kingdom’s legal machinery. But Arlen did not recognize him now.

… No one, not Peyna, not Flagg, not Aron Beson, worried that the prisoner might somehow climb down. The Needle’s curving stone wall was utterly smooth. A fly might have done it, but not a man.

… While many boys in Peter’s position would have become too conscious of their own grand place in the scheme of things to play with anyone not of their own class, Peter became best friends with a boy named Ben Staad when both children were eight.

… “I was with Bill Squathings and that fellow with the great lump on the side of his face. I remember how you came through the trees and Bill let loose, and then that fellow with the lump let loose, then I let loose—” …

He saw that the room had hardly changed at all. The stuffed heads were still there—Bonsey the elk, Craker the lynx, Snapper the great white bear from the north. And, of course, Niner the dragon, which he now looked through, with Roland’s bow and the arrow Foe-Hammer mounted above it.

… Servants, especially Peter’s butler, Brandon, and Brandon’s son, Dennis, gave him a wide berth, and spoke to each other in whispers of the terrible smells that sometimes came from his laboratory late at night.

… Then the young butler turned east, toward the castle, and the two old men headed west, toward the farmstead of one Charles Reechul. Reechul, who raised Anduan huskies for a living, paid the grinding taxes the King had imposed without complaint, and was thus considered loyal . . . …

He saw that the room had hardly changed at all. The stuffed heads were still there—Bonsey the elk, Craker the lynx, Snapper the great white bear from the north. And, of course, Niner the dragon, which he now looked through, with Roland’s bow and the arrow Foe-Hammer mounted above it.

This man’s name was Curran, and I may tell you of him in another story.

… “You killed Eleanor Valera, and you killed my father.” “Yes, I brought him the wine,” Flagg said, his eyes blazing, “and I laughed when his guts burned, and I laughed harder when you were taken up the stairs to the top of the Needle.

… His father was towering over him, pea soup dripping from his mustache, his face so red it was almost purple, and Ben’s baby sister, Emmaline, was crying in her high chair.

… All were sleeping except for Frisky, her favorite. Frisky looked at her with almost human eyes, and licked her hand. “A good pull today, m’dear,” Naomi said. “Sleep, now. Catch a moon rabbit.” Frisky obediently put her head down on her paws.

… The young soldier fumbled once more and then said helplessly, “My name is Galen.” “And do you know who I am?” “Yes,” one of the others growled. “We know you, murderer.”

… it had been a happy day for him when he was able to go to Halvay, the owner of the next farm over, and tell him that he had changed his mind about selling him the three reels Halvay had wanted to buy for the last nine years.

… Did not King John often bite the heads off live trout and then put the flopping bodies into the bodices of the serving girls’ dresses?

… But he saw the wisdom of the magician’s advice, and six months after the Dowager Queen’s funeral, there was a much happier event in the Kingdom—the marriage of King Roland to Sasha, who would become the mother of Peter and Thomas.

… He was followed by his niece, Kyla, who became known as Kyla the Good . . . and from Kyla, the line of succession had run straight and true down through the generations to Roland, and the brothers to whose tale you have been listening.

… Landry, Roland’s grandfather, was a drunken old fool, easy to influence and twist, but a heart attack had taken him too soon. Flagg knew by then that Lita, Roland’s mother, was the last person he wanted holding the scepter.

… The name was Leven Valera, the infamous Black Duke of the Southern Barony. Valera, who might someday have been King, had instead spent the last twenty-five years of his life in the room at the top of the Needle for the murder of his wife.

… Flagg knew by then that Lita, Roland’s mother, was the last person he wanted holding the scepter. She was ugly but good-hearted and strongwilled. Such a Queen was not a good growth medium for Flagg’s brand of insanity.

… Mrs. Brandon kept watch for her men in terrible loneliness. She sat at the window, but for the first time in her life, the air was rife with more gossip than she wanted to hear. Yet for all of that, could she stop listening? She could not.

… “It’s Naomi Reechul,” the girl called, “and the password two weeks ago was ‘tripos.’ If it’s not that now, Ben Staad, then put an arrow through me and I’ll come back and haunt you!”

… Thomas saw him through the eyes of Niner, the dragon his father had killed long ago. Thomas was able to do this because Flagg himself had taught him the trick.

Ben Staad did stand in for Peter from time to time, but those times were few. Peter named the horse Peony, and they were great friends ever after.

… So everyone in the Kingdom, from the richest baron and the most foppishly dressed courtier to the poorest serf and his ragged wife, thought and talked about the King in waiting, Roland’s elder son, Peter.

They were the King family. There was Roger King, who was brave and powerful (if not very tall, and slightly bowlegged), and who had once killed a dragon. There was lovely Sarah King, his wife. And there was their little boy, Petie, who loved and was loved by them.

… Roland, who was a kind man, somehow discovered this, and although he was also nervous about his future life (after all, he had never been married before, either), he found time to commission Quentin Ellender, the greatest craftsman in the land, to build his new wife a new dollhouse.

They were the King family. There was Roger King, who was brave and powerful (if not very tall, and slightly bowlegged), and who had once killed a dragon. There was lovely Sarah King, his wife. And there was their little boy, Petie, who loved and was loved by them.

They were the King family. There was Roger King, who was brave and powerful (if not very tall, and slightly bowlegged), and who had once killed a dragon. There was lovely Sarah King, his wife. And there was their little boy, Petie, who loved and was loved by them.

… But he saw the wisdom of the magician’s advice, and six months after the Dowager Queen’s funeral, there was a much happier event in the Kingdom—the marriage of King Roland to Sasha, who would become the mother of Peter and Thomas.

He saw that the room had hardly changed at all. The stuffed heads were still there—Bonsey the elk, Craker the lynx, Snapper the great white bear from the north. And, of course, Niner the dragon, which he now looked through, with Roland’s bow and the arrow Foe-Hammer mounted above it.

Susan Staad, wife of Andrew and mother of Ben, sat between them, working at a sampler which would read GODS BLESS OUR KING when finished. Emmaline had long since been put to bed.

… When Ulrich Wicks, who drew the white stone and took Peyna’s place on the bench, announced the verdict of the court, the spectators—many of whom had sworn for years that Peter would make the best King in Delain’s long history—applauded savagely.

… a horse which was to be destroyed by Yosef, the King’s head groom . . . and it was when this tale made its way to Flagg that the magician began to fear the King’s oldest son, and to think perhaps he did not have as long to put the …