She saw he was afraid, and smiled. She laid her hand on his brow.
"Be calm, Peter," she said. "It is a small thing, but still important-because you'll be King in your own time. Now run and fetch your slate."
"But it's bedtime-"
"Bother bedtime, too. Bedtime can wait. Bring your slate."
Peter ran for his slate.
Sasha took the chalk tied to the side and carefully printed three letters. "Can you read this word, Peter?"
Peter nodded. There were only a few words that he could read, although he knew most of the Great Letters. This happened to be one of the words. "It says god."
"Yes that's right. Now write it backward and see what you find."
"Backward?" Peter said doubtfully.
"Yes, that's right."
Peter did so, his letters staggering childishly across the slate below his mother's neat printing. He was astounded to find another of the few words he could read.
DOG! Mamma! It says DOG!"
"Yes. It says dog." The sadness in her voice quenched Peter's excitement at once. His mother pointed from GOD to DOG. "These are the two natures of man," she said. "Never forget them, because someday you will be King and Kings grow to be great and tall-as great and tall as dragons in their ninth moltings."
"Father isn't great and tall," objected Peter. Roland was, in fact, short and rather bowlegged. Also, he carried a great belly in front of him from all the beer and mead he had consumed.
Sasha smiled.
"He is, though. Kings grow invisibly, Peter, and it happens all at once, as soon as they grasp the scepter and the crown is put on their heads in the Plaza of the Needle!"
"They do?" Peter's eyes grew large and round. He thought that the subject had wandered far from his failure to use his napkin at the banquet, but he was not sorry to see such an embarrassing topic lost in favor of this tremendously interesting one. Besides, he had already resolved that he would never forget to use his napkin again-if it was important to his mother, then it was important to him.
"Oh yes, they do. Kings grow most awfully big, and that's why they have to be specially careful, for a very big person could crush smaller ones under his feet just taking a walk, or turning around, or sitting down quickly in the wrong place. Bad Kings do such things often. I think even good Kings cannot avoid doing them sometimes."
"I don't think I understand-"
"Then listen a moment longer." She tapped the slate again. "Our preachers say that our natures are partly of God and partly of Old Man Splitfoot. Do you know who Old Man Splitfoot Is, Peter?"
"He's the devil."
"Yes. But there are few devils outside of made-up stories, Pete-most bad people are more like dogs than devils. Dogs are friendly but stupid, and that's the way most men and women are when they are drunk. When dogs are excited and confused, they may bite; when men are excited and confused, they may fight. Dogs are great pets because they are loyal, but if a pet is all a man is, he is a bad man, I think. Dogs can be brave, but they may also be cowards that will howl in the dark or run away from danger with their tails between their legs. A dog is just as eager to lick the hand of a bad master as he is to lick the hand of a good one, because dogs don't know the difference between good and bad. A dog will eat slops, vomit up the part his stomach can't stand, and then go back for more."
She fell silent for a moment, perhaps thinking of what was going on in the banqueting hall right now-men and women roaring with good-natured drunken laughter, flinging food at each other, and sometimes turning aside to vomit casually on the floor beside their chairs. Roland was much the same, and sometimes this made her sad, but she did not hold it against him, nor did she tax him with it. It was his way. He might promise to reform in order to please her, and he might even do it, but he would not be the same man afterward.
"Do you understand these things, Peter?"
Peter nodded.
"Fine! Now, tell me." She leaned toward him. "Does a dog use a napkin?"