Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower - Tamsyn Muir
Manufactured in the United States of America
What had happened was that the witch put Princess Floralinda in a tower forty flights high, but said it wasn’t personal. She told her to cheer up. “Princes will be flocking from near and far to rescue you,” she said. “I’ve covered all my bases. There’s a golden sword at the gates for a prize, if the prince doesn’t care overmuch for princesses, and once he battles his way up thirty-nine flights you’re free to go. I don’t really mind what happens from this point in.”
“I do think you might ask for a ransom from my mother and father instead,” said Floralinda, still dabbing at her eyes. “That’s quite normal these days,” (for she did not want to be rude and suggest the tower was déclassé).
The witch shrieked with laughter.
“You! No!” she said. “You have butter-coloured curls and eyes as blue as sapphires. The moment I saw you, I knew a tower was crucial. Witches are all slaves to instinct. This is a really commonplace cruelty for a thing like me,” she finished, modestly.
“But I think a tower so restrictive,” poor Floralinda persisted. “Why don’t you trade me to foreign kings, or sell me to a sorcerer?”
The witch accused her of having a low mind. “I am doing this for the art of the thing,” she said. “I’m certainly making nothing off this endeavour. Nothing about it is economical. The bottom flight is guarded by a dragon with diamond-encrusted scales. They say it’s a bad idea to put the most expensive one at the bottom, but I like to let princes know I mean business.”
“It sounds very difficult for the prince,” said Floralinda.
“Oh, horribly; I never skimp where monsters are concerned. There’s a different kind on each floor and I have picked them specially for abhorrence. I had difficulties with my princes-per-month rate the last time; I’ll be interested to see if I’ve corrected it. Now, Princess, no more questions—you wait patiently, and lock the door and don’t go down the stairs, because the flight below this one is filled with goblins (a sort of digestif, you understand) and they’ll tear you to pieces. I have left you a flask of water, a flask of milk, a wheaten loaf and a white, and an orange; and there’s a knife to peel the orange and cut the bread. That’s more than enough to be going on with. Be a good girl, and I imagine a prince will be along presently.”
With that the witch exited from the window, in the common way, and Princess Floralinda was left by herself.
At first, it was quite a nice experience; like going away for a seaside holiday, with strange rooms and unusual things to eat. The tower room was very clean and comfortable, with a wash-stand and chair and table and so on, and the bed had silver hangings and feather pillows, the latter of which Floralinda did not really like. There was a dear enamel hearth that was there for ornamental purposes, with a grate filled up with painted pine-cones, and a set of the sorts of things you might poke a fire with, only you wouldn’t want to get such a lovely little hearth dirty. There were a great many books that had most likely been picked to be on subjects princesses might like, such as Monarchic Positions on Economic Models and Feudal Estatehood, and a hoop you could embroider upon with a pattern and needle-and-thread and the tiniest pair of silver sewing-scissors. The pattern was of calla lilies and buttercups, and the buttercups had been embroidered already. Floralinda could look out the window and see the forest spread like a nice dark green cloak upon the land: forest as far as the eye could see, unrelieved by chimneys, or houses, or canals.
The water in the flask was always cold, and the milk in the flask never curdled and always had nice fresh yellow cream on the top, the sort that one only gets as a treat when convalescing. The wheaten loaf and white were always warm, and the orange perfectly sweet, with not too much pith. The witch had really been very careful. The flasks and the loaves and the orange would renew themselves obligingly once eaten or drank. Floralinda thought it humorous to see the orange-peel zipping itself back up when the last segment was gone, and bulging out again with fruit, like a balloon-skin being breathed into.
By sunset, no prince had come to fight the diamond-encrusted