Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower - Tamsyn Muir Page 0,24

good. Fairies are only ever nearly good when they are happy.

The first shafts of moonlight fell on Cobweb, and it was even prettier to see the fairy bathe in that light of Diana like you or I would bathe in hot water. It fell on her in streams and rivulets—real streams and real rivulets; she cupped her hands up and Floralinda could see the moon-beam pool in them, thick and glistening as liquid pearl. She splashed her face with it daintily, and from her back, her ripped-up wings mended back up and shone with all the colours of the rainbow, until it seemed that Cobweb was gowned in moonlight and made of it all at once.

It was at this point that Floralinda rose and hit her with the pillow.

Floralinda smashed it down over Cobweb in the exact way you’d hit a spider; it was a soft pillow, so Cobweb didn’t go splat, but it was heavy, being filled with those feathers that Floralinda so hated. It stunned the fairy senseless, and then the next thing she knew was that she had been grasped right in the princess’s bite-scarred hands: not to the point where she was crushed, but firmly enough that she was frightened. And in the next moment, a loop of heavy gold came down around Cobweb’s neck; and the moment after that—snap!

For Floralinda had latched her golden necklace with the locket on Cobweb, only taken the locket off first; and she had fixed all her rings to the end, so that it was the neatest little ball-and-chain you had ever seen. It would have been impossible to fly carrying such a weight. All the rings together were very heavy, and the latch, as generations of princesses before Floralinda had learned, was a nightmare to work. You had to really squeeze it with your thumb. Cobweb’s little fairy fingers would never have had a chance.

“I won’t let you go,” panted Floralinda. “I can’t let you go; not until I’m all the way down to the bottom. I’ll let you go once I’m there, but I can’t let you go before. I need you, Cobweb; I’m not clever, and you are; I don’t want to die, and I don’t know what to do, and you’ve got to tell me.”

The bottom-of-the-garden fairy looked at the fine gold chain leading away from the latch, which was terribly heavy on her chest; and at the rings, and then at Floralinda, with her obstinate un-princesslike mouth, and big lovely blue eyes, and golden hair that had quite stopped curling long ago.

“This was really the cleverest thing you could have done,” said Cobweb, and burst into tears.

You may have felt very sorry for Cobweb when she was taken prisoner, and indeed Princess Floralinda had done something really quite evil. It is a sin to capture a fairy, or any wild winged thing, and keep it against its will; but you can at least be sure that Floralinda did not hear the end of it. Cobweb ranted and complained, and cajoled and threatened and cursed, and had Floralinda in tears three times daily; but Floralinda was inflexible, which should have told Cobweb something important. Princesses are very rarely inflexible.

When Cobweb had exhausted her raging, she said to Floralinda—

“If you insist on this, you must do everything I say.”

The princess said resolutely, “I will.”

“You must keep your promise, and let me go when it is all over.”

The princess said resolutely, “I shall.”

“You must figure out a way so that if you die, I can escape,” said Cobweb, but Floralinda said, in a crestfallen manner—

“I’m afraid I couldn’t think of a way to do that, and in any case I thought that wasn’t very smart, because then you might tell me to do something that would kill me on purpose, and get away thereby.”

“That is exactly what I planned on doing,” cried Cobweb in anger; “that’s really too bad; I can’t stand you getting clever now,” and was so cross that Floralinda was obliged to wait for half an hour to continue the conversation.

After which Cobweb said—

“You’re a weakling; you’re an absolute fright; if you’re going to be clever, you might as well be strong. I want you to do calisthenics and stretches, and to squeeze india-rubber balls with your hands.”

Floralinda hated this idea, but she said, meekly—

“Yes, Cobweb.”

It was just as though they were married, though of course most marriages don’t involve one party being knocked out before the rings are put on. I wish I could