did not know how to practice ‘Duck’, even if Cobweb sat flinging sparrow-bones at her.
The feathered serpent on flight thirty-one was what caused Cobweb to try to teach Floralinda ‘Duck’, for the feathered serpent could really fly (or at least glide from perch to perch, before it hung there and spat poison directly into one’s eyes at an alarming length, far farther than you or I could spit a cherry-stone). It flew right at Floralinda first thing, and Cobweb shouted, “Duck!” and Floralinda panicked and thrust her spear forward instead; and the serpent’s feathered tail struck her in the face, and she fell flat backwards. The feathered serpent wound itself around its perch, and directed a perfect stream of venom where Floralinda’s eyes had been, but weren’t any more, owing to her being flat on the ground. She had fallen over her spear, and thankfully had not fallen on Cobweb, who had the presence of mind to cling rather painfully to her neck. Floralinda watched as a beautiful puff of serpent-venom went overhead, right until Cobweb threw herself over her face, in case there were stray drops.
The feathered serpent couldn’t spit again in a hurry, so Cobweb urged Floralinda to her feet, and there was an awkward moment where Floralinda forgot how to thrust the spear, and battered the serpent with it instead, which did more damage to the spear than to the serpent. Then the serpent coiled around the point of the spear, and on Cobweb’s direction, Floralinda drove the spear into the wall. It is hard to say what killed the serpent, the blow or the venom, but either way it was dead.
And all Floralinda got was a rather startling black eye, which Cobweb told her to rest the flask of milk on, until it was less swollen.
Princess Floralinda had replaced all her anxiety with jubilation. It made perfect sense to her that she had done a terrible thing that felt awful, which had been what she had done to Cobweb, but that she had been rewarded for it by everything being comfortable afterwards; it is the seduction of doing the one very difficult thing, and feeling as though the difficulty and suffering meant that you were done—you had completed it—whatever it was, you did not have to do it again. This is how many people think about cleaning the house.
It was not as though life was perfect for Floralinda. Cobweb demanded she chop up the salamanders once they had cooled down, to get useful things from their insides: for salamanders have very thick, hard arteries and veins, to protect their organs from how hot the oxygenated blood is inside them, and Cobweb wanted these for her own purposes. Indeed Cobweb got quite silly with excitement over them, and over finding that the pouches of stuff inside each salamander were still filled with the things they secrete to keep their tongues both fiery and moist. Floralinda was set to scraping salamander tongues for a whole morning, and she had to do it without a word of complaint.
Floralinda was very obedient when it came to the fairy about most everything—except, that is, for the things that Cobweb really wanted; so she was often dirty and sore, seeing liquids that no princess ought to ever see, and the dreadful nudities of creatures without their skin on.
But she let herself indulge in wild flights of fancy about being back home for Christmas, and being made a fuss of, and seeing her mother and father, and everybody saying how brave she had been, and none of the parents of the twenty-four princes blaming her one bit,—which is how you can tell that Floralinda still didn’t have much imagination.
(The witch had been in an aquatic phase, as you shall see.)
It was on flight twenty-nine that Princess Floralinda came to grief. Six flights without any more incident than a black eye and a spear that wanted re-sharpening is too much to expect from a princess and a bottom-of-the-garden fairy. Anticipating misfortune had been so much on Cobweb’s mind that she was almost suffering from the lack of it; when Floralinda got hurt, it was almost a relief to her mind to find out what the trouble would be. It is safe to say that a part of Cobweb was also relieved that Floralinda was hurt, as she hated her; but she was unhappy that Floralinda was hurt, because her life depended on Floralinda; and she was happy that Floralinda was hurt, because Floralinda frightened