Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower - Tamsyn Muir Page 0,7
for having Ideas, even if you are a princess.
If Princess Floralinda had been the type of princess who got very still and pale when she was frightened, things would have happened differently. But she was the sort who shrieked and tried to run in three directions at once, which had exasperated everybody who had tried to teach her to keep a good seat on a horse. It was due to this, along with the Idea, that she unlocked the door and crept once again down the long steep flight of stairs to floor thirty-nine, bread-knife brandished woodenly before her, stepping over the dead goblin without much thought.
She retraced her steps to the alcove where the goblins had been eating her bread. There were no goblins there now, but there were the loaves, a little shabby but recognisable. She pulled a chunk off the white to press into her mouth immediately, but then thought better of it. Instead, Floralinda crept back to her room, crumbling bits of both the white and the wheat—just in case the goblins had a preference—to form a trail behind her, though being fresh the bread didn’t crumb very easily. Both loaves refilled themselves in her hands as she tore pieces off them, so that by the time she was back in her room they were as fresh and as whole as they had ever been; and she did not lock her door, nor did she even close it. She made a path of bread all the way to her window, then strewed more around the sill, just in case. Then she stuffed both loaves safely down the back of her armchair in an unusual access of good sense, and she hid under her bed.
The storm raged outside, and occasionally in through the window. Every so often there was a flash of lightning that lit up the whole room in hot white light, and then the answering peal of thunder to show how far away the storm was (each second counts for a mile; this is the truth, and you can check with a teacher). It did not die down after the sun set, but in fact got noisier. Floralinda’s plan came to fruition when two goblins crept into the room, very cautious, peering at their surroundings in the dark; though goblins have excellent night vision and a keen sense of smell, it was raining furiously and the fact that Floralinda had been sick earlier confused the scent. They did not seize on her beneath the bed, as they surely would have in better conditions. One goblin went to the window, conscientiously eating bread as it went: and from there she burst from her hiding-place, and pushed him out where the first two goblins had gone.
The last goblin sprang. Floralinda grappled with it, and it bit her savagely as the other goblins had, with those powerful fingers wrapping around her forearms to keep her still. But Floralinda took Monarchic Positions on Economic Models and brought it hard down on the goblin’s head. She hit it over and over, her hands bleeding with each blow, until it fell down dazed. Then she took her pillow and smothered it; and then it went the same way as its three fellows, down into the dark and the rain.
Princess Floralinda would later wonder at it. She would later be amazed at her need, and at how terrible a thing need was. It had all been dreadful; but she was beyond thought, which was also a blessing. She was running a temperature, she had re-opened all the sores on her hands, and she had her bread back. She ate of the white loaf until she was pretty sure it was sleep or be sick; so she lay down and slept as the preferable option.
And that was how Floralinda triumphed over the thirty-ninth flight. She did it all independently, with a little help from her fever, and the long-windedness of economic textbooks.
Floralinda slept for a very long time, though she had no way of measuring it. She woke to tiny sobs, each of which sounded like a delightful little bell being tinkled, or the tiniest trickle of a mountain stream.
She opened her eyes very slowly, as she also woke up to find that almost every inch of her poor body felt tremendously battered and bruised, and her hands sore beyond reckoning. It was like the day after she had learned to trot on her pony, only a thousand times worse. Floralinda did not