The Perilous Princess Plot Read online

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  For Eliza and Beatrice

  Chapter One

  In which there is some mud.

  Once upon a time, when the world was full of princes and princesses, knights and damsels, dragons and lady dragons, it was also full of mud.

  Squelchy, squishy, gurgling, sticky, stinky, endless, mud-colored mud.

  To the two young girls cleaning out their goat pen, it seemed as if there was an infinite supply of mud in the field behind their old tumbledown farm, which was called Old Tumbledown Farm, in their village in the middle of nowhere, which was called The Middle of Nowhere, in a forgotten corner of the kingdom, which was called The Forgotten Corner of the Kingdom, deep in the realm of Squerb.

  I said that they were both cleaning out the goat pen, but that wasn’t totally true. Eliza was inside the goat pen, shoveling the mud, while her older sister Lavender was outside the goat pen “supervising” her (if by “supervising” you mean “reading an enormous book of fairy tales, while wearing a pointy princess hat”). Occasionally, Lavender put the book down and burst into song:

  “Ooh, Prince Charming

  How handsome you are!

  With a steed so shiny

  And your hair so shiny

  And your teeth so shiny

  And your nose so shiny

  Oooooh, Prince Charming … you are a prince.”

  Inside the goat pen, Eliza gritted her teeth.

  She was used to the way her sister’s songs rhymed “prince” with “prince,” “shiny” with “shiny,” and “princess” with “bucketful of hens.” But that didn’t mean she liked it. As Lavender started on the second verse, Eliza stopped shoveling mud and stuck her spade into the ground.

  “You know, ever since you got that book of fairy tales,” she said, “you’ve been unbelievably—”

  “Princess-like?” said Lavender. “I know! When I learn French, I’m going to sing all my songs en français, and then they’ll sound even better.”

  Eliza exchanged a look of despair with Gertrude, their goat, who was sitting at the other end of the pen, quietly chewing.

  Admittedly, Eliza didn’t really know what Gertrude was thinking. But she was pretty sure they understood one another.*

  Then, for one beautiful moment, Lavender’s singing stopped.

  You could almost hear the grass growing, the sun shining, and the moles playing Snap underground.

  It didn’t last.

  “A knight!” Lavender cried, looking out across the field. “A knight upon the high road! I may faint!”

  Eliza looked up and saw a small, bald man ambling down the path toward them from the direction of their local village, The Middle of Nowhere.

  “That’s not a knight,” said Eliza. “That’s Bob.”

  “It is a knight, riding upon a steed!”

  “No, it’s Bob. Carrying some post.”

  “It is a knight,” Lavender hissed. “I’m going to faint!”

  As Bob ambled along the path past Old Tumbledown Farm, he whistled at Eliza and chucked her a scroll. And, true to her word, Lavender sighed and fell to the ground at the sight of him, as if she had just been tapped on the head by a large, invisible spoon.

  “Well?” Lavender whispered to Eliza, as she lay sprawled on the grass with her eyes firmly shut. “How would you rate my faint? Out of ten?”

  “I thought you had fainted,” said Eliza.

  “I have!” Lavender hissed back. “I’d just like some feedback, that’s all. How was the faint, overall? Out of ten? Maybe a seven? Do you think that yonder knight is in love with me?”

  Eliza looked at her sister, and then looked at Bob, who was walking away down the path, scratching his bum.

  And she knew the scroll she was holding in her hands was only going to make things worse.

  “He’s probably in love with me,” said Lavender. “I must compose him a poem, telling him how sad I am to reject his love, for I am destined to marry a prince.”

  Eliza really didn’t want to give her sister the scroll in her hands. She knew it was only going to encourage her. Perhaps if she just quietly gave it to Gertrude, Gertrude would gobble it up, and Lavender would never—

  “What’s that? Is it for me?” said Lavender, springing to her feet and plucking the scroll from Eliza’s hands. She broke the seal, and the scroll sprang open.

  “Oooh—Prince Rudolph!”

  As Eliza had predicted, it was a portrait of a prince. Lavender already had seven in her collection.

  “Lavender,” said Eliza. “Do you think you could just help me clean out the goat pen? Because after we do that, we need to feed the chickens. And then the pigs. And then we have to cut the grass…”

  But Lavender had already skipped into the house to stick the prince’s portrait to her bedroom wall. She spent the rest of the afternoon there gazing at it and daydreaming about her destiny, which was almost certainly going to feature a handsome prince.

  And Eliza spent the rest of the day working in the fields, daydreaming about her destiny. She wasn’t going to fall in love with some boring prince. She was going to battle dragons and giants. She was going to vanquish monsters and travel to distant mountains.

  And she was going to solve mysteries like: Who ate all the food in the pigpen?

  And: Is the incredibly haunted forest really incredibly haunted? Or is it just moderately haunted?

  And: What really happened to Grandpa Joe?

  Ever since that terrible day of calamity, the day which no one ever talked about, the day when Eliza and Lavender’s parents had dressed up as trees for the village festival and been accidentally eaten by a bear, Eliza and Lavender had been looked after by Grandma Maud and Grandpa Joe.

  Every day, Grandma Maud fed the pigs and the goat, and then sat in her sitting room, telling people’s fortunes, while Grandpa Joe sat next door, where he worked as a tailor, making his warm and sometimes unusual clothes. Until one day, when Grandpa Joe went out to get some milk.

  And then he came back with the milk.

  And then he went out to get some air.

  And then he came back with the air.

  And then he went out to get a paper.

  And then he never came back.

  And no one knew what had happened to him, least of all Grandma Maud. Whenever Eliza asked her, she just said, “Oh, who can say? Perhaps he fell into the Chasm of Infinite Darkness, from which no living soul has ever returned. Or perhaps he just got lost on the way to the shops. I suppose we’ll never know.”

  * * *

  As Eliza worked, she imagined her way out of The Middle of Nowhere. She imagined slicing the heads off fire-breathing dragons. She imagined bopping wild beasts on the nose and making them cry. She imagined climbing down into the Chasm of Infinite Darkness and finding her grandpa.

  And while Eliza imagined, Gertrude spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in her pen, chewing over her destiny. And who knew what that would
involve?

  Chapter Two

  In which Prince Chlknklkgkfj makes a brief appearance.

  That night, the two sisters were tucked up in bed while Grandma Maud read them a soothing bedtime story. Like many of Grandma Maud’s bedtime stories, this one began with the fact that someone called William owed her fifteen silver pieces, and ended with every single symptom of the Black Death.

  “And from that day on, he was covered in spots,” she said serenely. “And then came the lumps. And then his skin started to wither. And then he collapsed. And then his fingers fell off. And then his legs fell off. And then he died.” She smiled. “The end. Would you like another story?”

  “No thanks, Grandma,” said Eliza.

  “Wonderful!” said Grandma Maud. “How about The Tale of the Little Boy and the Very Deep Well? Or how about Young Alexandra and the Pirates Who Completely Murdered Her? Of course there’s always Lamby the Lamb and the Delicious Sunday Lunch…”

  “NO THANK YOU, Grandma,” said Eliza and Lavender.

  “Oh well. Suit yourselves,” said Grandma Maud, heaving herself out of the chair and shuffling over to the door. “Goodnight, sleep tight, and don’t let the Black Death get you in the night!”

  “We won’t!”

  “Or the Shrinking Lurgy!”

  “We won’t.”

  “Or the Incredibly Fatal Hiccups!”

  “We WON’T,” said Lavender and Eliza.

  “Or just the Fatal Hiccups. Of course, there’s nothing you can do, if they do come.”

  She shrugged, bent down to blow out the candle, and shut the door behind her.

  “Night, Lavender,” yawned Eliza, curling up under her covers.

  “Night,” said Lavender, leaping out of bed and lighting the candle again.

  Lavender gazed up at all her portraits of princes on the wall. There was:

  “Goodnight, Prince Fabian,” Lavender began. “Goodnight, Prince Arjuna…”

  “I AM TRYING TO SLEEP,” said Eliza.

  “Goodnight, Prince Alan.”

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  But Lavender carried on, right through the list.

  “And goodnight to you, Prince Rudolph the Unusual!” Lavender said finally. “I may not be able to see your face, but I still love you.”

  Eliza sat up in bed. This was too much.

  “Lavender?”

  “Yes?”

  “You do not love him. You don’t know him! You’ve never met him! You don’t even know what he looks like!” She jumped out of bed. “Nobody does! Look at that picture! He’s holding a hawk in front of his face!”

  “Well,” said Lavender, “it’s not his fault his mother was married to his uncle, who was also a horse. He is a prince, and one day I’m going to marry a prince. And—”

  “Look,” said Eliza. “You have to face it. You’re never going to be rescued by a prince. We live on a farm. We’re just ordinary people. We’re not noble ladies. Grandpa didn’t even have a coat of arms.”

  “Yes he did!” said Lavender.

  “All right,” said Eliza. “He did have a coat of arms. But that was just because his designs were … a bit … unusual. I think maybe he was ahead of his time.”

  “Not that coat of arms. This one!” Lavender ran over to the very, very dusty wooden box in the corner. It had an old coat of arms painted on it, and you could make out the words “Buckle and Squash” written across it.

  “Here we go,” said Eliza.

  “You see,” said Lavender. “We come from a noble family. Bouclay et Squash!” (Lavender pronounced Buckle “Bouclay.”) “That is our family motto. Which clearly refers to the noble family Bouclay, and the Squash, which is, of course, the vegetable of the Royal Family of Squerb.”

  Eliza folded her arms and frowned. “No it isn’t!” she said. “That’s not what Buckle and Squash means! Firstly, you don’t even know where that comes from. Secondly, our ancestors were outlaws.”

  “Outlaws?”

  “They stole from the rich and gave to the poor. Their motto was ‘Buckle and Squash,’ because that was how they fought.”

  “That makes no sense whatsoever.”

  “Of course it does. ‘Buckle’ stands for the buckle of a sword belt, obviously. And ‘Squash’ is a highly advanced fighting technique, where you defeat your enemy by sitting on top of them.”

  “Well, I think you made up that whole story.”

  “Well, I think you made up everything about the noble vegetable.”

  And so the argument went round and round and round until it became quite dizzy and had to sit down. Because the only person who knew where the coat of arms really came from was Grandpa Joe, and unfortunately there was no way of asking him.

  Or was there?

  No.

  “Even if you did come from a noble family—which you don’t,” said Eliza. “Even if you were right about the coat of arms, which you’re not, how would you even meet a prince, anyway? We live in The Middle of Nowhere. And all the princes live thousands of miles away. Look at the map!”

  She pointed to the dog-eared Map of These ’Ere Parts on the wall.

  “But we do live near the Forest of Dragons!” said Lavender. “And everyone knows that princes love dragon-hunting!”

  “But the princes all go hunting in the Forest of Scary-Looking but Surprisingly Sleepy and Stupid Dragons,” said Eliza. “We live near the Forest of Toothy, Vicious, and Flatulent Dragons, where no prince in his right mind would ever go! So no more talking about getting rescued by a prince! We’re never going to meet any princes, and THAT is the end of it.”

  “Fine,” said Lavender.

  “Fine,” said Eliza.

  “Fine,” said Lavender.

  “Fine,” said Eliza.

  “Can we stop saying ‘fine’ now?” said Eliza.

  “Fine,” said Lavender.

  So Eliza blew out the candle, curled up again, and was soon fast asleep. But Lavender lay awake, her mind buzzing like a swarm of overexcited bees who have just eaten all their own honey.

  Because Eliza had given her a brilliant idea.

  “The Forest of Toothy, Vicious, and Flatulent Dragons, where no prince in his right mind would ever go…” she had said. Which meant that a prince who was not in his right mind … might easily go there!

  Very, very quietly, Lavender snuck out of bed, picked up her book of fairy tales and her favorite pointy princess hat, peeled the map off the wall, and tiptoed from the room.

  Chapter Three

  In which the villain Mordmont is introduced.

  Early the next morning:

  We would like to apologize for the delay to this chapter, which has been caused by the villain, Mordmont, not doing anything particularly villainous at this time. All he’s doing at the moment is eating a slice of cake. He is expected to return to his usual villainy as soon as possible.

  ANNOUNCEMENT

  We would like to apologize for the further delay to this chapter. Mordmont is now having his post-breakfast nap. He’s not really doing anything very villainous at all. Unless you count snoring. And dribbling. Delays to his villainy are expected to continue throughout the day.

  Chapter Three Again

  In which Mordmont will probably still be snoring. I wouldn’t bother reading it if I were you.

  “Violet? Violetta! Breakfast time, Violy Wioly!”

  Inside the castle, Mordmont was now awake. In fact, he was more than awake, he was up and skipping like a slightly evil hare, through his bedroom, down the stairs, and into his kitchen. He had cake in his stomach, curls in his mustache, and joy in his heart.

  Today is going to be a wonderful day, he thought to himself as he flung open the kitchen window and looked out at the moat.

  “Breakfast!” he roared as he flung his dragon’s breakfast—two Scotch eggs, one Welsh egg, four pieces of ham, and three used handkerchiefs—out through the window and into the moat.

  Violet didn’t stir. Used handkerchiefs w
ere among her favorite snacks, but she wasn’t in a rush to collect her breakfast. She didn’t usually listen too hard to what Mordmont had to say. Which wasn’t surprising, since she was at least six times taller than him, 34,567 years older, infinitely more intelligent, and didn’t particularly appreciate being called “Violy Wioly.”

  “Hmmmn. No Violy Wioly this morning,” Mordmont muttered to himself as he stared down at the still surface of the water, slightly disappointed. “And none of the little Violettas either.”

  Mordmont sighed. Nothing in the world cheered him up as much as the sight of Violet’s bloodstained teeth. He cherished all the sweet things she did for him—like that enormous birthday cake that she’d set fire to and turned into a pile of ashes.

  His heart was cheered by the sight of some of her many, many dragon children, tearing around the moat and playing games like “Hide and Seek and Gobble and Crunch.”

  Bless.

  He decided to go outside to see if Violet or the rest of her brood would wake up if he chucked enough stones into the water. But as he got to the front door, he stopped short. His eyes boggled. He gasped.

  Because the letterbox was stuffed with his least favorite objects in the whole wide world. Bills.

  “Bonnet??” he shrieked. “Bonnet??? BONNET! BONNET!!”

  Mordmont was pale and quivering like a jelly in an earthquake with a magnitude of at least seven on the Richter scale by the time that Bonnet, his pudding-shaped servant, arrived panting at his side.

  “WHAT. ARE. THESE?!” Mordmont gasped, pointing at the bills with a quaking finger.

  “They’re bills, sire,” said Bonnet, stooping to pick them up. As he did so, Mordmont snatched them out of his hands and started to open them.

  “One hundred pieces of silver for a stuffed owl? Four hundred pieces of silver for a pair of solid gold shoes? Six hundred pieces of silver for a pair of gold shoes for a stuffed owl? Bonnet! WHO has been spending all this money on this USELESS RUBBISH?”