OW.
After Eliza’s head stopped spinning, she and Gertrude picked themselves up and began to step across the stones that helpfully stretched across the moat.
Hmmmn, thought Eliza as she hopped onto the first stone. The bump on my head must have confused my brain. I’m sure these stepping stones were in a different place a minute ago. It almost feels like they’re moving under us. And they do seem quite spiky, for stones.
But she kept hopping from one stone to the next as Gertrude reluctantly followed her. Gertrude didn’t like water at the best of times. But she particularly didn’t like unknown water in the dark. Her hoofs trembled as she jumped across the stones.
Then, just as they were about to step off the last stone and onto the bank, the stone underneath them slid sideways through the water. And opened its eyes.
“Ayyee!” shouted Eliza as quietly as she could, which was not quietly at all. “It’s alive! Jump!”
The stepping-stone-with-eyes was now rushing through the moat at quite a pace. Gertrude’s eyes were as big as saucers. Her teeth chattered. Her hair stood on end. Eliza leaped, and then Gertrude shut her eyes, and with a terrified bleat she jumped high into the air.
Phew!
They made it by a whisker and landed on the bank in the most elegant manner possible, which was in a tangled heap.
This time, Eliza landed on Gertrude’s head. Which sort of evened things out a bit.
“Oh,” said Eliza. “Look at that.” As she looked back, she noticed that all the stepping stones were moving rapidly through the water. And each one had a pair of brightly glowing, violet eyes.
“Gertrude,” she hissed. “I think it might be time to leave.”
And she started striding back toward the forest, with the trembling Gertrude running along behind her.
“That is it!” said Eliza as they stomped through the forest. “Not only does Lavender not allow us to rescue her, she also doesn’t warn us at all about the incredibly dangerous creatures in the moat! No ‘Oh, you might want to look out because the stepping stones are alive.’ No ‘Oh, by the way, mind the MONSTERS ON YOUR WAY OUT!’”
“Hrumph,” sighed Gertrude, who was still trembling from nose to hoof.
“Well, if she doesn’t want to be rescued, she’s not going to be rescued!” Eliza said. “That’s FINE with me. I don’t need to risk my life breaking into castles and escaping monsters! She can just stay in her prison cell and talk to spiders, and I DON’T CARE.”
“Hrumph,” Gertrude said again, apparently in agreement. But before they got very far, Gertrude stopped. And began to munch on some dandelions.
“Gertrude? Come on! We’re going home!”
At this, Gertrude sat down. The trip across the moat had terrified her to the bottom of her goaty soul, and she hadn’t had as much as a paper bag to eat for hours. When she saw the dandelions, she decided that was it. She wasn’t going to move another inch.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that!” said Eliza. “Lavender’s just going to have to stay there. I’m going home. On my own. I’m going to look after the whole farm, on my own. And I’m going to listen to Grandma Maud’s stories about the Black Death ON MY OWN. Come on. Let’s go.”
Gertrude didn’t move.
“Come on!” said Eliza.
These dandelions, Gertrude was discovering, were much tastier than the dandelions around Old Tumbledown Farm.
“Well, what am I supposed to do now … just stand around waiting for my sister to realize she’s trapped?”
“Harrkkkkh,” croaked Gertrude.
“Or I suppose I could just find a thousand silver pieces and hand over the ransom?”
“Krrr,” Gertrude replied.
“Wait,” said Eliza. “So, what you’re saying is…”
“Chhhhrrrrrrr,” rasped Gertrude. (She had a bit of dandelion leaf stuck in her throat.)
“And then, if I…”
“Kaaaarrrrrr,” said Gertrude. The leaf really was stuck.
“And then I…”
“Errrr…”
Gertrude was now properly choking, not that Eliza had noticed.
“That’s it! I could—just maybe…”
“Haaaakkkaaaaaaar!” wheezed Gertrude, toppling over onto her side and slowly turning blue.
“A brilliant plan!”
“Krruuugghhhh!” went Gertrude, desperately trying to breathe.
“I just need a disguise!”
“Yarghhhhhk!” rasped Gertrude, finally coughing up the leaf.
“Yes!” said Eliza. “Gertrude, you are brilliant.” She gave Gertrude a friendly pat. “That’s exactly what I’ll do!”
Chapter Seventeen
In which there is giddiness.
The next morning, Lavender was skipping around her tiny cell. Today was THE DAY! She could feel it in her bones. Today they were going to share True Love’s First Kiss. She had brushed her hair. She had put on her pointy princess hat. She had dabbed flour on her face and stuck on one of her beauty spots.
She was ready.
When Mordmont strode into the cell, Lavender leaped up to greet him.
“My little prisoner,” Mordmont said. “You’re looking very … happy this morning.”
“How could I not be happy?” said Lavender, swaying from side to side. She felt almost giddy with joy. “Soon I hope I will be able to bring you the greatest happiness.”
“Very generous of you to see it like that. Of course, my happiness is the most important thing,” Mordmont replied.
“It is to me,” said Lavender. She sighed and gazed at the beast before her. She looked at that horrible mustache, drooping beneath Mordmont’s nose like a soggy weasel’s tail. And at his yellow teeth … and his straggly swamp of a beard … and his horrible warts … And she thought of the terrible curse that had transformed him into this hideous beast, and her heart went out to him. (Not literally. That would be disgusting.)
“I have one small favor to ask of you,” he said.
“Anything,” said Lavender.
“Please shut your eyes,” said Mordmont.
Shut my eyes? This is the moment! Lavender thought. The moment I’ve been waiting for. True Love’s First Kiss!
So she shut her eyes. And waited. And heard a snip. And then heard the door clang shut.
When she opened her eyes, the room was empty.
Poor Mordmont. How shy he is! Lavender thought. And then, looking down, she saw some strands of her hair glinting on the floor and realized what had happened.
He has taken a lock of my hair for safekeeping! How romantic! She sighed.
Meanwhile, Mordmont skipped down the steps feeling very pleased with himself. Take one lock of her hair, he thought, and send it to the House of Ummer as a dreadful warning. That should get the ransom on its way soon enough.
For the rest of the day, Lavender waited patiently for True Love’s First Kiss.
She waited.
And waited.
And waited.
It was evening before Mordmont returned. This time Lavender was sure that he was about to kiss her, because he kept saying romantic things like “When I get my hands on the ransom, I’m going to get some incredible gold trousers,” and “I’ll be so rich, no woman will be able to resist me,” and “I do hope that athlete’s foot hasn’t come back again.”
Lavender smiled at her prince. How shy he was! How sweetly he tried to declare his love for her. In fact, she was pretty sure he was about to kiss her—because now he was picking something long and green out of his teeth—when Bonnet burst into the room, waving a piece of parchment in the air.
“For you, sire!” he said. “It’s worked! It’s coming!”
Mordmont grabbed it, and feverishly read it out loud:
For a moment, Mordmont froze. Then he leaped into the air.
“It’s happening!” he shouted. “It’s truly happening! Bonnet, I could kiss you!”
“Please don’t, sire,” said Bonnet.
“
Fine, I’ll kiss you instead,” he said, turning to Lavender. And so Lavender was completely taken aback and unprepared for Mordmont to plant …
True Love’s First Kiss!
on her cheek. But he did. When she opened her eyes again, that haddocky smell would be gone! Those whiskers would have disappeared! The soggy mustache would vanish forever! The yellow teeth would disappear! The swampy beard would be gone for good!
Lavender could feel the cold wetness of Mordmont’s lips. And the prickliness of his mustache. But in another moment, Mordmont the Beast would be gone, and in his place would be the lovely, handsome, perfect prince of her dreams.
There was a crash. There was a bang.
That was just Bonnet, tripping over himself as he fell backward down the stairs.
“Don’t you just love it when a plan comes together?” said a voice. “I am going to look so incredible in those gold trousers. Of course, there are bills to pay. But I really do need more trousers. I wonder how many princesses there are in this kingdom?”
Lavender opened her eyes and saw …
Mordmont.
With the same horrible mustache and beard.
The same revolting warts.
The same pink dressing gown.
The same unfortunate yellow trousers.
The same unfortunate yellow teeth.
The same haddocky breath.
Mordmont sighed and looked at her.
“It’s as if all my dreams have come true!” he said, grinning at her.
“And it’s as if mine … haven’t,” said Lavender.
“Well, no, of course not. But I mean, who really cares about you? Not to be rude or anything. But this is the Tale of the Dread Villain Mordmont, and his Rise to Become the Most Dreadful Villain in the Kingdom.* You’re not exactly a significant character.**”
With that, he skipped out of the cell, slamming the door behind him.
Lavender slumped to the floor.
“What a horrible mess,” she said, to nobody in particular. “I would really like to go home now, please.”
I’m all alone, she thought. And, as if to prove her wrong, Graham the Footman—or, to use his more usual name, “a spider”—crawled all the way up her leg. Which did not make Lavender feel better. At all.
Chapter Eighteen
Which is bathed in a silvery light.
As the clock struck midnight, the moon shone a silvery light over the castle and its surroundings. Clouds raced across the sky, and one of them won and was given a medal. As Mordmont lowered the drawbridge, a dark, shadowy figure appeared at the other end of it, seated on the back of a noble steed.
“He’s here,” whispered Bonnet. “The squire from the House of Ummer!”
“Greetings, Squire!” Mordmont called into the darkness as he stepped onto the drawbridge, with Lavender by his side. “I am Mordmont! Hand over the ransom, or I’ll throw you in the moat and you will be at the mercy of my moat-dragons!”
This was greeted with silence.
“Come on. Be quick about it! Clive, fetch the ransom!”
But as Clive started to pound his way across the drawbridge, the shadowy figure said, “Come no farther! First, the princess must be freed.”
“Not until we’ve seen the silver,” Mordmont called back. “Just hand over the ransom, and Bob’s your uncle.”
“Bob’s not my uncle,” the squire replied. “He’s my third cousin.”
Lavender looked into the darkness and wondered who the mysterious figure could be. Was this, perhaps, her true prince?
“The ransom is in this sack,” the squire called, holding up a large, bulging sack. “Look!”
The squire flicked a coin through the air, which bounced near Mordmont’s feet and plopped into the moat.
“Sorry,” called the squire. “I’ll just try that again.”
A second silver coin came skittering along the drawbridge, and rolled most of the way to Mordmont’s feet before it dropped off the edge and into the moat.
“Sorry!” said the squire again. “Listen, I can promise you this—the ransom is genuine. As genuine as my own beard. It is every bit as real as the House of Ummer—on that you have my word.”
“What word?” asked Mordmont.
“What?”
“What word?” asked Mordmont again.
“Um … ‘geranium’?” said the squire.
“I accept,” said Mordmont, who was so pleased about getting the ransom he probably would have accepted almost any word, even quite a boring one like “spade.”
“Princess Fahalahalahalaha,” Mordmont announced, “you are free to go.”
So Lavender started to walk across the drawbridge toward the mysterious squire, while the mysterious squire got down from his steed and began to walk toward Lavender, holding out the bulging sack.
Unfortunately, the squire was not to stay shadowy or mysterious for long. For, as he came closer, the wind whistled by and whipped off the squire’s beard.
“Yarghhhh!” the squire shouted as the beard, which was made of wool, blew away in a gust of wind.
As the squire reached out to catch it, he dropped the sack, which split and sent silver coins rolling everywhere.
“The ransom!” shrieked Mordmont. “Quick! Bonnet! Clive!”
Mordmont raced after the coins as they went rolling and skipping and flying off the drawbridge in all directions. He picked up as many as he could, stuffing them into his pockets … and then suddenly he stopped, and looked at the coin in his hand. All right, it looked silvery, in the silvery light of the moon. But it wasn’t, in fact, a coin. It was a pebble.
And so were all the others. His very own pebbles.
“My family pile! You stole my family pile!” Mordmont seethed.
Then, looking up, he gasped.
Lavender gasped too.
Bonnet wheezed.
Clive grunted.
Because, without his beard, the squire wasn’t a squire at all.
“You came back!” Lavender shouted to Eliza.
“Came back?!” shrieked Mordmont.
“I’m sorry!” Lavender was shouting. “What do I do?”
Uh-oh, thought Eliza. She hadn’t planned this bit. “Run!” she yelled.
So Eliza and Lavender began to run across the drawbridge, toward Gertrude, who was standing on the bank with hope in her eyes and a dandelion in her mouth. But, before they reached the end of the drawbridge, Clive reached the pulley, and the drawbridge started swinging up into the air.
As Eliza and Lavender scrambled to the edge, they found themselves high above the murky, stinking waters of the moat, where strange shapes swirled back and forth below the surface.
“I think this is the bit where we, er … jump.”
“We jump?” said Lavender. “I can’t jump!”
“We have to,” said Eliza. “We have to swim for it.”
“I can’t!” said Lavender. “It’s too high.”
“Listen, take my hand. One, two, thr—”
But before they could jump anywhere, Clive gave one final tremendous pull on the pulley, and the drawbridge went swinging upward with such force that they were thrown backward through the air.
Whumph! They landed on the ground as the drawbridge shut with a horrible thud.
“Got you!” said a deep, gravelly voice.
And Lavender was once more gazing fuzzily up into the face of Clive. Except that this time she knew that he was definitely not her rescuer.
“What a horrible mess,” Lavender said, because she could see that they were now in even more trouble than before. And because she could see all the way up Clive’s nose.
Chapter Nineteen
In which Graham takes a holiday.
Before long, Eliza and Lavender were sitting back in the cell, which looked gloomier and more frightening than ever.
“Now, my little princesses, don’t even think about trying to escape this time,” said Mordmont, poking his head through the bars and grinning at them
.
“We’re not princesses,” said Eliza.
“And don’t even think about pretending not to be princesses,” Mordmont replied. “Two sisters. Two princesses. Two thousand silver pieces! It couldn’t have worked out better. Soon I’ll have more money than brains!”
“Soon?” muttered Eliza.
“One little letter to the House of Ummer, and two thousand silver pieces will soon be mine!” Mordmont went on. “Do you have any more sisters?”
“No,” said Eliza. “And we’re really not princesses. We live on a farm—”
“Yes, yes, with a goat called Gertrude—as if anyone would ever believe that,” said Mordmont. “But I know that you are Princess Fahalahalahalaha, and Princess—”
“Trahelehelehelehe,” said Eliza sarcastically.
“Ha! Caught you off-guard there. Princess Fahalahalahalaha and Princess Trahelehelehelehe, from the House of Ummer. Do you have any brothers?”
“Oh yes. Prince Troholoholoholoho,” said Eliza.
“Prince Troholoholoholoho. Very interesting,” said Mordmont. “Now, if you’re planning to escape, I would just take a moment to consider the lilies. And Violet. Both of which are highly dangerous. Both of which are in the moat.”
“Violet?” said Eliza. “The color violet?”
“Violet, my moat-dragon. And all her many children. I’ve put her on a strict diet.* So she is ravenously hungry. If you want to try and escape across the moat, go ahead.”
And with that, Mordmont was gone. He went tripping down the stairs, thinking about how he was going to spend two thousand pieces of silver. Of course, it didn’t need to stop there. This is only the beginning! Mordmont thought. This could be the making of me. I’ve found my vocation. Kidnapper extraordinaire. Soon, he was so excited that he began to sing.
“I’ll have hundreds of princesses,
Each one will have her nook,
I’ll borrow her and give her back
Just like a library book.
And ‘happily ever after’
Will live everybodeeeeee
If by everybody you mean … me!
The Perilous Princess Plot Page 5