“That was when Mika refused to marry a Swamp Princess, Prince Wuddle’s sister,” Flumpdoria told him. “I heard Prince Wuddle wanted to marry Princess Bluebell, and she wouldn’t have him. Maybe he came here to see her.”
“He can have her,” Robin said. He kept thinking of how the Princess had treated her maid.
Then he thought of the things Tinkle had said, or had refused to say, and decided to slip away and see if he could find out what was wrong. He told Flumpdoria where he was going, and went out to the servants’ hall.
He watched the servants for a moment as they went busily to and fro, before they saw him. All the castle servants had rather anxious expressions on their faces, and kept glancing uneasily at the servants Princess Bluebell had brought with her. These were sitting in a group by themselves, doing nothing, and talking in whispers.
Away over in a corner sat the little maid, huddled away from everyone.
Then they saw him, and all the castle servants gathered around Robin and curtsied or bowed, and asked if there was anything they could do for him.
“Is anything wrong?” he asked. “Why is everyone so nervous? I want to know.”
They all looked frightened, but no one spoke.
“Meeky, you tell me,” he said impatiently.
Meeky was the head cook. She looked around as though she wanted to run away.
“I—I don’t know, Master Robin—I mean Your Highness. There is something, only we don’t know what. Things go wrong. Everybody’s on edge. You’d almost think there were goblins about.”
She looked darkly across the room. The other servants followed her gaze. They were looking at the Princess Bluebell’s servants, and particularly at the ugly little maid. She looked forlorn and frightened and sad.
“Do you think she really can’t speak?” Meeky asked.
“I don’t know,” Robin said, and walked over to where the little maid was sitting. She stood up and curtsied.
“Is anything the matter?” Robin asked kindly.
The little maid shook her head.
“Can you understand what I’m saying?”
She nodded.
“Can’t you speak?”
She shook her head again.
“Can you read and write?”
She shook her head, and Robin gave up. There was nothing to be learned from her.
He asked the Princess’s servants if they had noticed anything wrong, and they grinned and said no. Somehow Robin didn’t like them. Their words were respectful, but their manner was faintly mocking. He felt sorry for the little purple maid, but he disliked the Princess’s other servants.
He told his own servants to try not to get upset over nothing, and went back to the ballroom and danced with the Princess.
She talked vivaciously, and told him how much she was enjoying her visit, and how she hated to think of going home again.
Robin said, “Must you go home?” politely, but he couldn’t put much regret into his voice. The Princess said she didn’t have to go quite yet, and wouldn’t the Grand Ball next Thursday be a wonderful occasion, and wasn’t he looking forward to it?
Robin thought that what he was looking forward to was talking to the ambassador to the Blue Elves. He was going to tell him that he’d better use some of his diplomacy and get Princess Bluebell to go back where she came from.
He was glad when the dance was over and another partner claimed the Princess. Somehow he just didn’t like to dance with her. He didn’t like to take her hand. She made him feel creepy.
Oh, well, it was probably his imagination.
He went outdoors, and walked in the garden, and talked to the fairies. They always came and looked on whenever there was a party. They were the fairies who took care of the little animals in the woods, and the fairies who opened the buds of the flowers, and the elves who made boots and beautiful clothes for the royal family.
They crowded around him, the little things, and told him how glad they were to see him, and asked when Meira was coming home. They asked him if he needed a new pair of boots, and if he’d like to see some very new rabbits.
With the fairies fluttering about him or perched on his shoulders, he walked a little way up the mountain into the woods, just to take a peek at the very new rabbits.
After a little while he turned and started back toward the castle. When he came to it he stopped and gazed a moment.
It stood, a huge pile of stone, black against the sky. Robin had seen his home thus many times before, but tonight it made him feel uneasy.
The castle seemed grim and forbidding, sad and menacing at the same time, as though something hid there, watching.
“What is it?” Robin said at last, softly. “Do you know what it is?”
The fairies fluttered about and whispered, “No. We don’t know … we don’t know…”
Robin hurried back to the castle and came into the ballroom. The guests were beginning to leave rather early. Usually they danced until dawn. But after the first guest had made his farewells, the others followed quickly. They seemed glad to go.
Flumpdoria was the last to leave. “Good night,” she said, and paused. She stood a moment in thoughtful silence. “If you need me…” she began, and stopped again. “Maybe it’s my imagination…”
“No, it isn’t,” Robin said.
“You felt it too?” Mika asked. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but…”
“Well, you call me if you want to,” Flumpdoria said. “I really have some important work to do, or I’d stay and see what all this is about.”
After she had gone, Mika went upstairs with Gloria.
“It wasn’t a very good party, was it?” he said.
“No,” Gloria said. “Everybody’s so jumpy, and Robin goes around looking just the way I feel. I’m afraid the poor boy thinks we want him to marry that dreadful princess.”
“No, he doesn’t. I told him so. Everyone seems to think that little purple maid is causing the trouble, although I must say she seems harmless enough to me. Now, go to sleep, Gloria.”
In the meantime, Robin had gone to his room, and was sitting on the wide stone window sill looking out into the garden. The castle had become quiet, and everyone was asleep.
Then he saw something in the garden. The moon was bright, and two people were there, walking about and talking. They stayed in the shadows of the trees most of the time, but once they walked through a patch of bright moonlight, and he saw that they were the Princess Bluebell and Wuddle, the Swamp Prince.
“I wonder what they’re talking about so late at night?” he thought.
In a few minutes they parted. Prince Wuddle slipped silently away, and the Princess came back to the castle. Robin continued to sit by the window for a long time, thinking.
Maybe there was some danger. Living so near the goblin country, it was possible, though they had never had any trouble with them before. He decided to look through the castle. He went downstairs and spoke to the guard at the main door.
“Look around,” Robin said. “I think there may be goblins about. I’m not sure, but see if you can find anything suspicious.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” the guard said. “But I don’t see how any goblins could get in.”
Robin prowled through the castle, gloomy in the night. Once he thought he heard a noise, but it wasn’t repeated. Still he felt uneasy, and couldn’t help wondering what the Princess Bluebell had been doing, slipping out to talk to the Swamp Prince in the middle of the night.
Suddenly he decided what he was going to do. He ran downstairs and out of the castle, going quickly to the magic rock, the same one that Gloria had sat on when she first came to the enchanted valley, while she waited for Mika to come back from Fairyland.
Robin stood with his hand on the rock, and said the magic spell beginning: “Ebbledum, wex, gomple be-doop…” and so on.
Immediately he found himself transported within the borders of Fairyland. Hurriedly he made his way to Flumpdoria’s house. She
was astonished to see him in the middle of the night, but roused herself quickly to hear what he had to say. They talked a long time, and then Flumpdoria said,
“I’ll do what I can, boy. But Glauz is in his yearly trance and it’s impossible to wake him. Goblin dust is very hard to make, you know. There are only a few grains in the kingdom. I can’t possibly get you any before the night of the Grand Ball.”
“I’ll just hope that that will be in time,” Robin said. “Of course, I may be all wrong, but I’ll depend on you for Thursday, anyway. Goodbye, and thanks tremendously.”
He hurried away, and was in the castle and in his room again before anyone waked up.
He was glad he had consulted his godmother. (Flumpdoria was his godmother, too.) He would feel safer with some goblin dust in the house. One grain of it on goblins’ skin is so painful that they become frantic, and cannot do anything until they have covered themselves with butter; and goblins have very little butter. But goblin dust is made only by the finest magicians and is very scarce. It was an unhandy time for Glauz to be in his yearly trance.
The next day Mika and Gloria were puzzled, because while everyone else was depressed and gloomy—except the Princess—Robin seemed almost cheerful.
And he was very attentive to the Princess Bluebell.
“I can’t understand it,” Gloria said. “Do you think he’s falling in love with her after all?”
“I hardly think so,” Mika said.
Mika didn’t get a chance to ask him, though, because Robin was always with the Princess Bluebell. He was with her every moment of the day, and danced with her constantly that night after dinner.
The Princess seemed to like this very much, and told Gloria how handsome her son was, and how she liked staying at the castle with them.
“I could hardly be polite,” Gloria told Mika later. “I usually like everyone, but I wish Robin wouldn’t stay with her so much.”
“He’s up to something,” Mika said.
10
ROBIN STIRS UP TROUBLE
Thursday, the day of the Grand Ball, the Princess Bluebell stayed in her rooms all day, trying on gowns for the ball. She said she just couldn’t decide what to wear.
The little purple maid could be seen frequently, all day long, running upstairs and downstairs in a great hurry, on errands for her mistress.
At last the time for the great occasion arrived, and all the guests were assembling in the great ballroom. Mika came in with the guest of honor, Princess Bluebell, on his arm, and Gloria came in with her son Robin.
The Princess’s gown was the blue of the sea, with changing lights in it, and decorated with tiny pearls, and crystals from the Blue Crystal Caves of Blue Elfland.
Gloria was clothed all in clinging white, and her golden hair shone like the sun. A girdle of purple flowers was about her waist, and a circlet of flowers in her hair.
This Grand Ball was a great occasion. It was given once a year at the castle. All the royal families of all the fairy kingdoms were invited, and the people of their courts. The Fire Fairies were there, the Blue Elves, the River Fairies, the Snow Fairies, the Flower Fairies, and many others. The Swamp Fairies were invited, too, although no one wanted them very much. They looked disagreeable and never seemed to be enjoying themselves, but they always came. There were so many guests that the great ballroom could hardly hold them, and the whole first floor of the castle was thrown open.
Intricate dances were performed, with names like the Royal Circle, Stars in Iceland, Twilight Minuet, and many others.
Before the dancing began, however, everyone walked about and watched the new arrivals as they were announced by the heralds with their silver trumpets.
Robin sought out the ambassador to Blue Elfland, whose name was Zeret, and after the usual polite greetings, he said:
“Is the Princess Bluebell your choice of all the princesses in Fairyland?”
“I—er—Your Highness,” Zeret said, looking worried, and then stopped. “She—she doesn’t seem…” He stopped again.
“Doesn’t seem what?”
“She doesn’t seem the same. She looks just the same. I can’t tell how she’s different, but she is.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look at her father and mother,” said Zeret. “Look at all the people from the court of the Blue Elves.”
Robin looked, and saw that the King and Queen of the Blue Elves and all the people from Blue Elfland were standing together, looking in the same direction, just standing there, instead of mingling with the other guests. They were gazing at the Princess Bluebell, who was walking about the room with Mika.
And on the face of every one of them Robin saw the same expression of doubt and puzzlement.
“Her own people,” Zeret was saying. “They notice it. I tell you she’s changed. I don’t know how, but she is.”
“I see,” said Robin. “Don’t worry.” He turned away and wandered through the crowd of guests, trying to behave as he was expected to, and looking toward the door every few minutes.
Why didn’t Flumpdoria come? She was very late. Then he heard the trumpets of the heralds, and his godmother was announced.
Robin hardly gave her time to greet all the kings and queens and say the polite things she was supposed to say. At last she excused herself, and Robin grasped her arm.
“Flumpy!” he said, leading her away from the ballroom to a quiet spot where they could talk. “Did you…?”
“Yes, yes, child. Stop pulling at me. I look bad enough already. I had to hurry so to get here. Here. If you knew the trouble I had getting this…”
“Thanks so much,” Robin interrupted her. “What’s the first dance? The Royal Circle?”
“Yes.” Flumpdoria handed him a queer-looking ring with a large green stone in it. He slipped it on his finger.
“I’m going to do it then. Be watching, Flumpy. Things are likely to happen.”
“I should say so. Well, go on, child, and get it over with.”
Robin came back into the great ballroom just as the Royal Circle was announced.
The Princess Bluebell was his partner, and he went and took her hand as the beautiful and unearthly music of the fairy orchestra began. They danced and turned and whirled, and as the dance went on Robin became so nervous that he almost forgot one of the steps. “There’s no use putting it off,” he said to himself. “I must do it now.”
The partners dropped hands and turned about slowly. As he turned away from the Princess, Robin pressed a catch in the ring, and the top of the green stone opened. He took something out of the ring quickly and snapped it shut again, as he turned back toward the Princess.
The partners all joined hands again, and as he touched the hand of the Princess Bluebell, Robin dropped a tiny grain of sand into it.
Immediately there was a tremendous flash of red light and the most awful screams. Robin was blinded for a moment by the bright light, and when he could see again, the Princess Bluebell had disappeared.
Dancers stopped dancing and rushed about, calling to each other, wanting to know what the matter was.
And all the time terrible screams were going on, louder and louder, and a frantic, ugly, horrible green creature ran and shoved and pushed at the crowd of guests, trying to get out.
“Butter! Butter! BUTTER!” it screamed. “Eeeeee! Oooooh! Butter! Butter!”
The guests stepped aside quickly to let it through, and it ran out of the room, still screaming, and out of the castle, screaming, screaming, and everyone stood still and listened as the awful sounds died away in the distance, becoming fainter and fainter until they could be heard no more.
Then a long, shuddering, whispered sigh went up from all the dancers, and from all the castle. Everything was quite still, until Gloria said in a whisper, “Where did that come from?”
“That,” said Robin, wiping his brow with a handkerchief, made of the finest cobwebs, “was the Princess Bluebell.”
Then everyone started talking at
once, and the ones who had been too far away to see anything were asking what had happened. Robin explained to the ones nearest him, and they told the ones next to them, and in a few minutes the entire company knew that Robin had put a grain of goblin dust in the Princess Bluebell’s hand, and that she had turned into a goblin!
Robin was standing near the door into the hall where the stair was, which led to the upper stories. He happened to glance out into the hall, and saw—a goblin!
Then another slipped past the door, and another! At the same time there was a frightful uproar from the servants’ hall, shouts and cries and sounds of running feet.
“What’s that?” Mika cried, and rushed to see what was the matter, the guests crowding after him. Robin started to go too, and then stopped. Where had those goblins in the hall come from? How could they have got into the castle?
He ran out into the hall. There, a dozen or more goblins were running toward the servants’ hall, where the noise of fighting was growing louder and louder.
He ran toward them. They seemed to be coming from a small room halfway down the hall, a room that wasn’t used very much. Knocking goblins aside he rushed into this room, and saw that a window was open, and goblins were pouring in through it. He rushed over to the window, saying the spell that had been put on all the windows in the castle, the spell that kept goblins from ever coming in whether the windows were open or shut. Someone was taking the spells off the windows.
He heard a sound in a room adjoining and ran in there. And there was the Swamp Prince, Wuddle! He was waving a wand in front of a window, saying an incantation and removing the invisible barrier that had kept the inhabitants of the castle safe for so many years!
Robin ran and grasped his arm before he could finish the disenchantment, but just then a goblin ran up and attacked him, almost making him lose his balance, and Prince Wuddle was very damp and slippery. He gave a sudden jerk and wrenched himself away, running out of the room, with Robin behind him.
He simply had to stop him. If the castle should be overcome by the goblin hordes, the disaster would be awful. All the kings of all the fairy kingdoms were there, and if these should all be captured, all Fairyland might be overthrown completely.
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