The Princess Rules

by Philippa Gregory

  Florizella took him firmly by his soft ear, led him to the kennels and shut him up for the night.

  The next day she took him back to the Purple Forest again.

  She didn’t cry when she went to sleep that night. She was hoping he would be all right … but she was hoping a lot more that she’d seen the last of him.

  But that night, at about midnight: ‘Ki-yi-yi-yi-yi!’ The next day she took him away again!

  Five times Florizella took the wolf cub back to the Purple Forest. Five times he found his way home along the moonlit paths to sit under Florizella’s window and howl: ‘Ki-yi-yi-yi-yi!’

  On the sixth day, Florizella gave up. She sent a message to the Land of the Deep Lakes for Prince Bennett to come and tell her what she could do about the wolf cub who wouldn’t go home.

  When he arrived, Prince Bennett had A Plan.

  It was a really great plan with deception and hair dye.

  He took Florizella to Mrs Fitzherbert’s shop, which sold useful white-magic spells and speciality teas. Bennett looked carefully along the shelves and showed Florizellaa box.

  It read:

  ‘What do we do with that?’ Florizella asked.

  ‘We transform him,’ Bennett said mysteriously.

  As soon as they got back to the palace, they caught Samson – who thought it was all a new and exciting game – and washed him thoroughly. Then they smeared the dye all over him and left it on for half an hour. When they rinsed him clean, his coat was as golden as the royal crowns. They had left the dye on his tail a little bit too long – it was slightly green – but they thought no one would notice. They cleaned his teeth. They brushed him well. They even put a pink bow round his neck with a label that read:

  ‘Ewww!’ said Florizella.

  Even Bennett thought that might be going a bit far. But they agreed that nothing that might help with Samson’s transformation from wolf into lapdog should be left out.

  When he was looking as sweet and as tame as could be, they took him to the king and told him that they’d found this golden puppy and could Florizella possibly keep him?

  The king said yes.

  The king said it looked like a well-bred dog to him.

  The king said it might make a very useful guard dog around the palace.

  Florizella gulped down all the lies, and smiled and said, ‘Thank you,’ and hoped for the best.

  To Florizella’s surprise, Samson the wolf cub settled down very well to being a palace guard dog, and nobody ever thought that he’d had anything to do with the wolves.

  He even learned to bark during the day, and though he would howl when there was a full moon, the king slept heavily at nights and did not hear him.

  During the day, Samson would follow the king everywhere, sitting under the breakfast table, resting his chin on the king’s feet, sitting at his side in the royal office. He ignored the golden carp in the pond with an air of utter disdain. He pottered with the king among the roses and made a point of eating greenfly when the king was looking. The king loved him doing that.

  In the end, everyone accepted the big golden puppy as the palace dog. No one ever realised that under the dyed blond hair was a wild wolf.

  Every day when Florizella went riding, Samson went too, running alongside Jellybean. Some days Florizella rode beside the river, sometimes she went to the seaside. One day she was late home and took a shortcut through an especially wild part of a forest. She didn’t see a dark shadow on a low branch of a tree. Samson didn’t see it, either.

  Jellybean saw it … but too late!

  It was a black jaguar crouched low and silent, and as Florizella rode underneath the tree the jaguar crashed down on to Jellybean’s plump bottom. Jellybean neighed in terror and reared up, shaking the jaguar loose and dumping Florizella on the ground. In a second the horse had raced off. The jaguar took three swift steps after him, then swung round and started coming for Florizella instead!

  The jaguar’s green eyes flashed like jade. Florizella turned and ran as fast as she could for the nearest tree, jumping up to catch the lowest branch. Then she swarmed upwards, climbing like a monkey to get away from the jaguar.

  This was a good plan with one great flaw: jaguars can climb trees too. And they can climb rather better than princesses. With one smooth bound, the jaguar started up after her, its razor-sharp claws digging into the bark of the tree trunk. But just as it started up the tree, there was a great How-how-howl! of rage, and Samson raced towards the jaguar and leaped and bit, fastening his teeth on to its fat black tail.

  That gave Florizella the chance she needed. Up and up she went until she reached the small branches where the heavy jaguar could not follow her. Then she turned and screamed to Samson to fetch help from the palace. The wolf dropped the jaguar’s tail and the jaguar turned round, snarling and slashing at him, but Samson was too quick. He streaked away in the direction of the palace, howling, ‘Ki-yi-yi-yi-yi!’ as he went.

  Florizella gave a cheer in a rather scared voice when she saw Samson racing off. But then she fell silent. Down at the foot of the tree, the jaguar had realised that it could not climb up and get Florizella. But it did not go away. It settled down, eyed Florizella and licked its lips.

  At first Florizella thought how silly it was to sit there, tail curled round its paws like a big black cat.

  Then she thought how scary it was to sit there, waiting and waiting.

  And then she realised that the jaguar was a lot smarter than she’d thought. She was cold and tired and soon would not be able to hold tightly to the thin branch where she was clinging. And when that happened … she would drop out of the tree like a sweet little plum … straight into the open smiling jaws of the black jaguar.

  Florizella’s cold fingers tightened on the branch. She knew she would not be able to hold on forever.

  It all depended on Samson.

  Back at the royal palace no one took any notice of Samson when he came racing over the drawbridge. He howled and howled and whined, and people just called to him to be quiet. One of the royal guards checked that his water bowl was filled and then tried to catch him to shut him in the kennels.

  Samson ducked away and raced into the royal office where the queen was eating bread and honey. She really hated bread and honey, but it’s in the Queen’s Rules. Samson charged right up to her and barked.

  ‘Mmmdown! Mmood dog,’ the queen said through a sticky mouthful.

  Samson turned round and ran up to the king. He hurled himself into his lap and put his fat paddy paws on his shoulders and howled straight into his face.

  ‘It’s Florizella!’ said the king at once. ‘The dog’s speaking to me. He’s telling me something must have happened to Florizella! Undootedly!’

  Just at that moment a groom came running from the stable. ‘Princess Florizella’s pony has come home without her!’ he announced. ‘Again,’ he said, which was a bit unnecessary.

  ‘Mmmummon the guard!’ the queen started up.

  ‘Undootedly! Summon the guard!’ the king repeated more clearly.

  At once the royal guards came scrambling out of the guardroom and leaped on their horses. Samson dashed ahead of them along the twisty path through the woods, and they blew Tooroo! Tooroo! on their horns as they galloped.

  Florizella heard the sound of them coming and tightened her grip on the branch for a few moments more. The jaguar heard them too and leaped up towards Florizella’s dangling feet. For one dreadful moment, Florizella thought she could not pull her feet out of reach of those big black paws. Then the jaguar growled angrily at her, turned away and slunk off into the darkness.

  The guards halted and jumped off. They gathered round the tree, calling up to ask Florizella if she was all right. She said, ‘Yes,’ but then found she had frozen with fright. She couldn’t move.

  The topmost branches of the tree were too thin to hold anyone but a light girl like Florizella, so no one could climb up to her – and now she was too cold and scared to climb down. The
captain of the guard swung her own scarlet cape off her shoulders and spread it out. The guards took the four corners and stretched it tight.

  ‘Jump, Florizella!’ said the captain in her clear voice. No one ever disobeyed her.

  Florizella, colder and more scared than she’d ever been in her life before, shut her eyes tight and dropped out of the tree like a baby owl tumbling from a nest …

  … BOING! into the cape.

  Samson was the hero of the day, for fighting the jaguar and for running to get help. But everyone had noticed that he had not barked once. He had howled … and his howl was a wolf’s howl.

  Bennett and Florizella took Samson to see the king and queen and told the truth at last: that Samson the wonder-dog was really a wolf. Indeed, he was one of the wolf cubs who should have gone back to the forest. Bennett owned up that it was his plan to disguise Samson as a golden dog, and Florizella told them how much she loved Samson and wanted to keep him.

  The king and queen were too pleased with him and too grateful to think of sending him back to the forest.

  ‘I think he’s earned his place here,’ the queen said.

  ‘He can stay,’ agreed the king. It was a sunny day and he wanted to be out in his garden. ‘But there are conditions,’ he added as he went to the door. ‘All visitors to the palace must be told that he is a dog. I won’t have it said we keep a wolf in the palace – people would think it odd. And if his brothers or sisters turn up they must go back to the forest. I won’t live with an actual pack of wolves. This is a palace. It’s not suitable.’

  Bennett and Florizella nodded hard. They looked like very obedient children.

  ‘And another thing,’ said the king grumpily. ‘He’s to eat ordinary meat – not my venison.’

  Bennett and Florizella nodded again and tried to look angelic.

  ‘And if he grows up and has wolf cubs of his own—’

  ‘Oh! Newborn wolf cubs!’ Florizella interrupted in delight, forgetting to look obedient.

  Bennett kicked her gently on the ankle to warn her to be quiet.

  ‘They are not to be brought here,’ the king said firmly.

  Florizella looked as if she might argue.

  Bennett leaned against her shoulder in a silencing sort of way. ‘We’ll think of something,’ he said very quietly.

  ‘I do keep wishing that this could be an ordinary sort of a palace,’ the king said to himself as he went out into his garden. ‘Just an ordinary sort of kingdom, for an ordinary sort of king, with everyone following the Rules. Just for once.’

  Samson nodded very seriously as if he had thought this over and wished it could be an ordinary sort of palace too, then trotted out into the rose garden after the king.

  Bennett and Florizella went over to the window and saw the king pottering among the roses, with Samson following behind him, licking greenflies off the rosebuds whenever the king looked his way.

  ‘Good boy,’ said the king softly, so that no one would hear.

  ‘Ki-yi-yi-yi-yi!’ said Samson.

  What terror there is in the Seven Kingdoms!

  A giant has arrived. A giant bigger than any giant that anyone has ever seen before.

  A super-giant.

  A mega-giant.

  An absolutely giant giant for which there is only one suitable word:

  Mountainous.

  So say the people of the Plain Green Plains in the south of the Seven Kingdoms – and they should know because it is their flat, plain green fields that the giant tramples every day, and their crops that are squashed every time he sits down to take a nap, and their houses that are shaken to pieces every time he does a little jog or a little jig or a little wriggle, or whatever it is that he is doing up there.

  For no one can see what it is that he is doing up there.

  No one can see whether he is red-faced and running, or smiling and dancing, or yawning and stretching. All that anyone has ever seen of him are his huge (super-huge) trampling (trampling everything) boots. No one has even seen his head – it is too high up.

  ‘Hidden by clouds,’ the messenger says.

  ‘Well, I don’t believe one word of it,’ Princess Florizella said to her particular friend, Prince Bennett. They were sitting behind her parents’ thrones, listening to the messenger from the Plain Green Plains gasping for breath and shaking with fright as he told the king and the queen of the Seven Kingdoms about the giant, and the people of the Plain Green Plains and the footprints that are as big as lakes.

  ‘Something must be done!’ the messenger finished.

  ‘Like what?’ Florizella muttered to Bennett.

  ‘At once!’ the messenger started up again.

  ‘By who?’ Bennett whispered back.

  The king looked very worried. ‘When was the last time we had a giant?’ he asked the court herald.

  She consulted the scroll. ‘Ages ago, Your Majesty,’ she said. ‘In your father’s father’s father’s father’s time. The king (your father’s father’s father’s father) went out and challenged the giant to single combat and slew him after three days of bloody battle, in which he was nearly killed three times over!’

  ‘Well, we don’t want any of that, I’m sure,’ the king said hastily. ‘Why don’t we just ask him to move on?’

  There was a muffled giggle from Bennett, still hidden by the big gold throne. ‘Not into my kingdom, thank you very much,’ he said to Florizella. ‘We don’t want a giant any more than you do!’

  The messenger from the Plain Green Plains shook his head. ‘We have tried asking the giant to move,’ he said. ‘He responds to nothing. We have shouted at him and written letters to him. We sent him a petition. We had a demonstration. We had a protest march and a pop festival. He just keeps trampling on our crops and scooping up whole barnfuls of wheat and taking them off. He gathers forests of saplings like a child might pick daisies. He scoops up fish ponds in his hand and drinks them dry. Your Majesty must save us!’

  ‘Yes,’ said the king thoughtfully. ‘I can see you might think it should be me.’ He turned to the queen. ‘Any ideas, my love?’ he asked. ‘Anyone you think might be more suitable as a challenger? Than, for example … ME?’

  The queen nodded briskly. ‘Send the royal surveyor,’ she said. ‘He’s good at measuring things. He’s just come back from mapping the Red Mountains. He can measure the giant for us and estimate how we can move him, and where he should be placed. We need to know a lot more about him before we take any action.’

  ‘And send the royal zookeeper too,’ the king said. ‘She might have some idea about capturing him and feeding him.’

  ‘And an enchanter to be on the safe side,’ the queen said. ‘I’d never trust a surveyor without an enchanter to keep an eye on him.’

  ‘An expedition!’ the king said cheerfully. ‘We’ll all go.’

  The messenger from the Plain Green Plains dropped to his knees. ‘I thank Your Majesties!’ he said. ‘I’ll ride straight home and tell my people you are coming at once to save them. We will expect you immediately.’

  ‘At once!’ the king said. ‘Undoubtedly!’ He stood up and waved his sceptre with a flourish. ‘Undootedly!’

  ‘At once!’ everybody said, waving back at him happily. ‘Undootedly!’

  ‘It’ll take four days at least, for this lot to get packed, never mind started!’ said Florizella to Bennett, still hidden behind the thrones. ‘We’d better get our ponies and leave now, and see this giant before everyone else arrives and ruins it.’

  Bennett nodded and the two of them slid very carefully through the curtains at the back of the thrones, through the hidden door and then across the hall to the castle kitchens. ‘I’ll saddle up the ponies; you get a picnic,’ said Bennett. ‘See you at the front gateway in five minutes.’

  Into two rucksacks Florizella piled the following:

  Boiled eggs (4)

  Slices of ham (8)

  Bread rolls (6)

  Lettuce and watercress

 
Tomatoes

  Corn on the cob (4)

  Meat pies (2)

  Sausage rolls (10)

  Cheese

  Crisps

  Those crispy things that look like seashells and are crunchy when you put them in your mouth but then go all deliciously squashy and you have to eat another one. No one in the entire history of the universe has ever eaten only one – unless it was a test. (3 packets)

  Peanuts

  Salted biscuits

  Lemonade (4 bottles)

  Bars of chocolate (12)

  Chocolate biscuits

  Chocolate cake

  Chocolate pudding

  (Florizella was rather fond of chocolate.)

  Popcorn (4 large bags)

  Peaches (8)

  Strawberries (4 punnets)

  Raspberries (8 punnets)

  Gooseberries (2 punnets)

  Plums

  Greengages

  Apricots

  Apples

  (Florizella was rather fond of fruit too.)

  They were rather large and bulky rucksacks once all that was crammed inside, but Florizella thought that you can never take too much food on a serious adventure. You never know how long you will be away from home, and if matters get desperate you can always use it for ammunition.

  She dashed upstairs and fetched her best sword from her bedroom, and then ran out of the castle, lugging the rucksacks, to meet Bennett at the gate. As she ran she whistled for Samson, the disguised wolf cub, who came lolloping out of the stableyard, his coat very golden in the sunshine, the ribbon round his neck very pink.

  The portcullis was up; the drawbridge was down. No one stopped the prince and princess and asked them where they were going and if they were allowed. Everyone was used to the two of them riding all over the place on their own. The gate guard said, ‘Halt!’ as they clattered out of the yard … and finished, ‘Who goes there?’ as they disappeared down the road. Then he said, ‘I s’pose that’s OK, then,’ and went back inside the guardhouse where he’d been reading an extremely interesting fairy story to the other guards.