Free Rosamonde: The Real Story of Sleeping Beauty by Christopher Bunn

balloon-stealing swine! Bah! Your country—it, it—it is a pigsty!”
    “What?” I’m afraid I screeched. I’m sure princesses are never supposed to screech, but it is inevitable when dealing with a foul prune such as Fenris. “Bordavia is the loveliest country in all of Europe! Our pigs are the best-looking pigs in the world. This unhappy Rosamonde girl you speak of, whoever she is, she would be crazy to marry such a blockhead as you!”
    “You and you,” whispered Uncle Milo to the footmen, “and you and you as well. Remove the strikers from inside the bells. Quickly now. We can’t have them clonging and clanging anymore. Not for the next, er. . . not for the next few days.”
    “The next few days?” said Henri. “I thought you said twenty-four hours at most. We need to talk about this.”
    “Later, my boy,” said Uncle Milo. “Later.”
    I would’ve been more intrigued by the peculiar look on Henri’s face, but that instant I just about jumped out of my skin. A tremendous crash shook the door. The whole room boomed with the sound. Something struck the door again. An axe. Splinters flew.
    “You think I wanted to marry you just for your beauty, princess?” Fenris’s voice was something different now, sneering and ugly. “Beautiful women are a guilder a dozen. They’re packed into Paris and Berlin like herring flopping about in a fishing boat. Oh, you’re pretty enough, a sweet bloom to dally with, but marrying you was merely a pretext to swallowing up Bordavia. It was time for me to acquire a wife. You would do just as well as any other princess, but with the more important result of bringing Bordavia with you. Do you know why your precious roses grow so well? Do you know why they bloom with such vigor and wondrous color? There’s magic in the dirt of Bordavia. Enchantment in the earth. Did no one ever wonder why the magic in the people of Bordavia is so insignificant, so dull, so commonplace? It’s because it’s all stored in the earth! And what earth it is! Our alchemists have been experimenting with it for the past year, forging new alloys for our armor, sharper and harder blades, quarrels and arrows and bullets that never miss the mark. If it isn’t by marriage, Princess, then Delmania will take Bordavia by war. Now, open this door!”
    “Never!” I shouted, shaking with fear and rage. “Never!”
    The axe slammed into the door again. I could see the bright edge of its blade.
    “Careful now!” said Uncle Milo.
    Henri opened a hatbox and gingerly took something out. From what I could see, it looked like a round, flat disc made from a hard, white substance. Wax, I think.
    “Put it on the holder. Gently, gently! Right in the middle. Position the arm just so. Another tick lower with the needle. That should do it. Wind the handle. A dozen turns, no more. If we wind it more than that, the spring will break. Lose the spring and we lose the kingdom. For want of a spring, eh? Wouldn’t want that, would we? I don’t fancy speaking Delmanian for the rest of my life.”
    Henri wound a spindly metal arm protruding from the mysterious box sitting in the middle of the floor. Something ticked quietly inside the thing. The axe crashed again into the door and everyone jumped. Celeste clutched the arm of the nearest footman. He looked absurdly pleased.
    “Earplugs,” said Uncle Milo calmly.
    He took a bag out of his pocket and extracted several clumps of wax. He offered two to Henri. They both stuffed them into their ears. The axe crashed into the door one last time with a dreadful splintering of wood. Fenris’s face peered through the opening.
    “Aha!” he crowed. “There’s no escape for you now!”
    Unfortunately, that was the moment that Uncle Milo chose to toss the bag of earplugs to one of the footmen. No one was looking in his direction due to the abominable sight of Fenris leering through the hole in the door. The bag of earplugs sailed through the air and fell to the ground, scattering