A Princess of Landover Read Online Free PDF Page B

alone—evolved over time by repeated demands that began or ended with “Go home, Gnome!”—said it all. They were a burrow people with little to offer anyone, scavengers preying on small animals and birds—many of them others’ treasured pets. They enjoyed the reluctant favor of her father for two simple reasons: because they had been the first to swear allegiance to him when he was named King, and because he believed in equal treatment for all his subjects, no matter how low or how despised they might be. Good thing. There was no one lower or more despised than the G’home Gnomes.
    Not by her, of course. She rather liked the little creatures. They made her laugh. But then, she hadn’t had a pet eaten by one, either.
    She walked up to the bound-and-gagged creature and took a very close look at its muffled face.
    “Poggwydd?” she whispered.
    She could hardly believe her eyes. It was the G’home Gnome she had stumbled upon when she’d disobeyed Nightshade and gone outside the Deep Fell. She had been tricked into thinking the witch was her friend and was hiding her in the Deep Fell to keep her safe. But eventually, she had given way to an impulse to see something of the world she had left behind. Nightshade had caught them out and tried to kill Poggwydd, but Haltwhistle had intervened and saved him.
    All that was some years ago, and she had not seen Poggwydd since.
    And now, unexpectedly, here he was.
    Quickly she began loosening the little fellow’s bonds, choosingto remove the gag that filled his mouth first, which proved to be a big mistake.
    “Careful, you clumsy girl! Are you trying to tear the skin off my face? It isn’t enough that I am humiliated and mistreated by those rat-faced monkeys, but now I have a cruel child to torment me, as well. Stop, stop, don’t yank so hard on those ropes, you’re breaking my wrists! Oh, that I should have come to this!”
    She kept working, trying to ignore his complaints, a difficult undertaking by any measure. But the knots in the ropes that held him fast were tight, and it was taking everything she had to loosen them.
    “Stop!” he screamed. “Didn’t you hear what I said? You’re breaking my arms! I am in great pain, little girl! Have you no pity for me, trussed and bound as I am? Do I deserve this? Do any G’home Gnomes deserve what happens to them? The world is a cruel place, hard and unforgiving—ouch! And we are its victims every—ouch, I said!—day of our miserable lives! Stop it, stop it!”
    She stepped back. “Do you want me to free you or not?”
    He stared at her, his lips quivering. “I do. But painlessly, please.”
    G’home Gnomes looked a great deal like you might expect, hairy heads with ferret faces mounted on stout bodies. They were small creatures, most not quite four feet tall, and due to the circumstances of their burrow life perpetually dirt-covered and grimy. Poggwydd was no exception.
    Enough so, in fact, that she wondered suddenly what had possessed her to attempt to free him by touching his filthy body.
    She spoke a few quick words, gestured abruptly, and the bonds that constrained him fell away. As did he, tumbling to the ground in a ragged heap, where he lay gasping for breath.
    “Was that really necessary?” he panted, looking up at her. Then abruptly, he paused. “Wait! I know you!”
    He looked past her to where Haltwhistle sat looking back, and the light came on in his rheumy eyes. “You’re the little girl from the Deep Fell, the one that the witch had been keeping hidden! You’re the High Lord’s daughter … What’s your name again?”
    “Mistaya,” she told him.
    “No, that’s not it.” He shook his head and frowned. “It’s Aberillina or Portia or something like that.”
    She reached down and pulled him to his feet, where he stood on shaky legs, looking as if he might fall down again. “No, it’s Mistaya,” she assured him. “What happened to you, anyway?”
    He took a moment to think about it, working