The Princess Bride (25 page)

Westley lay still.

For the first time, the albino started things. Whispered: “You better tell them.”

From Westley, a shrug.

Whispered: “They never stop. Not once they start. Tell them what they want to know and have done with it.”

Shrug.

Whispered: “The Machine is nearly ready. They are testing it on animals now.”

Shrug.

Whispered: “It’s for your own good I tell you these things.”

“My own good? What good? They’re going to kill me anyway.”

From the albino: nod.

The Prince found Buttercup waiting unhappily outside his chamber doors.

“It’s my letter,” she began. “I cannot make it right.”

“Come in, come in,” the Prince said gently. “Maybe we can help you.” She sat down in the same chair as before. “All right, I’ll close my eyes and listen; read to me.”

“ ‘Westley, my passion, my sweet, my only, my own. Come back, come back. I shall kill myself otherwise. Yours in torment, Buttercup.’ “ She looked at Humperdinck. “Well? Do you think I’m throwing myself at him?”

“It does seem a bit forward,” the Prince admitted. “It doesn’t leave him a great deal of room to maneuver.”

“Will you help me to improve it, please?”

“I’ll do what I can, sweet lady, but first it might help if I knew just a bit about him. Is he really so wonderful, this Westley of yours?”

“Not so much wonderful as perfect,” she replied. “Kind of flawless. More or less magnificent. Without blemish. Rather on the ideal side.” She looked at the Prince. “Am I being helpful?”

“I think emotions are clouding your objectivity just a bit. Do you actually think that there is nothing the fellow can’t do?”

Buttercup thought for a while. “It’s not so much that there’s nothing he can’t do; it’s more that he can do it all better than anybody else can do it.”

The Prince chuckled and smiled. “In other words, for example, you mean if he wanted to hunt, he could outhunt, again for example, someone such as myself.”

“Oh, I would think if he wanted to, he could, quite easily, but he happens not to like hunting, at least to my knowledge, though maybe he does; I don’t know. I never knew he was so interested in mountain climbing but he scaled the Cliffs of Insanity under most adverse conditions, and everyone agrees that that is not the easiest thing in the world to accomplish.”

“Well, why don’t we just begin our letter with ‘Divine Westley,’ and appeal to his sense of modesty,” the Prince suggested.

Buttercup began to write, stopped. “Does ‘divine’ begin
de
or
di
?”

“
Di
, I believe, amazing creature,” the Prince replied, smiling gently as Buttercup commenced the letter. They composed it in four hours, and many many times she said, “I could never get through this without you” and the Prince was always most modest, asking little helpful personal questions about Westley as often as was possible without drawing attention to it, and in this way, well before dawn, she told him, smiling as she remembered, of Westley’s early fears of Spinning Ticks.

And that night, in the fifth-level cage, the Prince asked, as he was to always ask, “Tell me the name of the man in Guilder who hired you to kidnap the Princess and I promise you immediate freedom” and Westley replied, as he was always to reply, “No one, no one; I was alone” and the Count, who had spent the day getting the Spinners ready, placed them carefully on Westley’s skin and Westley closed his eyes and begged and pleaded and after an hour or so the Prince and Count left, the albino remaining behind with the chore of burning the Spinners and then pulling them free from Westley, lest they accidentally poison him, and on the way up the underground stairs to ground level the Prince said, just for conversation’s sake, “Much better, don’t you think?”

The Count, oddly, said nothing.

Which was vaguely irritating to Humperdinck because, to tell the absolute truth, torture was never all that high on his scale of passions, and he would just as soon have disposed of Westley right then.

If only Buttercup would admit that he, Humperdinck, was the better man.

But she would not! She simply would not! All she ever talked about was Westley. All she ever asked about was news of Westley. Days went by, weeks went by, party after party went by, and all Florin was moved by the spectacle of their great hunting Prince at last so clearly and wonderfully in love, but when they were alone, all she ever said was, “I wonder where could Westley be? What could be taking him so long? How can I live until he comes?”

Maddening. So each night, the Count’s discomforts, which made Westley writhe and twist, were really sort of all right. The Prince would manage an hour or so of spectating before he and the Count would leave, the Count still oddly silent. And down below, tending the wounds, the albino would whisper: “Tell them.
Please
. They will only add to your suffering.”

Westley could barely suppress his smile.

He had felt no pain, not once, none. He had closed his eyes and taken his brain away. That was the secret. If you could take your brain away from the present and send it to where it could contemplate skin like wintry cream; well, let them enjoy themselves.

His revenge time would come.

Westley was living now most of all for Buttercup. But there was no denying that there was one more thing he wanted too.

His time . . .

Prince Humperdinck simply had no time. There seemed to be not one decision in all of Florin that one way or another didn’t eventually come heavily to rest upon his shoulders. Not only was he getting married, his country was having its five hundredth anniversary. Not only was he noodling around in his mind the best ways to get a war going, he also had to constantly have affection shining from his eyes. Every detail had to be met, and met correctly.

His father was just no help at all, refusing either to expire or stop mumbling (you thought his father was dead but that was in the fake-out, don’t forget—Morgenstern was just edging into the nightmare sequence, so don’t be confused) and start making sense. Queen Bella simply hovered around him, translating here and there, and it was with a shock that Prince Humperdinck realized, just twelve days before his wedding day, that he had neglected to set in motion the crucial Guilder section of his plan, so he called Yellin to the castle late one night.

Yellin was Chief of All Enforcement in Florin City, a job he had inherited from his father. (The albino keeper at the Zoo was Yellin’s first cousin, and together they formed the only pair of nonnobles the Prince could come close to trusting.)

“Your Highness,” Yellin said. He was small, but crafty, with darting eyes and slippery hands.

Prince Humperdinck came out from behind his desk. He moved close to Yellin and looked carefully around before saying, softly, “I have heard, from unimpeachable sources, that many men of Guilder have, of late, begun to infiltrate our Thieves Quarter. They are disguised as Florinese, and I am worried.”

“I have heard nothing of such a thing,” Yellin said.

“A prince has spies everywhere.”

“I understand,” said Yellin. “And you think, since the evidence points that they tried to kidnap your fiancée once, such a thing might happen again?”

“It’s a possibility.”

“I’ll close off the Thieves Quarter then,” Yellin said. “No one will enter and no one will leave.”

“Not good enough,” said the Prince. “I want the Thieves Quarter emptied and every villain jailed until I am safely on my honeymoon.” Yellin did not nod quickly enough, so the Prince said, “State your problem.”

“My men are not always too happy at the thought of entering the Thieves Quarter. Many of the thieves resist change.”

“Root them out. Form a brute squad. But get it done.”

“It takes at least a week to get a decent brute squad going,” Yellin said. “But that is time enough.” He bowed, and started to leave.

And that was when the scream began.

Yellin had heard many things in his life, but nothing quite so eerie as this: he was a brave man, but this sound frightened him. It was not human, but he could not guess the throat of the beast it came from. (It was actually a wild dog, on the first level of the Zoo, but no wild dog had ever shrieked like that before. But then, no wild dog had ever been put in the Machine.)

The sound grew in anguish, and it filled the night sky as it spread across the castle grounds, over the walls, even into the Great Square beyond.

It would not stop. It simply hung now below the sky, an audible reminder of the existence of agony. In the Great Square, half a dozen children screamed back at the night, trying to blot out the sound. Some wept, some only ran for home.

Then it began to lessen in volume. Now it was hard to hear in the Great Square, now it was gone. Now it was hard to hear on the castle walls, now it was gone from the castle walls. It shrunk across the grounds toward the first level of the Zoo of Death, where Count Rugen sat fiddling with some knobs. The wild dog died. Count Rugen rose, and it was all he could do to bury his own shriek of triumph.

He left the Zoo and ran toward Prince Humperdinck’s chambers. Yellin was just going when the Count got there. The Prince was seated now, behind his desk. When Yellin was gone and they were alone, the Count bowed to his majesty: “The Machine,” he said at last, “works.”

Prince Humperdinck took a while before answering. It was a ticklish situation, granted he was the boss, the Count merely an underling, still, no one in all Florin had Rugen’s skills. As an inventor, he had, obviously, at last, rid the Machine of all defects. As an architect, he had been crucial in the safety factors involved in the Zoo of Death, and it had undeniably been Rugen who had arranged for the only survivable entrance being the underground fifth level one. He was also supportive to the Prince in all endeavors of hunting and battle, and you didn’t give a follower like that a quick “Get away, boy, you bother me.” So the prince indeed took a while.

“Look, Ty,” he said finally. “I’m just thrilled you smoothed all the bugs out of the Machine; I never for a minute doubted you’d get it right eventually. And I’m really anxious as can be to see it working. But how can I put this? I can’t keep my head above water one minute to the next: it’s not just the parties and the goo-gooing with what’s-her-name, I’ve got to decide how long the Five Hundredth Anniversary Parade is going to be and where does it start and when does it start and which nobleman gets to march in front of which other nobleman so that everyone’s still speaking to me at the end of it, plus I’ve got a wife to murder and a country to frame for it, plus I’ve got to get the war going once that’s all happened, and all this is stuff I’ve got to do myself. Here’s what it all comes down to: I’m just swamped, Ty. So how about if you go to work on Westley and tell me how it goes, and when I get the time, I’ll come watch and I’m sure it’ll be just wonderful, but for now, what I’d like is a little breathing room, no hard feelings?”

Count Rugen smiled. “None.” And there weren’t any. He always felt better when he could dole out pain alone. You could concentrate much more deeply when you were alone with agony.

“I knew you’d understand, Ty.”

There was a knock on the door and Buttercup stuck her head in. “Any news?” she said.

The Prince smiled at her and sadly shook his head. “Honey, I promised to tell you the second I hear a thing.”

“It’s only twelve days, though.”

“Plenty of time, dulcet darling, now don’t worry yourself.”

“I’ll leave you,” Buttercup said.

“I was going too,” the Count said. “May I walk you to your quarters?”

Buttercup nodded, and down the corridors they wandered till they reached her suite. “Good night,” Buttercup said quickly; ever since that day he had first come to her father’s farm, she had always been afraid whenever the Count came near.

“I’m sure he’ll come,” the Count said; he was privy to all the Prince’s plans, and Buttercup was well aware of this. “I don’t know your fellow well, but he impressed me greatly. Any man who can find his way through the Fire Swamp can find his way to Florin Castle before your wedding day.”

Buttercup nodded.

“He seemed so strong, so remarkably powerful,” the Count went on, his voice warm and lulling. “I only wondered if he possessed true sensitivity, as some men of great might, as you know, do not. For example, I wonder: is he capable of tears?”

“Westley would never cry,” Buttercup answered, opening her chamber door. “Except for the death of a loved one.” And with that she closed the Count away and, alone, went to her bed and knelt. Westley, she thought then. Do come please; I have begged you in my thoughts now these many weeks and still no word. Back when we were on the farm, I thought I loved you, but that was not love. When I saw your face behind the mask on the ravine floor, I thought I loved you, but that was again nothing more than deep infatuation. Beloved: I think I love you now, and I pray you only give me the chance to spend my life in constant proving. I could spend my life in the Fire Swamp and sing from morn till night if you were by me. I could spend eternity sinking down through Snow Sand if my hand held your hand. My preference would be to last eternity with you beside me on a cloud, but hell would also be a lark if Westley was with me. . . .

She went on that way, silent hour after silent hour; she had done nothing else for thirty-eight evenings now, and each time, her ardor deepened, her thoughts became more pure. Westley. Westley. Flying across the seven seas to claim her.

For his part, and quite without knowing, Westley was spending his evenings in much the same fashion. After the torture was done, when the albino had finished tending his slashes or burns or breaks, when he was alone in the giant cage, he sent his brain to Buttercup, and there it dwelled.

He understood her so well. In his mind, he realized that moment he left her on the farm when she swore love, certainly she meant it, but she was barely eighteen. What did she know of the depth of the heart? Then again, when he had removed his black mask and she had tumbled to him, surprise had been operating, stunned astonishment as much as emotion. But just as he knew that the sun was obliged to rise each morning in the east, no matter how much a western arisal might have pleased it, so he knew that Buttercup was obliged to spend her love on him. Gold was inviting, and so was royalty, but they could not match the fever in his heart, and sooner or later she would have to catch it. She had less choice than the sun.