Andrew Lang_Fairy Book 03 Read Online Free

night she
decked herself with them to please him, but by day she hid them
in her straw mattress. When the sun shone the Blue Bird, hidden
in the tall fir-tree, sang to her so sweetly that all the
passersby wondered, and said that the wood was inhabited by a
spirit. And so two years slipped away, and still the Princess was
a prisoner, and Turritella was not married. The Queen had offered
her hand to all the neighbouring Princes, but they always
answered that they would marry Fiordelisa with pleasure, but not
Turritella on any account. This displeased the Queen terribly.
'Fiordelisa must be in league with them, to annoy me!' she said.
'Let us go and accuse her of it.'
    So she and Turritella went up into the tower. Now it happened
that it was nearly midnight, and Fiordelisa, all decked with
jewels, was sitting at the window with the Blue Bird, and as the
Queen paused outside the door to listen she heard the Princess
and her lover singing together a little song he had just taught
her. These were the words:—
    'Oh! what a luckless pair are we,
One in a prison, and one in a tree.
All our trouble and anguish came
From our faithfulness spoiling our enemies' game.
But vainly they practice their cruel arts,
For nought can sever our two fond hearts.'
    They sound melancholy perhaps, but the two voices sang them gaily
enough, and the Queen burst open the door, crying, 'Ah! my
Turritella, there is some treachery going on here!'
    As soon as she saw her, Fiordelisa, with great presence of mind,
hastily shut her little window, that the Blue Bird might have
time to escape, and then turned to meet the Queen, who
overwhelmed her with a torrent of reproaches.
    'Your intrigues are discovered, Madam,' she said furiously; 'and
you need not hope that your high rank will save you from the
punishment you deserve.'
    'And with whom do you accuse me of intriguing, Madam?' said the
Princess. 'Have I not been your prisoner these two years, and who
have I seen except the gaolers sent by you?'
    While she spoke the Queen and Turritella were looking at her in
the greatest surprise, perfectly dazzled by her beauty and the
splendour of her jewels, and the Queen said:
    'If one may ask, Madam, where did you get all these diamonds?
Perhaps you mean to tell me that you have discovered a mine of
them in the tower!'
    'I certainly did find them here,' answered the Princess.
    'And pray,' said the Queen, her wrath increasing every moment,
'for whose admiration are you decked out like this, since I have
often seen you not half as fine on the most important occasions
at Court?'
    'For my own,' answered Fiordelisa. 'You must admit that I have
had plenty of time on my hands, so you cannot be surprised at my
spending some of it in making myself smart.'
    'That's all very fine,' said the Queen suspiciously. 'I think I
will look about, and see for myself.'
    So she and Turritella began to search every corner of the little
room, and when they came to the straw mattress out fell such a
quantity of pearls, diamonds, rubies, opals, emeralds, and
sapphires, that they were amazed, and could not tell what to
think. But the Queen resolved to hide somewhere a packet of false
letters to prove that the Princess had been conspiring with the
King's enemies, and she chose the chimney as a good place.
Fortunately for Fiordelisa this was exactly where the Blue Bird
had perched himself, to keep an eye upon her proceedings, and try
to avert danger from his beloved Princess, and now he cried:
    'Beware, Fiordelisa! Your false enemy is plotting against you.'
    This strange voice so frightened the Queen that she took the
letter and went away hastily with Turritella, and they held a
council to try and devise some means of finding out what Fairy or
Enchanter was favouring the Princess. At last they sent one of
the Queen's maids to wait upon Fiordelisa, and told her to
pretend to be quite stupid, and to see and hear nothing, while
she was really to watch the Princess day and night, and keep the
Queen