The Princess Bride by William Goldman Read Free Book Online Page A

does.”
    “How lucky we are to have seen them pass by,” Buttercup’s mother said, and she took her husband’s hand.
    The old man nodded. “Now I can die.”
    She glanced at him. “Don’t.” Her tone was surprisingly tender, and probably she sensed how important he really was to her, because when he did die, two years further on, she went right after, and most of the people who knew her well agreed it was the sudden lack of opposition that undid her.
    Buttercup came close and stood behind them, staring over them, and soon she was gasping too, because the Count and Countess and all their pages and soldiers and servants and courtiers and champions and carriages were passing by the cart track at the front of the farm.
    The three stood in silence as the procession moved forward. Buttercup’s father was a tiny mutt of a man who had always dreamed of living like the Count. He had once been two miles from where the Count and Prince had been hunting, and until this moment that had been the high point of his life. He was a terrible farmer, and not much of a husband either. There wasn’t really much in this world he excelled at, and he could never quite figure out how he happened to sire his daughter, but he knew, deep down, that it must have been some kind of wonderful mistake, the nature of which he had no intention of investigating.
    Buttercup’s mother was a gnarled shrimp of a woman, thorny and worrying, who had always dreamed of somehow just once being popular, like the Countess was said to be. She was a terrible cook, an even more limited housekeeper. How Buttercup slid from her womb was, of course, beyond her. But she had been there when it happened; that was enough for her.
    Buttercup herself, standing half a head over her parents, still holding the dinner dishes, still smelling of Horse, only wished that the great procession wasn’t quite so far away, so she could see if the Countess’s clothes really were all that lovely.
    As if in answer to her request, the procession turned and began entering the farm.
    “Here?” Buttercup’s father managed. “My God, why?”
    Buttercup’s mother whirled on him. “Did you forget to pay your taxes?” (This was after taxes. But everything is after taxes. Taxes were here even before stew.)
    “Even if I did, they wouldn’t need all that to collect them,” and he gestured toward the front of his farm, where now the Count and Countess and all their pages and soldiers and servants and courtiers and champions and carriages were coming closer and closer. “What could they want to ask me about?” he said.
    “Go see, go see,” Buttercup’s mother told him.
    “You go. Please.”
    “No. You. Please.”
    “We’ll both go.”
    They both went. Trembling . . .
    “Cows,” the Count said, when they reached his golden carriage. “I would like to talk about your cows.” He spoke from inside, his dark face darkened by shadow.
    “My cows?” Buttercup’s father said.
    “Yes. You see, I’m thinking of starting a little dairy of my own, and since your cows are known throughout the land as being Florin’s finest, I thought I might pry your secrets from you.”
    “My cows,” Buttercup’s father managed to repeat, hoping he was not going mad. Because the truth was, and he knew it well, he had terrible cows. For years, nothing but complaints from the people in the village. If anyone else had had milk to sell, he would have been out of business in a minute. Now granted, things had improved since the farm boy had come to slave for him—no question, the farm boy had certain skills, and the complaints were quite nonexistent now—but that didn’t make his the finest cows in Florin. Still, you didn’t argue with the Count. Buttercup’s father turned to his wife. “What would you say my secret is, my dear?” he asked.
    “Oh, there are so many,” she said—she was no dummy, not when it came to the quality of their livestock.
    “You two are childless, are you?” the