Thrice Upon a Marigold (2 page)

“Does she look like I did when I was a baby, Papa?” Marigold asked, brushing Flopsy's paws off her skirt. Flopsy went off to chew up a stuffed lamb that Poppy had kicked out of her cradle onto the floor.

“I believe she does,” Swithbert said, prolonging his turn at holding Poppy by pretending to scrutinize her features. “And every bit as pretty and smart, too.”

Marigold laughed. “How can you tell she's smart?” she asked, even though she was positive he was correct, since Poppy was obviously the best baby to ever have been born. She just wanted him to keep going on about this exceptional child.

“I can tell by the way her eyebrows are twitching, even in her sleep,” Swithbert said. “Mrs. Clover says that's a sure sign of intelligence in babies. And very rare.”

Mrs. Clover was the head housekeeper of Zandelphia-Beaurivage castle, and the object of a romantic tug of war between Swithbert and Wendell, the retired wizard who now lived at the castle along with his huge white elephant, Hannibal, with which Marigold was endlessly fascinated. Swithbert worried that Wendell had the upper hand with Mrs. Clover, mainly because of his fabulous elephant, but also because Swithbert himself was nothing but a has-been king now that he had retired so Christian and Marigold could rule.

King Christian tried to keep from grinning extravagantly as Swithbert finally handed Poppy to him, but he couldn't help himself. The little princess was such an unfathomable miracle, such a promise to the future, such a fascination, that she seemed almost as if she were a mythical creature.

“When do you think you'll be having the Welcome Party?” Swithbert asked his daughter.

A cloud passed over Marigold's face and she cast an anxious glance at Poppy. It was at Marigold's own Welcome Party that she had been bestowed by an overzealous (or perhaps careless) fairy with the very
un
welcome gift of being able to read people's thoughts. Marigold had overcome it by now, but she never wanted such a thing to happen to Poppy.

“Do you think it would be rude, Papa, if I asked the fairies not to bring gifts?”

“I'm afraid it would be, precious. It's traditional, you know, for them to give something special to each new royal baby.”

Marigold frowned. “Maybe I could have Wendell check out each gift before it's actually given away. He's still enough of a wizard to do that, isn't he?”

Swithbert hated to consider that Wendell could do things that he himself could not—especially if Mrs. Clover was watching—but he had to be fair. Reluctantly he said, “He very well could be. You should ask him.”

“I will. Now I'm going to tell you one more elephant joke and then it'll be my turn for Poppy.”

Inwardly Christian groaned. He hated Marigold's elephant jokes almost as much as he had hated her previous obsession, the very confusing knock-knock jokes.

“What time is it when ten elephants are chasing you?” Marigold asked.

“I don't know,” Chris said. “Too late?”

“No, silly.” She giggled in advance of her punch line. “It's ten after one. Get it? Ten after one?”

Chris sighed.

“Now hand her over.”

 

Phoebe opened the library's leaded-glass window just enough to let in a solid wedge of cold air, and to hear the evening crier out in the square yelling the latest news. (There had been a recent eruption of smoke and flames from the dragon, who had been rather quiet for most of the winter; Maeve the unicorn had had twins, one pink and one blue; on Market Day the stalls doing the biggest business were those selling the little striped squashes, the detail-perfect miniatures, the glass-bead necklaces, and the least stinky cheeses, though the crier himself preferred the ones that smelled like old socks. Not everyone's taste, he knew, but anyway . . . Extra firewood could be picked up outside the cooper's workshop.)

Winter was on the way out. Soon darkness would fall later, there would be no ice in the morning washbasin, and there would be even fewer visitors at the library. Phoebe thought summer was always the perfect time to sit out in the sunny gardens, reading, but the problem seemed to be that people stayed out in the gardens doing something else—weeding? games? courtship?—and didn't want to tear themselves away long enough to come into the quiet, orderly library. Even Queen Marigold and King Christian, normally big readers, were reading less since Princess Poppy had shown up. The servants who usually came in to borrow books for the royal family hadn't been by for weeks.

Phoebe shut the window and burrowed into her shawl. She should be closing up and going home, but she liked the library better than the dank stone quarters that had been Boris's. She'd had nowhere else to live after her father's exile, so she had scrubbed and painted and brought in colorful fabrics and pillows. But certain nasty stains proved impossible to remove, and she remembered all too well the torture devices that had once stood where she now had her little kitchen table and her wardrobe, and her rocker and footstool.

Boris's instruments of torture had been ordered to be destroyed when he was sent away, but Phoebe was pretty sure he had managed to take his favorites with him—the Tongue Tearer, the Roman Pincers, the White-Hot Mitt, and the Dragon's Teeth. Boris especially loved the Dragon's Teeth. He had invented it because he loved dragons—their size, their ability to throw flames, their armor-plated scales. All of it fascinated him. It was a passion he shared with Vlad, but Vlad, who was of a different sensibility than Boris was, loved dragons for their cleverness, their wiliness, their beautiful iridescence. And he, too, had an invention that honored the dragon: the infamous and dreaded Dragon's Sweat poison.

Phoebe imagined Vlad had smuggled some of it, as well as other toxic mixtures, into exile with him, just as Boris had done with some of his own tools of the trade. It had been a happy day when evil Queen Olympia had fallen into the river, after which King Swithbert had put a stop to all the poisoning and torturing that Olympia had encouraged, and then exiled the perpetrators. Phoebe knew she could never forgive her father for all the terrible cruelties he had inflicted—the damage he had done to her own life was nothing compared to that—and she also knew she never wanted to see him again.

As she put away the books she had been reading, she realized it had been almost three weeks since Sebastian had borrowed the King Arthur book. She hoped he would bring it back on his own, because she didn't want to have to track him down to retrieve it; he might be living in Vlad's previous quarters. They were certain to be nicer than her own inherited rooms (Vlad loved fine things, while Boris could care less), yet she didn't want to set foot in a place where poisonous vapors had once floated.

She trudged homeward, thinking,
Maybe he'll return it tomorrow.

 

After a consultation, the wizard Wendell had said he believed he
could
determine if any of the fairy gifts were dangerous—on purpose or inadvertently—and Marigold hoped this was true.

She wished she didn't have to have the Welcome Party at all. She wanted only to be with Christian and Poppy, in their private quarters, reading and talking, telling elephant jokes and playing together. She must remember to include the dogs, too. She knew Flopsy, Mopsy and Topsy were unhappy about being relegated to their floor pillows and, come to think about it, she hadn't even seen Bub and Cate in a long time. Oh, it was wicked of her to have neglected them so. But having Poppy had preoccupied and distracted her, and she knew she wasn't paying as much attention to a lot of other things as she was to Poppy, even though there was a nursemaid to help with the baby.

Marigold liked the nursemaid, a comfortably upholstered lady named Mrs. Sunday, but she would have preferred to have only herself and Christian caring for Poppy. It was unreasonable for a queen to think that way, she supposed, but that's just how it was. There was another new servant just to do the baby's washing—who knew such a little person could produce such heaps of laundry?—and still
another
new servant to keep track of the baby presents pouring in from all over the known world, and to draft thank-you notes. Marigold couldn't possibly write all the notes herself, but she did want to see them, just to make sure they were properly appreciative and respectful, and to personally sign them before they were p-mailed.

The queen was having more trouble than she'd anticipated getting her routine in order.

T
HE FINAL COLD RAIN
of winter—or maybe the first one of spring—flung itself against the library windows, as if it were angry at not being allowed in where the fire hissed and crackled in the chimney corner and candlelight glossed the warm colors of the book bindings.

Phoebe ignored the rain as she concentrated on the book she was reading. It was full of interesting facts, ones she'd probably never get to tell anybody else, but she liked to think that she was nevertheless keeping her mind well-furnished. Wasn't it nice to know that robins could live twelve years, and that your fingernails could grow two inches in one year, and that most rats were right-handed?

She closed the book. Who but she would ever care about such things?

She jumped when the door opened and Sebastian came in, shaking off his umbrella and propping it by the door.

“I brought back the King Arthur book.” His tone suggested she might not have expected him to.

“That . . . that's good. Do you want to renew it?”

“No. I got what I nee—”

Just then there was a terrific
thud
. Sebastian had been facing the window. “I think that was a p-mail pigeon! The storm must have blown him into the glass.” He turned and ran for the door.

“Where are you going?”

“Out to get him! There's a shortage of them already, you know. We can't afford to lose one. And he may be carrying an important message. Get a towel ready for him!” And he dashed out, forgetting his umbrella.

A towel? Where did he think she would find a towel in a library? And who did he think he was, ordering her around like that? And what did a poisoner's son care about a battered pigeon, anyway?

While Phoebe was thinking all these thoughts, she was nevertheless scurrying around looking for something like a towel. She settled for one of the cloths she used to dust the books, which she found just as Sebastian came racing back, soaking wet and shivering, with a limp pigeon in his hands.

My turn to give orders,
Phoebe thought. “Get over there by the fire,” she commanded. “And wrap him in this.” She handed Sebastian the dust cloth. “And here. This is for you.” She flung her shawl across his dripping shoulders—big broad ones, she couldn't help noticing. “Is it alive?”

“I think so.” He wrapped the cloth around the bird and set it on the hearth, rubbing it gently. “But look. The cylinder's broken open.”

“Well, read the message,” Phoebe said. “It's got to be important. Who would send a p-mail in this kind of weather if it wasn't? And this pigeon's not going to be delivering any messages in his condition. You may have to do it.”

“You keep massaging the pigeon, then,” Sebastian said.

Phoebe took the bird in her hands and felt the fast beat of its tiny heart under her fingers. “Come on, birdie,” she whispered. “Don't give up.”

Sebastian worked at unrolling the wet paper. “The ink is running, but I think I can make it out.” He spread the strip of paper on the hearth and read:

 

M. Do not wait. Take the baby instantly.

Leave the ransom note.

We will wait in the agreed-upon place.

B. and V.

 

“Whoa!” he said, sitting back on his heels. “Look at this. What do you think it means?”

Phoebe bent over the note, the pigeon still in her hands, and read the blurry words out loud. “Oh, my,” she said. “Is that what you read, too?”

“Yes.” He paused. “Which is the only baby in the kingdom worth kidnapping?”

“Princess Poppy, you mean?”

“Can you think of another one worth a ransom?”

“But who's M.? And who are B. and V.?” She felt a terrible sense of dread.

“I don't know who M. is, but I'm pretty sure who B. and V. are. I told you who my father is, and he's probably part of this. He wants revenge. He was pretty outraged that he was exiled.”

After a long pause, Phoebe said quietly, “So was mine.”

Sebastian gave her a close look. “Why would
your
father be outraged about
my
father's exile?”

“He wasn't outraged about your father,” she said, unsure why she was telling him this. “He was outraged about himself.” The pigeon began to stir in her hands.

“You mean . . . you mean, your father is Boris? As in ‘B.'?”

She nodded, trying to soothe the pigeon, who was struggling to work his way out of the cloth wrapped around him.

“Your father is Boris, the torturer-in-chief?” Sebastian sounded unbelieving.

“Yes, yes,” she affirmed. “Do you want to make something of that?” Maybe telling him had been a mistake. She unwrapped the pigeon, who was beginning to move his wings.

“No. Not at all. I'm just . . . surprised. I knew he had a daughter. We may even have played together a few times when we were little. But I never knew what happened to you.”

“I've kept a low profile. Like you have. My father wasn't the most popular person in the kingdom, you know. And the library was perfect for me. I love to read and I needed a job where nobody would have to work with me. People are scared of me.”

“I do know. I know all about that. Even if you've never done anything to make anybody fear you, they still do. Just because of what someone else has done.”