Thrice Upon a Marigold (3 page)

They studied each other, forgetting all about the pigeon, who was rapidly regaining his strength and fluttering his wings.

“You
do
know,” Phoebe murmured, almost to herself.

With a great flapping, the pigeon rose into the air and flew around the library, the open message cylinder hanging from his leg.

“Oh, no!” Sebastian yelled, reaching toward the fire and then yanking his hand back.

“What?”

“When the pigeon took off, his wings blew the p-mail message into the fire.”

“But isn't that a good thing?” Phoebe asked. “Now M., whoever that is, won't get the message and so won't kidnap the baby.”

“Maybe not
tonight,
” Sebastian told her. “But do you think that will stop B. and V.? We need to report this, but now we have no proof to take to the captain of the guards.”

“We can just tell him. Can't we?”

“Even if we could get in to see him—which is doubtful, considering who we are—why would he believe us without any evidence? We don't have much credibility, thanks to our fathers.”

“But a threat against Princess Poppy—he'd be crazy to ignore that.”

“Then, I suppose we have to try.” Sebastian shivered and handed her back her shawl. “And we should do it right now. There's no time to waste.”

Phoebe flung the damp shawl over her shoulders, grabbed her own umbrella, and left with Sebastian, locking the library door behind her and leaving the pigeon flapping around the high ceiling. She hoped there wouldn't be too much cleaning up after him to do when she got back, and then felt petty for worrying about that when the princess's life was at stake. But practicalities have to be tended to, even during emergencies.

They rushed through the downpour, across the deserted town square, to the guard quarters, then stood for a moment outside the heavy closed door. They looked at each other, nodded, and then Sebastian raised the big iron knocker and pounded.

A beefy guard with a tankard in his hand and the top button of his uniform undone opened the door and peered out. “What is it?” he demanded.

“We have a possible kidnapping to report,” Sebastian told him.

“A kidnapping? Don't tell me. You suspect somebody wants to grab Princess Poppy. Right?”

“Yes! Right!” Sebastian exclaimed. “How did you know?”

“Because we've been getting at least one report like that every day since she was born. Seems like everybody in the kingdom thinks there's kidnapping plans afoot. Usually to be committed by a neighbor they've recently had an argument with.”

“But this one is—” Sebastian began.

The guard opened the door wider. “Come on in. I'll let you fill out a form, just like everybody else.” They stepped inside, politely leaving their dripping umbrellas propped inside the door. “Of course, we'll need your evidence.”

“We had some,” Phoebe said. “But it burned up.”

“Funny how often that seems to happen once people have a form to fill out.” The guard pointed them to a table and sailed a form at them. “There's quills and ink on the table. Go to it.”

“Is the captain around?” Sebastian asked. “I think he should hear this.”

“Yeah, Rollo's here. But he hates to be interrupted when he's eating. Who should I say wants to see him?”

“My name's Phoebe. I work in the library.” Librarians were supposed to be respectable and harmless, weren't they? And who would remember that Boris, the torturer-in-chief, had a daughter named Phoebe? He'd been gone for more than two years.

“And I'm Sebastian.”

“You're kidding me, aren't you?” the guard said. “You're not really the kids of Boris, the torturer-in-chief, and Vlad, the poisoner-in-chief. This is some kind of joke, right? Or a scheme to distract us, get us working on some fake crime while you're off committing something else?”

“Of course not,” Phoebe said indignantly. “Why would we do that?”

“Oh, I don't know,” the guard said, rolling his eyes. “Because your fathers were the two nastiest, scariest, most devious brutes this kingdom has ever seen, and were more than capable of cooking up some elaborate ruse so suspicion would never fall on them. The nuts don't fall far from the tree, as my pal Edric would say.”

“Do you mean you don't believe us? That you're not going to let us talk to Rollo?”

“Get out of here,” the guard growled. “Your ‘report'”—he made quotation mark signs with his fingers—“is one I can be certain is a fake. And I sure don't have to bother Rollo with your fairy tale.”

“But—” Sebastian began.

“Get out! Before I lock the two of you up for false—well, false
something.
Go!” He put down his tankard, grabbed each of them by an arm, and hustled them to the door. “And don't come back.” He flung them into the rain, without their umbrellas, and slammed the door behind them.

“I told you,” Sebastian said.

“That's helpful,” Phoebe said, crossing her arms and turning her back on him.

“Well, what
would
be helpful? And what do we do now? We've got a credible threat that no one will believe, no evidence of it, and a princess in jeopardy. We can't do nothing.”

“We also can't stand here arguing about it. We're getting soaked and cold, and that pigeon is probably pooping all over my books. Let's talk about this in front of a fire.”

They hurried back across the square to the library, where, yes, the pigeon had left his mark on a significant percentage of the library.
At least he seems to be fully recovered from his smash into the library window,
Phoebe thought as she mopped up the droppings. Unfortunately, it was still raining too hard to open that same window and toss him out.

Sebastian stood in front of the fire, dripping. “There's only one thing to do,” he said. “We have to go to the king and queen.”

“Oh, right,” Phoebe said. “We couldn't get even one slovenly guard to pay any attention to us, never mind Rollo. How do you think we can get in to see the king and queen?”

“Aren't we supposed to be the descendants of the two wiliest, cleverest brutes this kingdom has ever seen? Surely we can think of something.”

“
You
think. I've got a lot of cleaning up to do.”

“I need to get into some dry clothes. I'm freezing. And you must be, too.”

She was, but she didn't want to admit it. “Well, keep thinking while you go change. Because I can't figure out any way to solve this, no matter how clever a brute I'm related to.”

Sebastian stopped at the door, his hand on the knob. “I don't care how clever and wily my father was. He was also just like that guard said—nasty and scary, too. And I hope with everything I can hope with that there's not one bit of him in me. I'm going to have to be clever and imaginative on my own.”

He went out and shut the door very quietly. It was as effective as if he'd slammed it.

Phoebe stood, the cleanup cloth in her hand. What he'd said was so exactly what she thought about Boris, her torturer-in-chief father, that she felt like crying. She wished she'd been able to tell Sebastian one of her odd facts in gratitude. Maybe how most people's ears don't match.

The pigeon finally got tired of circling the library and settled on a stack of folios, tucked his head under his wing, and went to sleep.

Phoebe wrapped her spare shawl around her wet shoulders, plopped down in her chair, put her chin in her hand, and tried to do some clever and imaginative thinking herself while she listened to the evening crier.

“Princess Poppy has learned to roll over and may be cutting her first tooth!Abnormally early, I know, but we didn't expect our little princess to be an ordinary baby, did we? Of course not! And she is not! Her Welcome Party is scheduled for five weeks hence! Invitations were sent by p-mail today!” He coughed. Being a crier, especially in bad weather, required a certain vocal stamina not everyone had. “More news at ten! Learn who was caught stealing apples from the castle storeroom! Hear how many trees the dragon ignited today!” He coughed again. “And if you haven't already noticed, it's windy and pouring rain, even though it's supposed to be spring!”

A
S MUCH AS
M
ARIGOLD
didn't want to start being queen again, she knew she had to. That was one of the problems with being a responsible regent—sometimes it was nothing but a big drag. What she wanted to do was hang around the nursery, elbowing Mrs. Sunday out of the way. She loved it when the laundress came in with a pile of Poppy's little clothes. She couldn't help herself—she just had to
oooh
over how adorable they were. And she hated it when the secretary came in with a pile of thank-you notes to go over. She couldn't do that in a hurry. After all, she really was very grateful for the outpouring of love and generosity from her subjects (even though there might have been an element of self-interest involved; someday when they needed a favor from the queen, they could remind her of the cunning little blanket they had knit with their very own arthritic hands) and wanted to be properly appreciative.

And before you knew it, Mrs. Sunday was the one holding Poppy and fussing over her, and Marigold was back to being more queen than mommy.

“Go on now, Your Highness.” Mrs. Sunday smiled at Poppy, who giggled back at her, making Marigold want to snatch the baby away—and to push poor innocent Mrs. Sunday out the window. She knew it was good for Poppy to be loved by many people and to love many people, too. But Marigold could hardly stand it.

“We've got everything under control here,” Mrs. Sunday said. “You
are
the queen. You must have important things you need to do.”

She certainly did. There was no question that she'd neglected her queenly duties for weeks now. Even Christian, as devoted a father as anyone could be, had realized that he had obligations and so had resumed his usual routine as king, modified to include time to play with his daughter.

Disconsolately, Marigold made her way through the labyrinth of hallways toward the throne room. As she went, she realized she hadn't heard enough really good new elephant jokes to satisfy her since Poppy was born. And she'd been shamefully thoughtless and inconsiderate with the dogs. And she had no idea what was happening with her perfume business. She hadn't even worn her crown for weeks, an unseemly thing for a monarch to do.

She was so busy thinking, she almost bumped into two people coming toward her. “Oh, sorry.”

“Maybe you can help us,” Phoebe said, then gave Marigold a close look. “Has anybody ever told you that you look a lot like the queen?”

“I get that all the time,” Marigold said, embarrassed to be caught without her crown. “What do you need?”

“It's important that we talk to King Christian or Queen Marigold,” Phoebe told her. “The sentries told us that they're unavailable and said we should leave. But we remembered they made a promise at their coronation to always be attentive to the needs of their subjects. So we . . . well, we kind of sneaked in when the sentries were distracted.”

“Yes, they did say that,” Marigold said, her guilt at her royal neglect growing.

“We have something very important to tell them. It's a matter of life or death,” Sebastian said.

“Oh, my!” Marigold was alarmed. She needed Chris with her for this. “Why don't you come with me and we'll see if we can get this straightened out.”

She led them up some stairs and down a few more corridors before arriving at the throne room. Two uniformed guards holding pikes stood at the door. When they saw her, they bowed and murmured, “Your Highness.”

Phoebe and Sebastian stopped dead. “Your Highness?” Sebastian said. “You mean you really are—”

“Yes,” Marigold said, embarrassed. “I know I should have introduced myself, but I wasn't wearing my crown and I've become a little rusty at being the queen, so I—well, anyway, come on in.” She gestured to the guards and they opened the doors to the throne room.

Chris was playing Snipsnapsnorum at a table with the wizard Wendell, ex-king Swithbert, the troll Edric, and Magnus, the court architect. They all looked up, their eyebrows raised with curiosity.

“Hi, Papa. Wendell. Ed. Magnus. Chris. This is—oh, I forgot to get your names, though you both do look familiar. Anyway, they say they have something to tell us. Something of life-and-death importance.”

Chris stood up and dropped his cards on the table. “What is it?”

He always seemed to know, Marigold thought with affection, which things to take seriously and which not to. Probably the word
death
had done it, she considered.

“Your Highness, thank you for seeing us,” Sebastian said. “We apologize for not making an appointment, but this couldn't wait.” He lowered his voice. “Is it okay to talk in front of them?” he asked, indicating the other card players.

“Yes, of course. But if you'd prefer, we could go into my private chambers.”

Phoebe and Sebastian looked at each other and nodded. Neither wished to have their identities revealed to any more people than absolutely necessary now that they had managed to create a little anonymity for themselves.

“Keep playing,” Christian said to Swithbert, Ed, Wendell, and Magnus. “I know my presence has never discouraged any of you from cheating.”

“You got that right,” Swithbert said.

“Not me,” Magnus said. “I only cheat when I have to. When everybody else does.”

“Somehow even magic isn't enough help in Snipsnapsnorum,” Wendell said. “Cheating becomes
necessary.
”

“You do the same when the circumstances are on the other foot, Chris,” Ed said. (It had taken a while, but eventually the court residents had gotten used to Ed's creative expressions. Sometimes they even knew what he was talking about.)