Thrice Upon a Marigold (7 page)

“Isn't this the way to the dragon's lair?” Marigold asked apprehensively. “Why isn't he going to the cabin?”

Here, all the trees had singed leaves and certain sections were beginning to show new growth after being burned to the ground.

“It is indeed,” Christian said. A leaden hand seemed to clutch his heart at the idea of his child being anywhere near the dragon. But he knew how the Terrible Twos felt about dragons, so he did what he could to prepare himself for something awful—even though there's actually very little one can do in such a circumstance. There is no such thing as truly being prepared for something awful.

Just then a roar echoed through the forest, followed by a tongue of flame that flickered through the trees ahead of them.

“Uh-oh,” Wendell said. He pulled hard on Hannibal's harness, but Hannibal kept going, toward the flames. Wendell pulled harder and yelled, “Stop!” But Hannibal was huge and purposeful, and Wendell had no choice but to go along for the ride.

The rest of the party had halted, and they watched as Hannibal and Wendell headed away. As humorous as the back end of an elephant can be—what with the gigantic rear haunches and the little stringy tail—there was nothing funny about watching their friend being carried helplessly away toward the dragon.

Another spear of flame just missed Hannibal and Wendell, accompanied by another roar. It was becoming increasingly possible that the court crier was going to have some sad and surprising news to report that evening.

U
P AHEAD
W
ENDELL WAS
beginning to see the scorched earth and charred tree stumps that surrounded the dragon's lair. He smelled charcoal and cooking and was afraid he would soon be part of the aroma. Hannibal kept walking, cinders crunching under his enormous feet, until he was standing on a patch of bare ground. Wendell cringed, his eyes squinched shut, awaiting the flames that would incinerate him. And maybe Hannibal, too, although his skin was thicker and tougher and maybe even fireproof.

It is hard to cringe for very long without getting a kink in one's back and neck, so after a while Wendell had to straighten up and open his eyes. And when he did, he saw that the dragon had come to the mouth of her lair and was looming directly in front of him. It was the first time he had ever been face-to-face with a dragon, and one part of him couldn't help admiring the beautiful iridescence of her scales and the intricate patterns in which they were arranged. The other part of him was afraid his heart had stopped beating for good.

But it started again, and when it did, he noticed that the dragon was paying no attention at all to him.

Her large gold eyes, with surprisingly long and luxurious eyelashes, were fastened on Hannibal, who was just about her size. Her lashes swept down and up again, and a trickle of smoke meandered out of the side of her mouth.

Hannibal raised his trunk and lowered it again, as if in greeting.

Wendell sat, holding his breath, watching his elephant and the dragon watch each other. In the meantime, the rest of the party had edged closer, but not
too
close.

“What do you think is going on?” Marigold asked in a whisper.

“This seems crazy,” Chris said. “But it looks to me as if they are—”

“Flirting,” Marigold finished for him. “Yes. That's what I thought, too. Can it be? That dragon's probably never seen another creature as big and as—”

“Impressive as she is,” Chris cut in. “It's a perfect match.”

“What if Hannibal doesn't like her?” Marigold asked. “We don't want him to make her mad.”

“Doesn't look to me as if that's happening,” Chris said. “He's probably never seen another creature as big and as impressive as he is, either.”

“Do you suppose he's lonely?” Marigold asked.

“I never thought about it,” Chris said. “But it makes sense. We
should
have thought about it. Poor Hannibal. With only those nervous unicorns for company.”

“This could help us,” Marigold said.

“Uh, sure,” Chris said, not sure at all what she meant.

“If those Terrible Twos are going to try to use the dragon somehow in this, maybe Hannibal can keep that from happening.”

“Well, Bub seemed to think we needed Hannibal for something,” Chris said. “And he led us straight to the dragon.”

“I know I wanted to go back for Bub,” Marigold said, lowering her voice. “But he is just a
dog.
I know he's very special to you, but he doesn't really have a record of being brilliant about anything. Except tracking, sometimes.”

When Chris sat up straighter, getting defensive about his dog, Marigold remembered about living happily ever after and went on in a more charitable way. “But that doesn't mean he doesn't have some kind of intuition about this situation. He
is
a very sensitive fellow.” She hoped she was right about that.

Chris's shoulders relaxed. “I've always believed that animals sense things we can't.”

They turned their attention back to the dragon and Hannibal—and poor Wendell, who was both a trapped audience and an innocent bystander to the blossoming romance, if that's what it was.

The dragon had moved a little closer, still trailing a ribbon of smoke from the corner of her mouth. She made a sound, something between a growl and a purr. Hannibal made a low sound in response, but he took one step backward. She frowned and advanced, the smoke increasing in volume and darkening in color.

“Easy, boy,” Wendell said to Hannibal. “Don't make her mad. Can't you see she likes you?”

Shafts of angled sunlight struck the scales on the dragon's flanks, causing them to shimmer and glitter with flashes of color. Hannibal raised his great ears in surprise.

“See, Hannibal?” Wendell murmured to him. “Isn't she something? Who else do you know who could do something like that?”

The dragon was all the way out of her lair now, inching across the bare earth toward Hannibal. This time he stood his ground. Her long forked tail rose up over her back and wagged a little, back and forth.

She came right up to Hannibal and bumped his trunk with her nose. He rested the tip of his trunk between her eyes, which she closed. A sigh in the form of a long white plume of smoke issued from her lips.

“This is getting embarrassing,” Phoebe said, turning her head. “I feel like we shouldn't be looking. And besides, how is this helping us find Poppy?”

“I think it's sweet,” Marigold said dreamily. “Those are two of the rarest and most extraordinary creatures in our world. If they can't help us, I don't know who can. Let's see what else happens.”

As they watched, a great tear formed in one of the dragon's eyes and turned to steam as it slid down her face. She lowered her lush lashes and ducked her head as another tear followed, and then a torrent, until her face was almost obscured by a cloud of steam.

Hannibal took a step back and gave her a puzzled look.

“What's happening now?” Chris asked. “Why is she crying?
Is
she crying?”

“I think she's trying to tell him something. And he doesn't know what to do with the news,” Marigold replied.

“How in the world do you know that?” Christian asked, astonished.

Marigold shrugged. “Woman's intuition. And remember, I used to be able to read people's thoughts.”

“You think she wants him to know something about the Terrible Twos?”

“Possibly. We all know the way they feel about dragons. Maybe they want her to do something she knows is wrong.”

“But wait a minute,” Sebastian said. “Hasn't she been doing plenty of things wrong? For a long time? Like burning down acres of trees time after time?”

Marigold was quiet for a minute. “You're right,” she finally said. “She
has
been doing bad things for a long time. But maybe she had a reason. I can't guess what it would be, but it's possible.” Her voice rose. “Do you suppose . . . What if the Terrible Twos hid Poppy in her lair?” Her voice rose higher, became more urgent. “Isn't that the kind of thing Boris and Vlad would do—hide Poppy where nobody would dream of going after her? Could that be why Bub had Hannibal lead us here?” She slid off her horse. “Well, I'm Poppy's mother! I'll go anywhere to get my baby back!” And she picked up her skirts and ran straight toward the dragon's lair.

“Hey!” Chris yelled, jumping off his horse and starting after her.

His shout startled the dragon, who coughed a jet of flame right at his feet. With the dragon's attention focused on Chris, Marigold ducked under her line of sight and vanished into the lair.

Hannibal raised his trunk and trumpeted with surprise. The dragon looked back at him with the sheepish expression people often have when they are caught doing something they know is wrong, but don't want to admit it. Then she turned her back on Hannibal and Wendell and the rest of them and bustled back into her lair.

“Wait!” Chris yelled as he rushed toward the entrance. “My Marigold is in there!”

Apparently the dragon didn't care. She didn't reappear, and a blast of flames issued from inside.

“Marigold!” Chris cried, dodging the flames. “Marigold! Come out!”

Nothing happened except for more torrents of fire.

Hannibal trumpeted and trumpeted. Finally he faced facts and turned around, lumbering back to where Sebastian and Phoebe waited, their mouths open in astonishment. Not only was Poppy missing, but now Marigold was, too. Instead of making progress, they were going backwards.

Shoulders slumped, Chris led his horse back to them, wisps of smoke rising from his singed doublet. “I can't get in there without getting burned to a crisp. And then who would save Poppy?” He took a deep breath. “I don't know what to do now.”

T
HAT GOAT HAS GOT
to go,” Emlyn said, holding her nose. “Can't we tie her up outside the tent?”

“You know we tried that,” Fogarty said. “Unless she's inside, she bleats so loud she attracts attention we don't want attracted. And she tries to eat the tent.”

“Well, then,
I'm
going outside.” And Emlyn did just that, saying, “Let me know when you decide anything,” as she closed the tent flap. Sitting outside in the mud was better than being in a tent with four men and a goat. She wasn't sure, in fact, which one smelled the worst.

“We need to send that p-mail about the ransom arrangements tonight or first thing in the morning,” Vlad said, stroking his mustache in lieu of holding his nose. “I can't take these close living arrangements much longer, either.”

“Okay by me,” said Boris, who wasn't bothered at all by any number of horrible smells—or unusual body fluids or unearthly shrieks, for that matter. “How shall we do it?”

Vlad said, “I'm formulating a plan. We need to make sure we're in a location where we can't be trapped, and where we can get away easily. That suggests water to me. But we need to make sure we're close enough to the dragon to use her for threat purposes. Even if we can't get her to cooperate. I swear, I never imagined she'd be so stubborn. Wouldn't you think she'd be so flattered at having a poison
and
a torture device named for her that she would be willing to do whatever we asked? But be that as it may, she's still a great
symbol
of a threat. No one has to know she's not cooperating. So . . . let me see . . .” He bent over a strip of paper, scribbling and squinting in the dim light from a candle.

Poppy slept in the laundry basket, her tummy full of goat's milk, dreaming of green meadows populated by large families of happy goats, even though the only goat she had ever seen was one that had been out in the rain and then inside a tent, which hardly ever improves an animal's aroma. Or disposition.

 

“Is that something you think your fathers might do?” Christian asked Sebastian and Phoebe. “Put a helpless baby in a dragon's lair?” They lingered among the trees within sight of the lair. Chris kept looking over, hoping to see Marigold emerge.

“Well, sure,” Sebastian said, wondering why the king was even asking such an obvious question about the inventor of Take Seven Steps and Die. And of Dragon's Sweat, the deadliest poison known to man.

Chris turned to Phoebe, his eyebrows raised in question.

“There's not a doubt in my mind,” she said. It seemed unnecessarily cruel, and superfluous besides, to say anything about the glee Boris exhibited when he had a day of torture ahead of him. “But as I think about it more, I don't think he's done that in this case.”

After more consideration, Sebastian said, “Neither do I.” He and Phoebe looked at each other with a sort of sad acknowledgment. They knew too well how their fathers thought.

“You don't?” Chris asked. “Why not?”

“For one thing, they'd want easy access to the baby for when it's time to exchange her for the ransom,” Sebastian said. “And they'd want to be sure they could go in and out of the lair at will, and our dragon seems a bit too unpredictable for that.” He wasn't even going to consider the possibility that there would be no baby to exchange for the ransom money, though he knew that the Terrible Twos were more than capable of that sort of thing.

“That makes sense,” Chris said. “And you know them. But that means Marigold is stuck in the cave now, in danger, too.” He hung his head and rubbed his eyes.

“Yes,” Phoebe whispered. “It is a calamitous situation.”

Sebastian gave her an admiring look. “Grievous indeed,” he whispered back to her.

They watched as Christian stood beside his horse, continuing to rub his eyes, and waited for him to make a kingly decision. It is sometimes easy to forget that a king is still a real person who can make mistakes, and get confused, and become discouraged.