Twice Upon a Marigold (11 page)

As Marigold made her way through the castle courtyard she thought she sensed anxiety in the crowd: a discontent, or unease, or even foreboding. Or maybe she was just projecting her own feelings—about Chris, about her abilities to rule wisely, and especially about what Olympia could do to everything Marigold cared about. She reminded herself to be vigilant and wary, for herself
and
Swithbert, as long as she was inside Beaurivage Castle.

When she reached the top of the winding staircase in the south turret, where her father's private quarters were, she was surprised at how quiet everything was. Usually Swithbert could be heard playing with Bub and Cate, or enjoying a game of snipsnapsnorum with Ed, or reading aloud to one of the courtiers' children, or even just having a chat with Denby, his valet. But even after she'd knocked on the door, there was silence. Where was Denby? Where was the king?

She pushed open the door and went into the apartment. The sitting room was perfectly tidy and completely deserted. So was the bedroom. As she turned to go, she heard a sound from the dressing room—the sound of a snuffle.

She crept up to the door, pressed her ear against it, and listened. Someone inside seemed to be crying. She tapped on the door and the sound stopped abruptly.

"Who ... who is it?" a watery voice asked.

"Denby?" Marigold said. "Is that you?"

The door opened and Denby stood there, red-eyed and pasty-faced. "Princess. I mean, Your Majesty," he gulped. "Sorry. I still think of you as the little girl who lived here."

"What's wrong, Denby?" Marigold asked. "Where's Papa?"

Tears welled in Denby's eyes. "I don't want to tell you."

Marigold made her sternest face. "You'd better," she said. "Remember, I have the imperial power of life and death." She doubted he would believe that she would harm him, but his lifelong habit of obedience
to sovereign commands might work in her favor. And it did.

"All right, then. Queen Olympia has thrown him in the dungeon along with Ed and Sir Magnus. She says they're guilty of treason, and of plotting to depose her. Oh, I suppose that's the treason part. Anyway, right now she's deciding when's the best time to stage their trial. But of course she's already decided they're guilty, and a trial will just be for show. Today would have been a good time, actually, since it's Market Day and many of the farmers and peasants are already here at the castle. They could witness it and carry the news home with them."

Marigold's voice rose two octaves. "That means she's going to have them executed! Denby, we've got to get them out! How long have they been there?"

"It seems like forever." His eyes filled again. "But just about a week, really." He inhaled on another big sob.

"Well, don't just stand there. We've got to
do
something."

"Don't you think I've spent the last week trying to figure out what?" Tears streamed down his cheeks.

"You should have come to me first thing! I can get Chris to demand their release!" Marigold declared.

Denby shook his head. "I couldn't come to you. Every time I try to leave the castle, a guard stops me. In fact I'm surprised the queen hasn't prevented you coming in. She knows you'll be a complication."

"Nobody noticed me. Rollo was arguing with a farmer about some pigs."

"Oh. Well, anyway, King Christian could demand their release in his own kingdom, but not in somebody else's. I'm sure you can guess how the queen would react to being told what to do by somebody with no authority to do so. Which would be everybody except her. He'd end up in there with them."

"Then we have to break them out ourselves! We can hide them until we figure out what to do."

Denby was shaking his head again. "There's no way we can even get down there. She's got the door to the dungeon locked, and only she and the daily household guard carry the keys. And there's a guard posted right outside their cells so nobody can get close enough to talk to them."

"Well,
think,
Denby." She made a few little frustrated whimpers. "
Think!
We can't let this go on!"

"What do you suppose I've been doing?" he asked, rather snippily, she thought, but then decided she couldn't blame him. He was as frightened and as helpless as she was. "I can't come up with anything that
could work. That's why I was crying in the dressing room."

Marigold gave herself a mental shaking. She had to remember that she was a queen, not a child terrified of her parent. And that Denby was looking to her for guidance. She patted his shoulder. "Poor Denby. This has been just awful for you, I know. I'll have to talk to the king—
my
king, I mean. Maybe he'll be able to think of something. I'll be back as soon as I can. Stay here."

"I have to," he said mournfully. "She won't let me leave."

Her heart pounding with desperation, Marigold held back her own tears and ran down the stairs so fast she almost took a header. Just as her feet went out from under her, she felt strong arms catch her. She looked up into the ruddy-cheeked face of a man wearing a white toque on his head of unruly white hair. At his feet was a basket filled with keys.

"Oh," Marigold said, righting herself. "Thank you. Who are you?"

"My name's Stan Lucasa," he said. "I'm new here. Are you, too?"

"Oh, I don't live here. Anymore. I live across the river." Her curiosity got the better of her. "What are all those keys?"

"They're my job today," he said. "The queen wants me to figure out which keys lock which doors. She's all upset because the king quit using the keys and let everybody come and go as they pleased. And now that he's been deposed, or whatever you want to call it, she wants to be able to lock people in again. I swear," he said, taking a couple of keys out of his pocket, "these don't seem to fit anything."

The idea that Olympia wanted to lock people in their rooms, the way she'd done to Marigold so many times in the past, made her just furious. She grabbed the keys from Mr. Lucasa. "And they won't," she said. "I won't let them." She pushed past him to go on down the stairs, but more carefully this time. "Thank you again for saving me," she said.

Mr. Lucasa removed his toque and, looking after her, scratched his head. "This is the oddest place I've ever been," he said as she vanished from his sight. "And she seems
nicht alle Tassen im Schrank haben.
" Which is German for not having all her cups in the cupboard.

Marigold hardly ever interrupted Christian in his workshop, but this emergency definitely qualified as an exception. She could tell he was surprised to see her, but she couldn't tell if he was pleased. However, once she'd begun explaining what was happening, he dropped everything and listened hard.

"You know I don't have any jurisdiction in someone else's kingdom—except for being intimidating—and I don't think that'll work with Olympia."

"But we have to do something! We can't let her execute them. Just come with me to Beaurivage. Maybe we can find a way to get to them."

Chris was dubious about that, but he didn't want
to risk starting another fight. So he hung up his tools and followed her.

As they crossed the pink crystal room, which had been converted into the main hall for the cave-castle, they crossed paths with Wendell, who was also rushing from his quarters.

"Oh, good," he said. "I've got something to tell you."

"Not now," Marigold said, tugging Chris along by the hand. "We're in a hurry."

"Oh, but this is important," Wendell said, rushing along with them. "It's about the necromancy. I think maybe I'm getting the hang of it."

"Good, good," she said without stopping. "That's wonderful."

"I mean," he said, panting slightly now, "I think I received a message. It might be for you."

Marigold stopped so suddenly that Christian bumped into her. "What? What do you mean? Why do you think it's for me?"

Wendell stopped, too, his hand on his chest while he tried to catch his breath. "Or for King Christian," he panted. "I'm not sure. I just got this—this
message
in my head. It just arrived there while I was working on something else. That's the way great ideas happen, don't you think? They just
come.
Anyway, it didn't
seem to apply to me, so I surmise it's for one of you since I'm in
your
castle, and I'm here to help with
your
problem."

"Tell us!" Marigold and Christian cried together, curiosity warring with their need to get going.

"Well, let me see then." Wendell rummaged in his many pockets until he came up with a crumpled piece of paper. "Ah. Here it is." He adjusted his glasses on his nose. "Oh, no, wait. This is my dry cleaning ticket. I forgot to pick it up." He rummaged some more, and came up with another piece of paper. "Here. Oh, no, this is my grocery list. I was completely out of capers and maraschino cherries. Ah, here it is. It says,
The coming month will bring winds of change in your life.
"

"You think that's for me?" Christian said. "It could be for anybody. Even you. Everybody's life changes in some way from month to month."

"Oh," he said. "I suppose you're right. It does sound a bit like something from a fortune-teller. Does it ring any bells for you?" he asked Marigold.

"Not a single tinkle," she said, pulling on Christian's arm.

Wendell scratched his head. "Dang! Now I remember where I heard that. From a gypsy at the crossroads on my way here. It
was
just cheap fortune-telling, not necromancy. Sorry." As he wandered off,
they heard him mumble, "Why can't I get the hang of this stuff?"

"Keep working on it, Wendell," Chris said. "Now we really have to go. We'll see you later." And they rushed off to Beaurivage.

T
HIS TIME
, however, Rollo was paying attention and wouldn't allow them to cross the drawbridge into the castle.

"Orders from the queen," he told them. "You no longer have free passage. She says you're to stay in your own kingdom and mind your own business. Those are her words, not mine." He seemed a little embarrassed, but adamant.

When an eight-foot-tall person says you can't come in, the sensible thing to do is to go away. Which is what Chris and Marigold did. There are occasions when insisting on your prerogatives, royal or not, is just a waste of time.

As they walked away from the castle, Chris said, "I was tempted to try to get by him but I knew that wouldn't work. And then I was tempted to pull rank on him. After all, I'm a king myself." He always sounded a little surprised when he said that. "But I know Rollo's not easy to intimidate."

"But Papa!" Marigold exclaimed. "And Ed and Magnus! What are we going to do?"

They stopped in a little copse of trees to mull this over.

"Is there any other way in?" Chris asked.

"We could scale the bluff from the river up to the terrace with ropes, I suppose, but I'm not sure we're strong enough to accomplish that. I haven't been doing my weight-lifting exercises diligently enough lately. Besides, somebody would probably see us. The flying machine was never repaired after it crashed on the terrace on our wedding day, so we can't use that." She sat on a stump, her chin in her hand, her brow furrowed, and thought while Chris watched her.

Suddenly Marigold sat up straight. "There's a door! A little door right at the water's edge that opens out from the dungeon. They used it in the olden days to dump the torture victims into the river." She shivered at the thought. "It hasn't been used since long before I was born, though Olympia would threaten me with it when I'd been bad. But it might still work."

He grabbed her hand and yanked her to her feet. "It's our only chance. We have to try. Our fathers are in there."

They made their way through the woods around the castle until they came to the river's edge. Scrooching down the steep, muddy bank to the narrow strip of beach, Marigold lamented (but only for a moment) what was happening to her cute little beaded shoes. What were shoes, even cute ones, compared to the life of someone she loved? They were a worthy sacrifice. She hoped they would be the only one.

The curtain wall of the castle soared high above them, and plunged straight down into the riverbank. Moss and lichens covered the wall higher than their heads, and looked altogether quite slimy and vile.

"There's a door under this stuff somewhere?" Chris asked. "Are you sure?"

"Are you doubting me?" Marigold asked. "I told you it's here."

"Okay, okay. Don't get your—" and then he thought better of what he'd been about to say. He knew now where a remark like that ended up, and he didn't want to start that again with Marigold. "I mean, then let's find it."

She took a deep breath, and put her hands on the slick, mossy wall, feeling around for the edges of a door. "Ick, ick, ick," she said. But she kept groping through the gloppy growth. So did Christian.

"Hey!" he called after a while. "I think I've found a hinge." He scraped away a thick layer of moss with his fingers. Marigold hurried over to help him, and before long they had revealed a door with an iron ring mounted in the center.

"Pull it," Marigold said. "The longer we're out here, the more chance there is that someone'll see us from up on the terrace."

"You and your father spent more time out there than anybody else ever did," Chris said. "And I ought to know. I put in a lot of hours watching you through my telescope." He gazed down at her, remembering
that sweet and nervous time when he was first falling in love with her.

She gazed back at him, remembering the first p-mail message she'd received from him, when she'd been convinced that she'd be lonely for the rest of her life. And then he'd come along, first with his friendship, then with his love. How could she ever be irritable with someone who had changed her life? What came over her that caused her to speak to him the way she sometimes did?

Christian had turned back to the door and was tugging on the iron ring, to no avail. "This door is stuck, or locked," he said. "I can't get it open."

"Pull harder," she said. "I'll help."

But the door remained stuck shut.