“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.)
“I’m afraid you’re right,” Chris said. He and Marigold walked with Phoebe and Sebastian to a tall door with an ornate iron closure. This door opened into a large, comfortably furnished sitting room. A fire blazed in the hearth, and the heavy velvet drapes were open to the wet and fading daylight. Chris gestured to a big plush sofa, and Phoebe and Sebastian sat—on the edge, their hands on their knees, as if prepared to leap up and run if they had to. Christian and Marigold sat across from them in two high-backed chairs.
“Now,” Chris said, “what’s this life-and-death thing?”
Phoebe looked at Sebastian. Sebastian looked at Phoebe. He took a deep breath, then said, “Somebody’s going to kidnap Princess Poppy.”
Marigold gasped so loudly, Chris reached over to pat her on the back, as if she were choking. She put her hand to her mouth and said, “Who? When? I was just in the nursery and everything was fine. What makes you think this could happen?”
Sebastian told them about the pigeon and the intercepted message—and what it was about and what had happened to it. “So we have no proof, and we don’t know who the message was intended for. But we believe it.”
“And why is that?” Chris asked.
They were silent.
As the silence stretched on, Chris continued. “Do you have any idea how many threats we receive every week? As peaceful as the kingdom of Zandelphia- Beaurivage is now, there are days when I think everybody in it is annoyed about something and they want to take it out on me. So I need to know why you think this one is serious.”
Finally Phoebe spoke. “Because we’re sure we know who sent the message, and we know what they’re capable of.”
“And how do you know this?”
Sometimes Marigold was in awe of just how kingly Chris could be. The forceful way he now spoke to the two on the couch made it inconceivable that they could refuse to answer. Yet, for a moment, it seemed that they were going to.
Finally the girl spoke again. “Because one of them is my father. Boris, the ex-torturer-in-chief.”
“And the other,” the young man said softly, “is Vlad, the ex-poisoner-in-chief. My father.”
Marigold gasped again, but more quietly this time. “I knew you looked familiar,” she said.
Chris patted the queen’s hand absent-mindedly. “Yes. You’re Phoebe, and you’re Sebastian,” he said.
“You knew?” Sebastian asked.
Christian nodded. “I’m the king. It’s my business to know.”
“But,” Phoebe went on, “we’re nothing like our fathers. At least I’m not. I don’t know him very well”—she gestured at Sebastian—“so I can’t be sure, but I think he’s okay. And I do know our fathers were close friends and that this is exactly something they would do. Boris was so outraged about his exile that he vowed revenge. He said it was best served cold, whatever that means.”
“It means that you can make a better plan for vengeance and carry it out more effectively when your anger has cooled off and you’re icy and merciless,” Sebastian said.
The word merciless was so accurate and so chilling that Phoebe shivered. “Oh. Then that’s what he meant. And it sounds awful, doesn’t it?”
“It does to me,” Marigold said. She turned to Chris. “Do you mean there have been other threats against Poppy? And you didn’t tell me?”
He put his hand over hers. “I didn’t want to worry you, my love. Rollo and I had it under control. Why spoil your happiness with Poppy?”
She yanked her hand away. “I thought we were best friends! I thought you told me everything! How dare you keep something like that from me? Have you forgotten I’m also the queen? You don’t need to protect me. I’m perfectly capable of deciding for
myself how much something worries me. And I can’t do that unless I know what the problem is. It’s insulting, that’s what it is.” Furious tears welled in her eyes.
Since he’d married Marigold, Chris had learned a thing or two about what happily ever after really meant. He was smart enough to recognize that he’d just screwed up and that a real apology (not one of those that somehow suggests that another person is actually at fault because they couldn’t take a joke or were too sensitive, or something like that) was called for. Immediately.
“I’m sorry, precious,” he said. “I thought I was saving you from worry, but I see that I was wrong. Can you forgive me?” A good apologizer offers the offended party an opportunity to be generous in forgiveness—but doesn’t count on it. Some people (luckily Marigold was not one of them) can hold a grudge forever.
“Probably,” Marigold said. “In fact, I’m sure I can. But first I want to hear what else Phoebe and Sebastian have to say.”
“Oh,” Phoebe said. “Nothing, really. We told you all of it.”
“So you don’t know who M. is, or where the pigeon was headed?” Chris asked.
“No,” Sebastian said. “But I’d guess it was going to your personal quarters. Anybody who could get close enough to Princess Poppy to snatch her would have to be someone who knew how to get to her. Someone who knew the castle well. Don’t you think?”
“Indeed I do,” Christian said. “Don’t you, precious?” he asked Marigold, who nodded. “So the first thing we’re going to do is increase the security in the nursery.”
“And you should probably find everyone in the castle whose name begins with M and start investigating them,” Sebastian said. Then, realizing how presumptuous he’d been, he stammered, “Except the queen, of course.” He bowed in Marigold’s direction. “Don’t you think? Your Highness?”
“You make perfect sense,” Christian said, then looked at Marigold. “What do you think, precious?”
“That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” Marigold said. “Immediately.”
Christian stood up. “Mrs. Clover will have a list of everybody who works in the castle. I’ll have someone fetch it while we get over to the nursery. And we must tell the others.”
When they opened the door to the throne room, the card players looked up.
“Poppy may be in danger,” Marigold said. “We’re on the way to the nursery to check on her.”
“Then we’re coming, too,” Swithbert said, throwing down his cards.
As they made their way through the corridors, Chris said, “There must be fifty people here whose first or last names start with M, beginning with Meg, the kitchen maid who’s married to Rollo. I can just imagine how he’d take to the suggestion that his wife might be planning a major crime.”
Phoebe and Sebastian exchanged a glance as each of them thought, Thank goodness we never got to talk to Rollo.
“We have three new staff members with access to the nursery,” Marigold said, alarmed. “Mrs. Sunday, the laundress, and the secretary. I don’t know if any of their names start with M. We need to have the crier announce this threat. The whole kingdom has to be on the lookout for any strange behavior. We cannot let this happen.”
Christian was thinking about how much strange behavior seemed to go on in the kingdom even on the most unremarkable day. For one thing, there was a great white elephant parked in the stables next to the unicorns, who had never really gotten used to him and tried to stampede away whenever he raised his trunk and trumpeted, ramming into whatever got in their way. The stalls were pierced with unicorn-horn holes.
There was also a wizard who would cheat at cards with a retired king, a current king, the kingdom’s architect, and a troll. And Christian himself had once been a servant in this very castle. Zandelphia-Beaurivage wasn’t exactly an ordinary kingdom.
Chris put his arms around Marigold and said, “Perhaps, my love, we need a little more information before we tip our hand. Don’t you think that for now it’s better that the culprits don’t know we’re on to them? They may not be as careful if they think their plot is still a secret.”
Something flipped inside Phoebe’s chest when she saw how tender the king was with the queen, even right on the heels of an argument. She must have made a little sound as she thought about this, because Sebastian said quietly, “What? Do you dispute?”
“Huh? Dispute? No. I mean, I don’t know. He’s the king. He knows better than me. Doesn’t he?”
“But we know our fathers.” Sebastian coughed to get the king’s attention. “Excuse me, sire,” he said. “I know Vlad—and Boris, too, though not as well—and I haven’t forgotten that they’re clever and ruthless and impatient. Once they get an idea, they’ll want to get it done.”
“But we intercepted the message,” Phoebe said. “M. doesn’t know anything about the plan.”
Sebastian turned to face her. “Do you think they would have sent that pigeon out into the storm if they weren’t in a hurry? What makes you think they sent only one pigeon? Wouldn’t your father make sure there was a backup, just in case the first one didn’t get through? I know mine would.”
“And so would mine,” Phoebe agreed miserably.
Without a word, Marigold picked up her pace, and the others followed.
The crowd burst into the yellow and purple nursery expecting to find a surprised Mrs. Sunday and a sleeping infant.
They found an empty room.
No Mrs. Sunday.
No baby in the cradle.
Nothing.
5
MARIGOLD WAS ON THE verge of a scream when she heard muffled sounds coming from behind the curtained doorway that led to Mrs. Sunday’s sleeping quarters. She pulled back the curtain and saw Mrs. Sunday lying on the bed. Marigold was about to fire her on the spot for neglecting her little charge and taking a nap when she noticed that Mrs. Sunday had no choice about being neglectful: she was bound hand and foot, and gagged.
Magnus, quiet and competent as always, began untying her and pulling the gag from her mouth, while Ed, excitable as always, yelled, “What happened? What happened? Who did this? Who did this?” The rest stood in shock.
Mrs. Sunday sat up and burst into tears. “Oh, Your Highness,” she wailed, her hands over her face. “I tried to stop them, but I wasn’t strong enough.”
“Who?” Marigold demanded. “Who was it? And where is Poppy?”
“They took her.” Mrs. Sunday let out another heartbroken wail. “She’s gone.”
Christian sat on the edge of the bed and took Mrs. Sunday’s hands in his. “Mrs. Sunday,” he said severely. “If you tell me you had nothing to do with this, I will believe you. But then you must tell me everything you know about what happened.”
Mrs. Sunday took a deep breath and said, “I had nothing to do with it, I swear. The first I knew that anything was wrong was when the laundress came in the nursery with her laundry basket. I thought it was rather late for her to be bringing laundry. I was just putting Poppy to bed. And she had two footmen with her, which was odd. One of them, Fogarty, was hired for banquet services, I was told, so I wondered what he was doing here. The other one I’ve seen here and there. A general errand boy, I think. He’s young and seems a little befuddled. I believe his name is Bartholomew.
“The two footmen grabbed me and slapped a gag on me before I could scream or say anything, and then they dragged me in here and tied me up. I could see that laundress put Poppy in the basket and cover her with a sheet. She put something in the cradle, too. Then they pulled the curtain so I couldn’t see anything else, but I heard the door close and then I didn’t hear anything more. The storm was noisy, so I might have missed something.” She removed her hands from Chris’s grasp and started wailing again.
“Thank you, Mrs. Sunday,” Chris said calmly, as if his child were not in unknown peril. “One more thing. Do you know what the laundress’s name is?”
“It’s Emlyn, sire. Though mostly we just called her Laundress.”
; “Emlyn,” Chris said. “Em. Or letter M.”
“They can’t have been gone long,” Marigold said, suddenly businesslike. “They may even still be in the castle. I’ll alert Rollo.” She ran from the room.
“Swithbert,” Chris addressed his father-in-law. “How many ways are there out of the castle?”
“Oh, my,” Swithbert said, still in shock. “I don’t know that I ever counted them.” He held up his fingers and started ticking them off as he mentally calculated. This went on for quite a while. Finally, he said, “There are thirty-seven that I can think of just offhand. Probably more.”
“Don’t forget the secret passage down in the dungeon,” Magnus said.
“Right,” said Chris. “That’s at least thirty-eight.”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Ed exclaimed. “We’ve got to get down to brass roots and find Poppy!”
But first they looked at what was left in the cradle, which was indeed a ransom note, demanding a very large number of ducats—and signed by B. and V., the Terrible Twos.
Rollo rallied his guards (except for the one who hadn’t told him of the attempted report of a kidnapping; he was now assigned to elephant-poop-shoveling duties in the stables). He sent them to all the castle exits anybody could think of, but by the early morning, no one had passed through them who shouldn’t have, and definitely nobody with a laundry basket. Rollo sure didn’t want to give that news to the king and queen, who were already pretty upset that he hadn’t seen Phoebe and Sebastian when they first came to make a report. He was glad he had the poop-shoveling guard to blame, though, secretly, he was pretty sure he, too, would have refused to give an audience to the progeny of the worst brutes the kingdom had ever seen.
Since King Christian and Queen Marigold had assumed reign over Zandelphia-Beaurivage, everyone in the kingdom who had ever been fans of ex-queen Olympia and the Terrible Twos was busily forgetting that fact, and hoping that anyone else who knew them was, too. But, as always, there were a few unrepentant souls who longed for the good old days of torture, poisonings, and assorted mayhem. They were the ones Rollo knew he had to be on the alert for, since they might have aided and abetted the kidnapping. And he knew all of them because he had once been one of them.