"My panther falling down."
"My panther ...," she mused. "Oh! My pants are falling down!" And she laughed and laughed, the way she hadn't for days. It felt so good. "Oh! I love knock-knock jokes! Tell me more."
So they sat together telling jokes while the servants stood restlessly around, waiting for Marigold and Wendell to leave so they could get on with clearing the dishes. Finally they ran out of jokes and went off to bed, with Wendell exhausted after his long trip and the effort of entertaining the young queen, and Marigold in better spirits than she had been in for several days.
By the time Marigold fell asleep, Christian had still not come in from his workshop. And she'd tried so hard to stay awake so she could tell him this new kind of joke. Even when things were tense between them, he was still the first person she thought of when she wanted to share something.
CHRISTIAN HAD been working on a miniature trebuchet. He'd wanted to surprise Marigold with it at breakfast, catapulting an orange from his end of the table to hers. But now he was afraid she wouldn't think it was funny. Now she'd probably think he was attacking her. How things between them had gotten to this point, and in such a short time, was impossible for him to understand—unless it was because Olympia's malevolent energy had been set loose in the kingdom again. He needed more than a miniature trebuchet to fix that. If only he had one big enough to land a boulder on Olympia and eliminate the problems once and for all.
He was immediately ashamed of himself for thinking such a thing about the woman who was, after all, his mother-in-law.
OLYMPIA DECIDED a trial was necessary for Swithbert, Ed, and Magnus. If she was going to be sole monarch she didn't want her subjects thinking she was an irrational cutthroat. She wanted them to know she was a responsible ruler. One who could be benevolent (when she felt like it, which was rare) and fair (when it suited her, which was hardly ever), but who would not tolerate treachery and disloyalty (ever).
Besides, she knew that Swithbert and Ed, and even Magnus, were held in fond regard by the Beaurivageans. In order to expose them for the double-dealing, two-faced rats and traitors that they were, she had made sure that all the details of their crimes were being circulated through the kingdom's gossip grapevine. A trial would put the finishing touch on them, and head off any kind of grassroots movement to salvage their popularity.
There weren't going to be any uprisings or peasant revolts in her kingdom.
20
"Do you think Olympia's going to have us killed?" Magnus was pressed against the bars in his cell, calling to Swithbert.
Swithbert shot a glance at Finbar, and then decided that it probably didn't matter what he had to say about Olympia. He was sure she'd already publicly branded them as traitors and made up her mind about what she would do with them, and it almost certainly wasn't going to be fun. For them, at least.
"I can't say no to that," he said. "She's wanted to get rid of me for years. And as long as she regards you and Ed as my friends, and equal impediments to what she wants, well ..."
Magnus gathered his dressing gown around himself in the chill, and slunk back to the corner of his cell. He should have known things were going too well: his new house, his popularity, Sephronia. Nothing in his life had ever worked out for the best for very long. He'd been stupid to think it would now.
"Stop beating around the handwriting on the wall," Ed piped up from his cell. "We know what she's going to do. What we need to do is get down to brass monkeys and stop her from doing it."
"Good idea, Ed," Swithbert agreed. "How would be the question."
"Oh, yeah," Ed said, also slumping back into his corner. "You're right. Do you think anybody can get us out of here? Anybody like Marigold or Christian, who might—"
Swithbert interrupted. "Don't count on it. Olympia doesn't want any interference with this endeavor of hers. Knowing her, she's made it clear that she's in charge of Beaurivage now. And she definitely wouldn't welcome any meddling by somebody from another kingdom."
"You got that right," Finbar put in. "She's been gone so long I'd almost forgotten, but that's how she does business. Like the way she sprung that engagement between you"—he indicated Magnus with his pike—"and Princess Marigold at that dinner just three days before she wanted to have the wedding."
Swithbert, Magnus, and Ed could only figure that Finbar had become so bored he had to have somebody to talk to, and they were the only candidates. Swithbert made a little signal to Magnus and Ed to keep quiet as he said to Finbar, "Yes, the kingdom was a different kind of place while she was gone, wasn't it?"
Finbar got a far-off look on his face. "Aye. That it was. Us guards were all getting to relax a little, without worrying she'd make us do something we didn't think was right. She was always having me kick somebody out of the castle in the middle of the night for doing nothing more than dressing some way she didn't like, or singing off-key. She's a hard dame to please."
"You're telling me," Swithbert said. "Tell me, Fin-bar. You seem like a discerning fellow. Do you think the citizens of Beaurivage are happy their queen is back?"
Finbar gave Swithbert an incredulous look. "Only if they like living in fear all the time again." Then he seemed to remember who he was talking to and what his job was. He straightened up. "But she's back, and she's the queen, and she says you're all traitors. She gives the orders, and I follow them."
"Not long ago, I was the one giving the orders," Swithbert said a bit wistfully.
"Yeah, I know," Finbar said, softening slightly. "And believe me, I don't like being the guy who has to be guarding you."
"Do you believe her, Finbar? Do you believe I was plotting treason against her?"
"Well, if you weren't, you should have been," Finbar said, indignant. "You're the king! You could have stopped her before she got started again. When you didn't do that, you made things harder for all your subjects."
"And for myself and my friends, too," Swithbert said sadly.
"Maybe you deserve it, then," Finbar said, throwing back his shoulders and standing at attention again. He'd worked himself up into a fit of righteousness and made Swithbert even more miserable than a person already locked in a dungeon awaiting who-knew-what awful fate should feel.
APPARENTLY MRS. CLOVER was going to leave Lazy Susan in the scullery with the dirty kettles forever. Each day Lazy Susan was sent back in with her scrubbing brush and her bucket of hot water. And each day she sat on her stool while the water cooled, and the servants brought in more pots caked with dragon fat, stuck-on nightingale feathers, and baked-on hoofen-poofer juice. Surely they would run out of pots in the kitchen soon, she thought, and then somebody—somebody besides her, that is—would have to come in and clean them.
Looking at the piles of pots and kettles gradually crowding her into a corner of the scullery was making her more and more uneasy. If she was ambitious, the way Mrs. Clover had been, perhaps she'd have gone right to work scrubbing. Or if she was trying to please someone or earn her keep, she'd have set to work. But she was none of those things.
Still, the sight of all those dirty pots, disgusting and revolting as could be, was making her feel she should do something about it—as if the pots had begun to regard her reproachfully, and even somewhat sadly, at how she was neglecting them. Too, she had to admit, spending hour after hour just sitting there staring at them was supremely boring. Back in Granolah she'd been perfectly capable of spending hours lying in a hammock watching the activities of the village, having a vicarious sense of participation. But here there was nothing going on she could pretend to be a part of. Any activity would have to be one she generated herself. Was she willing to have that activity be pot scrubbing?
MR. LUCASA HAD plenty to do. He'd never worked for a more demanding person than Queen Olympia—or one who changed her mind more often. He'd ripped off and sewn back on the same band of fabric roses five times on the same dress. First she liked them on the shoulder, then she didn't. Over and over again. She appeared to operate under such a head of steam it seemed
impossible that she could keep up that pace. Sometimes he even thought he could hear infuriated thoughts whirring and clanking in her skull, and if he could look inside her ear with a good strong light he imagined he'd see machinery operating at such a wicked speed that it would be smoking.
Still, he liked the work he was doing, playing with fabrics and trimmings and solving puzzles of construction. Even more, he liked working in the kitchens, where he was part of a creative team. He especially liked making cakes and pastries, where he could let his imagination loose. His desserts often turned out like fanciful architectural structures, or replicas of everyday items that looked so real it was hard to tell the difference from the actual thing.
One day he'd watched the royal dogs fighting over a single blue squeaky toy. So he'd made five little cakes, each shaped like that toy, and presented them to the dogs. They'd been ecstatic—until the cakes were consumed. Then they'd gone back to fighting over the real blue squeaky toy. But Mr. Lucasa had been pleased that his creations had been realistic enough to keep them from fighting, even if only for a short time.
That was the day Olympia almost had the dogs kicked out of the castle to live in the stables, she was so sick of hearing them fighting. But when she came out of her suite, they were all peacefully lying on the carpet in the corridor, chewing. So she swept on by, confident that her reprimands had finally had some effect. And she had much more important problems on her mind than a few dogs.
21
With Christian occupied in his workshop and Wendell shut up in his room working on his necromancy, Marigold was at loose ends. She couldn't concentrate on any book, her interest in developing a new fragrance wandered, and Flopsy, Mopsy, and Topsy had run across the Zandelphia-Beaurivage Bridge to play with Bub and Cate at the castle. Though, come to think about it, they all hadn't been getting along so well lately.
Well, maybe she'd go across the bridge, too. She'd avoided visiting since Olympia had returned, for obvious reasons, but she hadn't seen her father for over a week and she was missing him. She wasn't going to allow Olympia, whatever schemes she might be hatching, to intimidate her from seeing her father—and from making sure he was all right. It was true she'd had to wait around at home for Wendell to show up, but now it was a sure thing, she was afraid, that she wouldn't be missed if she took the afternoon off and left the castle. Chris seemed barely to notice her even when he was in the same room with her.
She wondered if this was the way every marriage ended up, especially royal ones: suffocated by obligations and formalities. She and Chris had even talked about that on their honeymoon and promised not to let it happen. But maybe it was inevitable. It didn't seem to have happened to her sisters, those beautiful blond, impossibly lucky triplets, all of whom had married royalty, but they had been extraordinary and fairy-blessed all their lives. They weren't like anybody else, so she couldn't use them as a gauge of anything.
She set off across the Zandelphia-Beaurivage Bridge. She couldn't help admiring it every time she saw it. It reminded her again and again of how clever and brilliant Chris was to have designed such a beautiful, and also tricky, structure. A bridge like that made both kingdoms feel safer when invaders could be dumped into the river with the operation of a few gears.
She entered the bailey in the midst of a throng of peasants arriving for Market Day. Rollo had pulled aside, and was threatening, a farmer who wanted to bring in more than his allowed number of pigs, all squealing and scuffling about in the farmer's wagon. Rollo seemed unfriendlier than usual. Maybe his mood had something to do with his having to work for Olympia again. She could be a tough boss even if you agreed with her about everything, which Marigold supposed Rollo did. You probably didn't get to be captain of the guards by differing with your queen.
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."
M
arigold 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.