Once Upon a Marigold Read online

  Christian had to admire the arm on her, shoving those heavy doors so hard while holding on to her distressed pet.

  "What?" King Swithbert said. "What happened to Marigold?" Nobody paid any attention to him.

  "I say, old chap," Prince Cyprian said smugly to Sir Magnus, "do you think that furthered your suit with the princess?"

  "It was an accident," Sir Magnus muttered unhappily. "The little devil scared me. I never liked dogs, anyway."

  "Well, it's done now," Prince Cyprian gloated. "Accident or not, I wonder what you can do to atone. I'm quite sure she took note of the way I generously fed the little ... devils, as you so colorfully call them. Did you know she raised them after their mother died? Fed them with a baby bottle every four hours around the clock, I'm told. She couldn't love them more if they were her own children."

  "I didn't know that," Sir Magnus said, stricken. Then he straightened his shoulders and affected a more manly demeanor, though Christian could see that his knees were shaking under the table. "I'm sure I'll be able to explain to the princess what happened."

  Christian no longer favored the smug and crafty Prince Cyprian. But he wasn't so much in favor of Magnus, either, who seemed harmless enough but not even close to Marigold in spirit, brains, and grit. To be honest, he didn't like thinking about Marigold marrying anybody. It gave him a pang right in the center of his chest.

  Marigold never came back to the table, even though Queen Olympia sent several volleys of servants to fetch her. King Swithbert kept asking what was going on, but nobody ever answered him. Cyprian and Magnus gave each other suspicious glances for the rest of the dinner, and the other guests got so rowdy that by the time the dessert arrived, there had been five fights, three threatened duels, and one broken engagement. Christian wondered whether five kinds of wine at dinner was really such a good idea. And he wondered where Marigold had gone and what she was doing. He bet she could use a best friend right about now.

  It was very late when the dinner was over, the en-tertainers had finished their juggling and dancing and madrigal singing, and the guests had staggered off to their beds.

  Christian and the other servants were left to tidy up the mess that had been made of the dining hall—spilled wine, scattered nutshells, dropped utensils, and various forgotten handkerchiefs, veils, shawls, and, inexplicably, a set of wooden false teeth. Christian knew that if these people had to pick up after themselves for just one week, they'd learn to be a lot tidier. Even he had learned to clean up the messes he made with his inventions. Being waited on hand and foot was not good for one's personal development.

  When he finally made it to his sleeping place in the straw of the stable loft, he was so exhausted, physically and emotionally, that he was out like a log, as Ed would have said. His last thought as he plunged into sleep was of his hand touching Marigold's under the distressed dog—and remembering that with that touch, she could tell his thoughts.

  EDRIC SLEPT hardly at all. Bub and Cate were unsettled, too. The only thing on all their minds was, Where was Christian? There was no way to be sure he'd made it to the castle. Or, if he had, that there was a job waiting for him. And if there wasn't, would he come home or would he move on, trying to prove himself? Ed felt awful. What had he been thinking, urging Chris to go away?

  Sometimes things that seem like good ideas in theory, in practice turn out to be the worst kinds of boneheaded blunders.

  Ed flopped and turned, and shoved the dogs—huddling near him for reassurance—this way and that. Finally, near dawn, he drifted off, figuring that there was nothing he could do about it now; it was all spilled milk over the dam.

  7

  The next morning Christian was in the scullery repairing a butter churn. As he worked on it, he got an idea for a more efficient way to operate the dasher. He needed a chain and a handle and a gear, that's all. Thinking about such things was easier than thinking about Marigold, who had never seemed so far away.

  Mrs. Clover, swamped with the demands of the extra guests at the castle, shooed him off to the blacksmith's, where he found what he needed in a pile of discarded parts at the back of the shop.

  "Handy, are you?" the smith asked. He was a burly man, red-faced from the heat of his forge, wearing a leather apron.

  "I like to build things," Christian said. "It's fun."

  "Me, too. You should see some of the things I've made. Great stuff. But not everything works out, does it? Not my perpetual-motion machine, or my flying machine, or my corn picker. You might be interested in having a look at my failures. They're dumped in the dungeon. Maybe there'd be some parts you could use."

  "The dungeon?"

  "Oh, it hasn't been used as a dungeon dungeon since old King Swithbert took the throne. He's too softhearted to torture anybody. He prefers to exile troublemakers. Queen Olympia, she's another story. If she were ruler, that dungeon would have standing room only. That's why I'm rooting for Sir Magnus to marry the princess. Then Marigold'll get to be queen when poor old King Swithbert croaks."

  Chris got that pang in his chest again. "I served at the state dinner last night. She doesn't seem very interested in either one of her suitors."

  "She may not be, but I think the queen sure is. She's ready to have a wedding. She's been running candidates through here for a year, and the princess has turned up her nose at all of them. And when Olympia runs out of patience—look out."

  This was not good news to Christian. "Well, thanks for the stuff," he said. "If it works the way I think it will, pretty soon butter making's going to be a lot faster around here."

  "Let me know how it turns out." The blacksmith brought his hammer down on the soup ladle he was fashioning on the anvil. A great shower of sparks exploded outward like fireworks as Christian headed back to the kitchen.

  Meg, the scullery maid, was overjoyed at the new butter churn. "Oh, look how fast it goes," she said, turning the handle. "There'll be butter in no time, without me breaking me arms hauling that dasher up and down. Oh, Christian, luv, you've made a miracle, you have. And I'll not be forgetting it." She looked up at him from under her eyelashes. "Maybe I can find a way to thank you."

  Christian, ignorant of the art of flirting, said, "Don't worry about it. I enjoyed fixing it."

  "Well, I'd enjoy thanking you, I know I would," she said, batting her lashes and turning the churn handle in a way that displayed her shapely figure to advantage.

  Christian, uncomfortable, shrugged. "Well. You're welcome."

  The next chore Sedgewick assigned Christian was to begin repairs on a section of the wall bordering the terrace overlooking the river.

  "And if the princess is out on the terrace, and she is out there a lot," Sedgewick said, "whatever you do, don't touch her."

  "I wouldn't think of it," Christian said obediently, though there was hardly anything he'd like more. "I know she's a princess and I'm just a servant." That was perfectly true, but—though he knew better—it was something he kept hoping didn't really matter.

  "Well, I couldn't help noticing how you picked up that little dog last night—Poopsy or Nutsy or whatever its name is. I can never keep them straight. Did your hand happen to touch hers when you handed the dog back?"

  "Oh no," Christian lied through his teeth. Her hand had felt wonderful—soft and strong at the same time.

  "Good. Because if she touches you, she can tell what you're thinking."

  When Marigold had first told him about her curse, Christian had had to ponder for a minute before he realized how bad that could be. At first all he thought was: What a lot of junk mail she must receive from other people's minds. But then he realized why people feared her—all their mean and hateful thoughts, the ones best kept to themselves, would be exposed.

  He knew exactly what he had been thinking when their hands touched. Some concerns about the dog, and some uncharitable thoughts about her suitors, but mostly how happy he was to be so close to her. Not until this very moment did he consider how offensive she might have found that
—a servant feeling that way about her. No wonder she'd said "Oh my," and run away.

  Sedgewick went on. "Only King Swithbert doesn't mind touching her. But his head seems to be filled with nothing but harmless, woolly thoughts wishing ill upon no one. The others in the palace, I'm afraid, are not so willing to have their thoughts inspected. Well, get to work," Sedgewick said, giving Christian a basket full of the tools he'd need. "And don't forget—no touching."

  The terrace wall was in worse shape than Christian expected—much worse than it had looked from the other side, through the telescope. The mortar between the stones was crumbling to powder and would have to be completely replaced before someone leaned on the wall and it collapsed, dumping them into the river below. This was a big job. He rolled up his sleeves and set to work.

  He was concentrating so hard, he didn't hear when Princess Marigold came out onto the terrace and sat down to read. Not until her little floor-mop dogs began barking as they played did he turn and notice. He stood up to stretch out his back and then doffed his cap to her. On the other side of the river, a friendship with her had seemed completely natural. But here, where everyone's rank was the first thing you had to think about, he wondered how he had ever been innocent enough, or stupid enough, to think that she'd want a mere servant for her best friend, no matter how lonely she was. He felt sad and foolish.

  "Good morning," she said. "You're the one who picked up Topsy last night, aren't you?"

  "Yes, Your Highness," Christian answered cautiously. Was it possible she'd been too distracted to remember his thoughts? "Is she all right?"

  "As you can see," Princess Marigold said, pointing to where the three little dogs frolicked. "But I was worried at first. Thank you for coming to her rescue."

  "Don't mention it," he said. "I have—uh, had— dogs of my own, back home. I know how attached you get."

  "What kind of dogs?" she asked, putting down her book.

  That was his Marigold—always curious. "Oh ... a big one and a small one," he said evasively, realizing it would not be wise to describe dogs she'd be sure to recognize from his p-mail. "Mutts, I guess you'd say. Your Highness," he added quickly.

  "You must miss them," she said. "Who takes care of them now?"

  "My—" Christian stopped. He couldn't say his foster father. That's the way he'd described Ed to her. Princess Marigold was watching him, expectant, her head tipped slightly to one side.

  "My friend Edric," Christian finally said. But he wished he could touch Marigold now so that she could see into his mind and know, without the woeful inadequacy of words, all that Ed—whom he was missing painfully just then—was and had been to him.

  ACROSS THE RIVER, Ed stood on the ledge above the waterfall, the telescope trained on the riverfront terrace. In his desperation to know what had happened to Christian, he had decided to look for him.

  Imagine his surprise when he saw Christian, splendid in his green-and-white livery with the gold braid and buttons—protected by an apron embroidered with the royal coat of arms—standing casually by the parapet, talking to the princess!

  Well, blow me over with a feather! Ed thought. He'd known Christian's correspondence with her was risky, but he'd thought Chris would at least have the sense to remain anonymous once he got over there. She was a princess, for pete's sake, and he was just a commoner—though he was so extraordinary and talented and so special to Ed that he really couldn't consider him common in any way. But the princess would. And Ed could only think she'd be embarrassed and offended to know her p-mail pal was a lowly servant—who then had the nerve and the poor judgment to confess who he was. Why, Christian could end up in the dungeon, screwed to the rack, or locked into the iron maiden. Or worse, far worse, introduced to Madame Guillotine.

  Ed looked sadly down at the dogs at his feet. "I guess that's the last we'll be seeing of him, guys. I should have been a better parent." Bub and Cate whined in commiseration. Ed lowered the telescope and tramped off into the forest. Maybe he'd find something out there today that would cheer him up, though he couldn't possibly imagine what that might be.

  IT DEFINITELY wasn't Queen Mab, whom he came across sitting on a stump. Her wee reading glasses were perched on the end of her nose as she puzzled over a scrawled map that even Ed could see was completely incomprehensible.

  "You'll never get where you're going with that thing," he said.

  "Oh, what do you know?" she retorted.

  "I know enough to know that map's a mess."

  "I'll have you know my mapmaker is the best there is." Queen Mab turned the map around and looked at it with the other side up.

  "Who says?"

  "Well, he does, of course," she said, scratching her head with one of the pencils stuck in her hair.

  "He's probably the only one," Ed muttered. "Why don't you admit you need some competent help?"

  "Meaning you, I suppose?" she scoffed.

  "How overdue are you picking up that batch of teeth?" he asked, indicating the long list of names on the stump next to her.

  She snatched up the list. "None of your business."

  "That's what I thought," he said. "Sooner or later, Mab, you're going to have some competition from me. Count on it."

  "You're going to need a lot more support for that to happen," she said, folding the map.

  "And I'll get it," he said, not at all sure that he would. "Arrogance and inflexibility aren't good for any business, you know. A closed mind gathers no moss."

  "Whatever that means," Mab said, flying off.

  Ed watched her weave uncertainly through the trees, and then trudged home feeling even worse than he had when he'd set out.

  8

  "I don't remember seeing you before," the princess said to Christian. "Although somehow you seem familiar. Have we met?"

  How he wished he could answer that question. "I've only been working here since yesterday. I was lucky that more servants were needed because of the festivities for Prince Cyprian and Sir Magnus."

  "I'm glad you got a job," Marigold said, "but I wish there weren't so many festivities." She sighed gustily and flopped back in her chair.

  "You like a quieter life?" he asked politely, knowing full well that she'd like a life with equal parts adventure and hominess.

  "Well, not entirely. Just one without so many suitors in it."

  "Just one suitor, perhaps?" Christian suggested.

  "Only if he were the right one," she said a bit wistfully. "And I think the one I want is one I'll never have."

  "Oh?" he said. He felt as if his ears had perked up the way Cate's did when she heard something interesting. "How can you be so sure?"

  "It's simple. If I can't meet him, I can't have him."

  "But can't a princess meet anybody she wants to meet?"

  "Not if he lives far away. And is a commoner to boot."

  Christian's cheeks grew hot. "It sounds as if you've got someone specific in mind."

  She gave him a sharp look, reminding him that he was, after all, in the presence of royalty. "Never mind," she said. "But just tell me one thing. Do you think it's necessary for a woman to marry?"

  Christian's brow furrowed. Well, he was definitely the wrong person to answer that question. He knew totally zip about what went on between men and women as far as marriage was concerned. "I suppose not," he said slowly while he thought fast. "Unless there was something she wanted that she could get only by being married."

  She stood up so suddenly that the book in her lap hit the flagstones. "Exactly!" she said. "That's what I must tell my parents. There's nothing I want badly enough to marry one of those ... those ... well, those suitors ... to get it."

  He knew he should probably keep his mouth shut, but he wanted to make sure she'd thought of everything. He didn't want her realizing later that she'd overlooked something and blame him for giving her bad advice. Who knew how a princess's blame might express itself? The rack? The iron maiden? Maybe even ... the guillotine? "What about ... I mean, have you thought o
f children?"

  She regarded him gravely. "Yes," she said slowly. "And even though everybody says they're a lot of trouble, and messy and demanding, I still want them. I can be a lot of trouble and messy and demanding, too, so I know how that is."

  So can I! Christian wanted to add.

  "What I like best about them is they're so accepting and nonjudgmental."

  Chris made a dubious sound.

  "What?"

  "I'm not sure I agree with you about that. I was pretty judgmental as a little kid." At least until he'd come to live with Ed, he remembered. After that, he'd liked just about everything.

  "Well, if I get a child like you, I think I can handle it," she said.

  Was she insulting him? Dismissing him? He felt as if he'd been slapped.

  "Anyway, if I don't get married, I can always adopt some children," Marigold went on. "It seems like people are forever dying to get rid of them—leaving them on church doorsteps, or out in the forest, or in baskets on the river. There's never a shortage of unwanted children."

  "But the succession—can an adopted child inherit the throne?"

  "Why not? It would be my child, the child of my heart, and if I were queen, it would be my successor." She waved a hand. "If there's a problem with that, one of my sisters' children can inherit. They already have more than they need to take care of the successions in their own kingdoms. Who knows if a child of mine would be suited to rule, anyway? Not everybody is."

  "It would be," Christian said emphatically. "With you for its mother, it would have all the right qualities."

  She was bending to pick up her book, then stopped halfway down and looked at him. Really looked at him. "What an odd thing to say," she said. "My mother doesn't believe I can do anything right. She says I'm too democratic."

  "Your mother's wrong" he said, gazing ardently into her eyes—and wondering when she would decide he was way too insolent for a servant and have the dungeon cleaned out for him.