Twice Upon a Marigold Read online

  A wretched croak came from Magnus's cell. Olympia turned to him. "I'll bet you're wishing you hadn't said no to me when you had the chance to say yes. Am I right?"

  He cleared his throat. "I'm not sorry I said no," he rasped. "But I am sorry to be in here."

  She laughed gaily. "I only give one chance, anyway, so you'd have ended up here no matter what." Turning to Ed, she said, "And you. You escaped from here once before, but I can assure you, that won't be happening again."

  "Don't be so sure about that," Ed said defiantly, though he had no idea what he might do about it.

  "Oh, I'm sure," Olympia said. "There'll be a guard here night and day until I decide your fate." She spun on her stacked red heel and swept back to the stairs waving her fingers at them. "Ta ta, now."

  There was a long silence as they watched the guard take his post, standing at stiff attention, pike in hand. Finally Ed muttered, "This is a fine kettle of hen's teeth."

  As the hours wore on, Ed, Swithbert, and Magnus could only fret and doze and shiver. Soon the guard, whose name they learned was Finbar, was shivering, too, and trying hard not to doze. Guarding innocent people isn't very interesting—though technically, of course, they were very guilty because they had been plotting against the queen.

  But some plots are necessary, and even required.

  17

  Marigold spent the day writing p-mails. She'd had to do some hard thinking about who to send them to. It's true she wanted Olympia stopped, and preferably sent far, far away. But, in spite of the dire fate Olympia had planned for her and for Swithbert, she couldn't bring herself to ask someone to do the same to Olympia. She had to phrase her request very carefully—and in three to six lines, since each pigeon-leg capsule could hold only a short message.

  She finally settled on:

  Have you any interest in helping me

  rid Beaurivage of a dangerous queen?

  No bloodshed, please. —Marigold

  She sent the pigeons—Walter, Carrie, and their offspring—into the sky, carrying the messages to various carefully chosen fairies, sorcerers and sorceresses, witches and warlocks, wizards and shamans. Then she settled down to wait.

  She paced. She overwatered her plants. She threw the ball a thousand times for Flopsy, Mopsy, and Topsy (all of whom kept wishing it was the blue squeaky toy). She picked her cuticles and ate a lot of chocolate and looked at the sundial eighty-seven times in a single hour.

  It was nearly dusk when the first pigeon returned. Marigold almost broke its leg trying to get the message cylinder off, after which the pigeon stalked away to its perch, exhausted and pouting.

  The message read:

  Sorry. No bloodshed, no interest.

  Love, Morven

  She threw the message onto the floor and paced some more.

  In the next hour, six more pigeons returned, all carrying variations of Morven's message.

  When did everybody get so bloodthirsty? Marigold wondered. Didn't any of them have enough imagination to figure out how to eliminate Olympia without such conventional and gory methods?

  Overnight several more pigeons trickled in, ones who had been unable to find their addressees, or who brought back rejections—too busy, too uninterested, or too retired. Only Carrie remained unaccounted for, and Marigold was fearful something had happened to her. She was getting a bit old for much long-distance work, though she was always eager to go. Marigold had deliberately given her the closest assignment, and still she hadn't returned.

  Finally, late the next morning, Carrie arrived, bright-eyed from a good night's sleep, plump from a scrumptious dinner and breakfast, and proud of the answer she brought. Wendell the wizard had agreed to help. He would be arriving in Zandelphia in a few days to discuss details.

  Then Marigold paced some more. She'd almost left Wendell off her mailing list because of his advanced age and his reputation for incompetence. But once, when he had visited Swithbert when Marigold was a little girl, Wendell had been very kind to her, doing magic tricks to amuse her, pulling candies from her ears and coins from her empty pockets. She'd never forgotten that, as most visitors to the castle had been so dazzled by her beautiful blond triplet sisters that they completely ignored her. She had p-mailed him mostly as a courtesy, never dreaming he would be the only one to offer assistance.

  When she told Chris that Wendell had agreed to help them, he looked up from a sketch of a new invention and said, "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

  "No. But everybody else has turned us down. They're only interested if they can spill blood." She shuddered.

  "Olympia had no qualms about plotting to spill yours," Chris reminded her.

  "I know. But emulating Olympia isn't something I'm interested in doing. Wendell's been around for a long time. Maybe he's got some ideas that'll work."

  "What if you don't like his ideas? Are you willing to peeve a sorcerer? Even an old one past his prime? He could probably still set you on fire, or turn you into a rabbit."

  "Please, Chris. I'm nervous enough without your making things worse."

  "I'm just trying to be realistic. Don't get your undies all in a bunch."

  "I beg your pardon?" Her tone was icy.

  "You know what I mean," he said absently, fiddling with his sketch.

  "You think I'm overlooking important parts of our plan to neutralize Olympia? Or you think I'm overreacting?"

  He looked up. "Huh?"

  "Never mind," she said. "I can see I'm on my own here." And she left the room.

  "What?" Chris said, watching her go. "What did I do now?"

  But there was no answer. Probably just as well.

  THE NEXT FEW DAYS passed v-e-r-r-r-y, v-e-r-r-r-y slowly for Ed, Swithbert, and Magnus in the dungeon. They passed slowly for Finbar, too, who was bored almost beyond endurance from watching them sit listlessly in their cells.

  The days passed very, very fast for Olympia. She had so much to do: rewriting the constitution, having fittings for all the new gowns she'd commanded Mr. Lucasa to make, mulling the sentences for Ed, Magnus, and the king, and haranguing every servant in the castle about their sloppy job performances.

  The days passed very busily for Mr. Lucasa; very uncomfortably for Lazy Susan, who couldn't stop thinking about what Mrs. Clover had said to her; and very impatiently for Wendell the wizard as he made his way slowly to Zandelphia.

  The days passed very nervously for Marigold as she waited for Wendell to arrive, and very lonesomely for Christian, to whom Marigold was not speaking.

  18

  In the middle of the sixth afternoon of waiting, the gate guard at Marigold's cave-castle came running into the throne room where she sat, chin in hand, drumming her fingers on the arm of her throne.

  "Your Highness," he panted, "there's a great white beast coming across the bridge with a little old man in a purple robe on his back! Shall I call out the archers?"

  Marigold stopped drumming and sat bolt upright. "It's Wendell! Show him in as soon as he arrives. And get some refreshments up here, something really luscious. Make sure his elephant is well taken care of, too."

  "Uh, how does one take care of an elephant?"

  "I have no idea. Ask Wendell what the elephant needs."

  "Who is Wendell?"

  "The wizard who's riding the elephant, of course," she said impatiently. "Now hurry!"

  The gate guard hustled off, his nose seriously out of joint. Queen Marigold had never spoken to him like that before. She hadn't even said "please" or asked him how he was, or about his wife and kiddies. Come to think of it, King Christian hadn't been himself for the past few days, either. He'd seemed preoccupied and rather downcast, not even saying "good day," the way he usually did when he passed a servant. The gate guard had worked for Queen Olympia before Queen Marigold, and he had been so thankful to get out from under Olympia's thumb that he still said a little prayer of gratitude every day. But now he was wondering if Marigold had inherited some of her mother's imperious manners, and he just hadn'
t noticed until now.

  WENDELL WAS USHERED into the throne room, dusty and thirsty from his long trip. Marigold rushed to greet him, a goblet of cold checkerberry juice in her hand.

  "I'm so glad to see you," she exclaimed, hoping that she actually would be. "Thank you for coming all this way."

  "I try never to ignore a damsel in distress," he said, handing her a little rectangle of cardboard.

  "What's this?" she asked.

  "My invention. I'm calling it a business card."

  She examined the card.

  She knew having one of those saved a lot of explaining—because Magnus had already invented them. But she wasn't going to spoil Wendell's pleasure in what he thought was his own concoction. She needed him to feel clever and innovative.

  "This is a great idea," she said. "So practical. But what's a necromancer?"

  "Somebody who gets information about the future from those who have already departed this realm."

  "You mean died?"

  "Well, yes."

  "You can really do that?"

  He gulped down the checkerberry juice and held his goblet out for more. "Not yet, to be honest. But I expect to soon. I'm working on my technique. Now, tell me what's on your mind."

  "Wait. First I need to know about your reasonable rates." She refilled the goblet.

  "Oh. Well, usually it's a firstborn child—"

  "What!" Marigold almost dropped the pitcher. "You call that reasonable?"

  Wendell hung his head. "You're right. Nobody else thinks it is, either. So far I haven't collected a single one. But it is the traditional price. And I need to ask it if I'm going to be taken seriously as a wizard."

  "You mean all wizards ask that price?" Marigold was aghast. Without this information she might have made a deal with somebody who wasn't nearly as malleable as Wendell—if she'd been willing to go for the bloodshed—and then she'd have been expected to pay up. Now she was thinking that sometimes things work out the way they're supposed to, even if at first it seems like they haven't.

  He nodded. "They all do. I'm not sure how many of them get it. Lately I've heard some of them are asking for other things, so maybe that's more modern, and I'm just behind the times." He brushed some dust off his shoulders.

  "What kind of other things?" Marigold asked. She didn't want any more surprises.

  "Oh, sometimes an arm and a leg. But mostly just gold, jewels, or animals. That makes more sense as far as I'm concerned. Who really wants a bunch of other people's firstborns to take care of? Especially since us wizards do so much traveling. Or a pile of severed limbs, either. What good are those?"

  "It makes more sense to me, too," Marigold said, relieved.

  "Why don't you tell me what's going on?" Wendell said, gazing hungrily at the spread of delicacies laid out on the sideboard.

  "As soon as you've had a snack," Marigold said graciously.

  While Wendell piled his plate high, he asked, "Should we wait for your husband, the king, before we start?" She was quiet for so long he wasn't sure she'd heard him.

  Just as he was about to ask again, Marigold replied, "No. That won't be necessary. I'm handling this myself."

  Wendell seated himself and began chowing down while Marigold explained the situation with Olympia.

  Wendell cogitated. "How about if I just vaporize her? Poof her off into some other dimension."

  "Can she still do any harm from there?"

  He rubbed his chin. "It's not unheard of. If there's enough bad energy hanging around her, she might still be able to use it—the part left behind—even if she's not here in person."

  "Oh, there's plenty of bad energy. More than enough to keep operating long after she's gone."

  "All right, then, that won't work." Wendell looked worried.

  "Isn't there some way to make her be nicer without hurting her, or doing something bad to her?"

  He scratched his head. "That would take some stronger magic than I know how to do. Being nicer has to come from the inside, not the outside. That requires a complete rearrangement of everything inside the head. And the heart. And so far nobody's cooked up any kind of spell or potion to do that. Maybe someday—" He sighed and then said, "Until then, the best we can do are immobilization spells, or vaporizations, or outright explosive eliminations. Any of those appeal to you?"

  She shook her head. "Not really. But we have to stop her somehow before she ruins her kingdom and makes everybody in it totally miserable. And that's not even counting what might happen to my father, the king. And to me, too."

  "What do you mean? It sounds like you think you and the king are in danger from her. Is she that wicked?"

  Marigold hated to use that word, but she couldn't think of one that fit better. "I guess so," she said in a tiny voice.

  "This is serious," Wendell said. "I'm pretty good at making flowers grow faster, or snow fall in summer, or clothes change colors, but real evil—that's beyond magic. That takes something else."

  "What? What does it take, then?"

  He scratched his head and thought hard. Then he said, "I don't know. People have fought it for a long, long time, and it's still around. Sometimes it's a little quieter, but it always comes back."

  In a whisper Marigold asked, "So what are we going to do?"

  He took a deep breath. "I can keep working on my necromancy. Maybe at least I can have a look at the future for you. See what happens to the kingdom. That might give us a clue as to what Olympia's going to do."

  Marigold had no confidence that Wendell could do that. But she knew it would be rude to send him away so soon after he'd arrived, so she resigned herself to having him around for a few weeks, accomplishing nothing. After all, she'd asked for his help and it wasn't nice to turn him away just because he couldn't give her what she wanted.

  If only all she wanted was a quick, clean vaporization. Or a dramatic (though probably pretty messy) explosion. She knew it was fruitless, and unrealistic, and plain silly besides, but what she really wanted was for Olympia to just be somebody else.

  19

  Christian was surprised to see Wendell at the dinner table that evening.

  "Nobody told me you'd arrived," he said, sliding a reproachful glance in Marigold's direction. "That must be your elephant out there in the stable, making the unicorns nervous."

  "That's Hannibal, all right," Wendell said. "He's gentle as a puppy. Wouldn't hurt anybody except by accident. He just doesn't quite realize how big he is." Wendell was hard to understand because he was stuffing food in his mouth with both hands, as if he hadn't had a sumptuous repast just a few hours before. "Hannibal's worst problem is how opinionated he is. If he doesn't want to go, he doesn't go. If he wants to go right when I want to go left, we go right. If he doesn't like somebody, he just picks them up with his trunk and shakes them."

  "I thought you said he was gentle as a puppy," Chris said.

  "Oh, he wouldn't hurt anyone. But sometimes a good shake is all it takes to turn somebody around."

  Marigold put down her fork. "Do you think that would help with Olympia?"

  Wendell shook his head. "It works for unpleasantness. Not true evil."

  "Oh." She took up her fork again, only to pick indifferently at her dinner.

  The rest of the meal was silent except for the sound of Wendell chewing. This kind of silence was unnerving to the servants, who were used to how lively their king and queen had once been—how much they had to say to each other, how much fun they had, and how many jokes Queen Marigold told. Something was definitely wrong in Zandelphia, and they hoped the wizard wasn't the one who was expected to fix it. Along with his atrocious table manners and his disreputable appearance, he didn't look as if he could magic his way out of a paper bag.

  Christian excused himself as soon as he'd finished eating, saying he had to get back to work on an invention. That left Wendell and Marigold looking at each other across the table.

  Wendell, also sensing something wrong in Zandelphia, ransacked his mind
for a way to cheer Marigold up. "You know, I've heard you like jokes," he said. "The last kingdom I was in had just developed a new kind of joke you might be interested in. It's called a knock-knock joke and it takes two people."

  "Knock-knock?" she asked, interested. "You mean the way you would knock on a door?"

  "Yes, exactly. I'll tell you one. Your part is to say, 'Who's there?' when the knock comes. Ready?"

  "All right. Go ahead."

  "Knock, knock."

  "Who's there? Is that right?"

  "Yes. Good. Now I answer you. I say, 'Shirley.'"

  "Hmmm," Marigold said. "That's supposed to be funny? I don't get it."

  "We're not finished yet," Wendell said, trying not to sound impatient. This kind of joke was so difficult to explain, he was wondering if it would ever really catch on. "When I tell you who's there, you have to say, 'Shirley who?'"

  "Oh. Well, then, Shirley who?"

  "Shirley you know who this is," Wendell said triumphantly.

  "Yes, I do," Marigold said. "It's you."

  "No, no. That's part of the joke." And then he had to explain what the jokey part was, knowing that when you do that, the joke is a failure.

  "Can we try that again?" Marigold asked. "I'm not sure I understand how it works yet."

  Wendell sighed. "Knock, knock."

  "Who's there?"

  "Shirley."

  "Shirley I know who this is," Marigold said. "It still doesn't seem very funny."

  "You left out a step." He explained the process to her again, and said, "Let's start all over with a different joke. Remember, you say 'who's there' when I say 'knock, knock,' and you say 'who' when I tell you who's there. Ready?"

  "Ready," Marigold said, and sat expectantly on the edge of her chair.

  "Knock, knock."

  "Who's there?"

  "My panther."

  "What!" she exclaimed. Did he have a panther as well as an elephant? But after a sharp look from Wendell she remembered, and said, "My panther who?"