by Jean Ferris
CHRISTIAN PUTTERED over his contraption, adjusting this and that, moving the dogs around to different places inside of it, making them whine and cock their ears in puzzlement.
"Oh, quit looking like I'm doing something bad to you," he said to them. "You'll be heroes by the time I'm through."
Bub whimpered while Cate rolled her eyes and yelped dramatically.
OLYMPIA, WITH FENLEIGH crouched next to her, fussed over Swithbert's evening dosage. She didn't want to give him too much—he'd have to be alert enough in the morning to walk Marigold down the aisle. But she wanted to make sure he stayed well out of the way until then. She tapped a finger against her teeth and pondered.
A knock at her chamber door caused her to start, and then to throw a scarf over her table. "Enter!" she called.
Calista, Tatiana, and Eve came in, done up in their wedding finery. Olympia embraced them one by one and kissed the air beside their cheeks.
"My darlings!" she exclaimed. "How splendid you all look. There are no more beautiful daughters in all the world."
"Thank you, Mother," they said in unison, breathing a collective sigh of relief. Tatiana, the eldest of the triplets by three minutes and the one who had been given the fairy birth-gift of boldness, said, "We knew you'd want to see what we're wearing to the wedding." Under her breath, she muttered, "So we thought we'd get that ordeal over with."
"My angels!" Olympia exclaimed. "How could you look any better? Though, Tatiana, don't you have a tiara with a bigger diamond? Why don't you wear that one? Bigger is always better when it comes to diamonds, don't you think?"
Tatiana had always thought the bigger diamond was vulgar. She only wore that tiara in the privacy of her chambers when she was playing dress-up with her little daughter.
"Calista," Olympia went on, "are you sure you want to wear that color? Wouldn't the ashes-of-roses gown bring out your eyes better? What you have on makes you look a little, oh, sallow. Didn't you notice?"
Calista's huge blue eyes, which always looked marvelous no matter what she had on, narrowed with exasperation. She got more compliments on this gown than on any she owned. How was it that when she was growing up she'd thought her mother was always right? What a relief to know it wasn't so.
"And Eve," Olympia continued. "How pretty you'd look if your hair were just a bit more—oh, I don't know, arranged, I suppose. Do you know what I mean?"
Eve, whose birth-gift was gentleness, and who had always been the most intimidated by Olympia, didn't have the faintest idea what her mother meant. She and her abigail had spent a long giggly time that afternoon getting her hair into this arrangement, and they both thought it looked quite splendid.
"Would you like to see Marigold's wedding dress?" Olympia asked.
"Of course," they agreed, remembering the wedding-gown-in-triplicate they'd had to wear at their own triple wedding—the one their mother had designed in such an extravagant fashion that they had all felt overwhelmed, as if it were wearing them. But they had made a pact that they would wear whatever they had to in order to marry their royal sweethearts and get out into their own kingdoms and their own lives.
If anything, Marigold's gown was even worse than theirs had been. It was so rococo as to be grotesque, with no inch unembellished by a bow or an embroidered flower or an appliqued something-or-other; or a brilliant, a seed pearl, or a bead.
The sisters exchanged appalled glances before Calista, the one whose birth-gift was practicality, asked, "How does Marigold look in it? She's so petite, she must be completely buried."
"Don't be ridiculous," Olympia said, at her most imperious. "She needs all the help she can get. She wanted a completely unadorned gown and a plain veil with her best everyday tiara. Can you imagine? Why, she'd look like a washerwoman."
"I think that sounds just right for her," Eve said softly.
The triplets agreed that Marigold had never been as plain as their mother insisted to everyone that she was. Marigold was just different from the rest of them, that's all—small and delicate, dark eyed and dark haired, with ivory skin, while the triplets were blond and tall and buxom, with pink cheeks and sapphire blue eyes.
"Oh, really, Eve," Olympia said. "What judgment you have. The way you and Calista will run Zandelphia when Beaufort breathes his last—well, I shudder to think."
Truth be known, Eve and Calista were shuddering to think about it, too, since King Beaufort had recently been taken quite ill—so ill, in fact, that he hadn't been able to make it to the wedding. He was so awfully bossy and dyspeptic that they weren't sure they'd actually miss him if he were to go to his reward, but when he did, they were the next in line.
Calista and Eve and Princes Teddy and Harry had had many talks about how to be good monarchs, and they thought that they could probably pull it off most of the time. But they didn't really want to do it. Worrying over affairs of state and regal demeanor and stuff like that didn't appeal much to them. They would prefer to have someone else run Zandelphia while they continued doing what they best liked to do: play with their children, breed championship Norfolk terriers (of which the sale to neighboring kingdoms greatly benefited the Royal Treasury of Zandelphia), and arrange fairs for Zandelphia's subjects.
They quite admired the fact that Tatiana was already Queen of Middle Sanibar, had taken to it almost effortlessly, and was reigning spectacularly well—with very little help from King Willie. He was a dear, nobody could argue with that, but he was more interested in his horticultural experiments than in governing. Luckily, he was smart enough not to interfere with Tatiana's natural leadership talents. As a consequence Middle Sanibar was enjoying great peace and prosperity.
"I haven't seen Papa since we arrived," Calista said, dropping the fruitless discussion of Marigold's wedding dress. After all, wearing a dreadful dress for a few hours was a small price to pay for one's freedom. "Is he well?"
"Oh, your poor papa," Olympia said sadly. "He's failed quite a lot since you last saw him, I'm afraid. You must prepare to be shocked when you see him tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?" Tatiana said. "Why can't we see him now?"
"He's resting. He needs all his strength for the wedding. I must forbid it."
The triplets made silent vows to get in to see him that very day no matter what their mother said.
"And Marigold," Tatiana said, "we must see Marigold before the wedding."
"Tomorrow will be soon enough," Olympia said smoothly. "She's prostrate with nerves, poor dear."
The sisters looked at each other. Mother calling Marigold "poor dear"? Marigold, who was tough as an old boot when she needed to be, "prostrate with nerves"? Papa stashed away? What was up around here?
"I'm going to see her," Tatiana stated, sounding like the queen she was. She had learned how easy it was for a queen to push people around just by the tone of her voice—she'd had her initial instruction from Olympia, hadn't she?—and, though she didn't do it often, she recognized that there were times when it was appropriate, and even necessary.
"Tomorrow," Olympia said definitively. She'd been a queen longer than Tatiana had, after all. "Now run along, girls, and change. I must change, too. Soon it will be time for the jugglers and the fire-eater and the trained bear to perform in the Great Hall."
"I don't know about you two," Tatiana said as they left their mother's apartments and headed down the hall, "but I want to see Papa and Marigold right now."
"Me, too," Eve said. "How come we let Mother get away with pushing us around so much when we were girls? Why were we so afraid of her?"
"Because she yelled and wouldn't speak to us, and when she did, she said mean things," Calista said. "It's what we call a tantrum when our children do it."
"But she did more than that," Tatiana went on. "Remember all the maids she banished? All the footmen she exiled? All the servants who've gone from dining hall duty to shoveling out the stables?"
"But we weren't maids or servants. We were her family," Eve said.
"I don't think she mad
e a distinction," Calista said. "We were all supposed to do what she said."
"Apparently she still thinks that," Tatiana said.
The sisters stopped walking. The carpet they trod upon was handwoven in France and had taken twelve years to create. The walls were lined with gilt-framed portraits of generations of ancestors, back to Louis the Stammerer. On pedestals along the hall sat priceless porcelain vases and statues sculpted by master artists. And the sisters were thinking that it all amounted to a high-class prison, run by a beautiful and tyrannical warden.
"I wonder," Eve said slowly, "if Marigold really wants to marry Magnus?"
"Why do you wonder that?" Calista asked. "I've never met him, but he sounds all right."
"Has it occurred to you that now that we're married and gone, Mother has only to get rid of Marigold and Papa to have the throne all to herself? Doesn't that sound like something she'd want to do?"
"But Magnus has no kingdom of his own," Tatiana reminded her. "He and Marigold would stay here. If that was what she was thinking of, why wouldn't she find a prince or a king who lived far away?"
"She's tried," Eve said. "Marigold hasn't cooperated. Magnus is the bottom of the barrel."
"But why would Marigold marry Magnus—I swear, saying that makes my lips vibrate—if she didn't want to?" Calista asked. "She doesn't have to marry at all to inherit. And you know Marigold has never been crazy about marriage, considering the one she grew up watching."
"We watched the same one, and we have happy marriages," Eve reminded her.
"We've been very lucky, too," Tatiana responded.
They were silently grateful for a moment until Tatiana said, "She'd do it to please Papa. If she thought Papa was ... you know, on his way out ... and he wanted to see her married before he ... you know ... she might. Papa's the only one she's ever wanted to please."
"We really need to talk to Marigold," Calista said.
"Now!" Tatiana agreed.
The sisters grabbed hands and, three abreast, ran down the exquisitely carpeted hallway to Marigold's suite.
18
It was empty. Pristine and empty. No nervous, prostrate bride-to-be in the great canopy bed. No flurry of maids preparing the trousseau. No piles of gifts and flowers from the eager bridegroom.
"You don't think Mother's done something to Marigold, do you?" Eve asked, her voice trembling.
"I wouldn't put it past her," Tatiana said, her eyes narrowing. "But she wouldn't do it until after the wedding. She wouldn't want to be cheated out of that spectacle. We've got to find Papa!"
Holding hands again, the sisters ran up a wide curving staircase, down a hall, around two corners, and up a narrow flight of steps to their father's unique set of rooms in the northwest turret. The door was locked from the inside.
"Papa!" Tatiana called, banging on the door. "Are you in there? It's us—Tatiana and Eve and Calista. We need to talk to you."
Denby's voice came through the door. "Is the queen with you?"
"No. It's her we need to talk to you about."
There was a long silence. Tatiana pounded again. "Papa! We're plotting a mutiny! We need your help."
Their papa opened the door looking quite chipper and lively, his cheeks pink and his eyes bright. "My dears," he said, embracing each of them briefly and formally.
"Is that your nightshirt tucked into your breeches, Papa?" Calista asked, wondering if, though he looked perfectly healthy, his mind was off its hinges.
"Oh," Swithbert said, looking down at himself. "I guess it is. Denby, would you fetch me a shirt, please? From the dressing room?"
Something about the way he emphasized the words made the triplets take notice. They might be blonds, but there was nothing dumb about them. What was going on in the dressing room that their papa wanted to keep secret?
Denby opened the dressing room door just enough to squeeze through and shut it quickly. The sisters raised their eyebrows at one another.
"Are you all right, Papa?" Eve asked. "Mother said you were doing poorly."
"I'm fit as a violin," he said, sitting on his auxiliary throne next to a diamond-paned window that overlooked the flagstone terrace. "Now, what's this about a mutiny?"
So the sisters laid out their half-formed fears about Marigold and Magnus's marriage, tiptoeing around their suspicions that their mother might be involved somehow in something disagreeable—or actually nefarious, if you got right down to it.
When they were finished, their father said, "I had no idea that, because of your mother, you were such unhappy children. You seemed so content."
"We weren't defiant, the way Marigold is," Tatiana said, "but we had one another to commiserate with."
"Besides," Calista said, "the best way to avoid Mother's wrath was to act cooperative. We saw what happened to Marigold. All those evenings in her room without supper—"
"I always smuggled her something on a tray," Swithbert said.
"—and all that time spent picking out the stitches on other people's botched embroidery as punishment for some minor thing, and all those awful gowns poor Marigold had to wear, even worse than the three-just-alike ones we had to wear. We see now that we should have protected our little sister more, but we were just kids ourselves then."
"Now we have another chance to do that," Tatiana said.
"Because Mother's getting out of control," Calista added. "It's time somebody stopped her."
Eve, who had been silent until then, asked, "Why did you let her get away with so much, Papa?"
He shook his head sadly. "I'd never known anyone like her. I'd grown up with quiet, gentle people, and when our marriage was arranged, I'd never even met Olympia. I admit she dazzled me at first, so beautiful and fiery and headstrong—and so completely unfamiliar. I was a lot older than she was. I guess I was too indulgent—more like a doting parent than a husband. I gave her too much latitude, I see it now, but I didn't know how to stop her. You girls are right, though. I know exactly what she's planning, and it's time to bring a halt to her tactics. Now."
Eve's voice was tender with understanding and forgiveness. "Papa. Where's Marigold? Do you know?"
"I do."
"Is she safe?"
"She is now," Swithbert said grimly. "And I'm going to keep her that way." How odd it was that at this moment of desperate crisis, he felt more alive than he had in years.
"Can we see her?" Tatiana asked. "I think it's time we explained a few things about the kind of big sisters we were."
"And try to make it up to her," Calista added.
Swithbert went to the dressing room door and opened it. "Marigold, precious. Your sisters want to talk to you," he said.
It took them so long to sort out everything that was going on, as well as their long history of misunderstandings, that they completely forgot about Olympia bringing the evening drink for Swithbert. When she pounded on the door, they jumped as if they'd been struck by lightning.
"Quick, girls," Swithbert said. "Get in the dressing room!" He hopped into bed, pulling the covers up to his chin. Fortunately, he'd gotten so involved in his conversation with his daughters that he'd never put on the fresh shirt Denby had brought him, and was still in his nightshirt. "Okay, Denby," he said when the girls were safely stashed away. "Let her in."
"What's the meaning of this?" Olympia demanded, her face a storm cloud. "Where's my maid? Why did it take you so long to answer the door? And why was it locked?"
"My fault, Your Majesty," Denby said humbly, bowing from the waist, his hands clasped. "I dismissed Millie because the king wasn't doing anything but sleeping. I know every hand is needed to help, what with all the extra guests in the castle. I can watch over him as well as she, and I had nothing else to do. I locked the door to protect his privacy. I didn't think you'd want any wedding guests stumbling in here and seeing him like that. I must have dozed off, too. It's not the most stimulating thing, watching someone else sleep."
"If you're going to watch him, then I want you to watch him. N
ow, prop him up so I can give him his nighttime draught. I must get on to my guests for the evening entertainment."
Denby held Swithbert up by the shoulders. Olympia took the cork from the bottle and held it to the king's lips. As she poured, his head lolled limply, and the gray liquid trickled from the corner of his mouth.
"Blast!" she exclaimed. "He's too far gone to swallow again] All right, it'll be your job to get it down him once he wakes up, just like you did yesterday and the day before. You know what will happen to you if you forget."
"Of course, Your Majesty. Don't give it another thought." Denby bowed deeply.
Olympia cast a look around the room. "That frankincense tree isn't looking too well," she said. "I'll have someone come up to replace it." Her eyes swept the room again. She hesitated for a moment, then she picked up her skirts and made for the door. "Don't forget the dose, Denby—or you'll be very sorry."
As soon as the door closed behind her, Denby turned the key in the lock and whispered, "She's gone."
Swithbert popped up and the door to the dressing room opened.
"Don't drink that, Papa," Marigold said, spotting the bottle Olympia had left on the bedside table.
"Don't worry," Swithbert said. "I haven't had any in a couple of days. Look what it's done to the frankincense tree." The poor tree shuddered, and a few more leaves fell.
"Now, the first thing we have to do is hide Marigold very well, until after the wedding has been called off," Swithbert continued. "Then we find Magnus and make it up to him somehow. I've always been fond of the boy, and this will be a big disappointment for him."
"Let's get Chris and Ed and the dogs out of the dungeon before we take care of Magnus," Marigold reminded her father.
"We'll get around to that, my dear, when the time is right," he said, patting her hand. "Don't worry. Denby, take a look out there. Go all the way down the steps and check the hall to make sure the coast is clear before we move Marigold."
Denby went to the door but couldn't open it. He twiddled with the key in the lock, but the lock held fast. "It feels as if it's barred from the outside," he said.
