by Jean Ferris
22
Marigold hardly ever interrupted Christian in his workshop, but this emergency definitely qualified as an exception. She could tell he was surprised to see her, but she couldn't tell if he was pleased. However, once she'd begun explaining what was happening, he dropped everything and listened hard.
"You know I don't have any jurisdiction in someone else's kingdom—except for being intimidating—and I don't think that'll work with Olympia."
"But we have to do something! We can't let her execute them. Just come with me to Beaurivage. Maybe we can find a way to get to them."
Chris was dubious about that, but he didn't want to risk starting another fight. So he hung up his tools and followed her.
As they crossed the pink crystal room, which had been converted into the main hall for the cave-castle, they crossed paths with Wendell, who was also rushing from his quarters.
"Oh, good," he said. "I've got something to tell you."
"Not now," Marigold said, tugging Chris along by the hand. "We're in a hurry."
"Oh, but this is important," Wendell said, rushing along with them. "It's about the necromancy. I think maybe I'm getting the hang of it."
"Good, good," she said without stopping. "That's wonderful."
"I mean," he said, panting slightly now, "I think I received a message. It might be for you."
Marigold stopped so suddenly that Christian bumped into her. "What? What do you mean? Why do you think it's for me?"
Wendell stopped, too, his hand on his chest while he tried to catch his breath. "Or for King Christian," he panted. "I'm not sure. I just got this—this message in my head. It just arrived there while I was working on something else. That's the way great ideas happen, don't you think? They just come. Anyway, it didn't seem to apply to me, so I surmise it's for one of you since I'm in your castle, and I'm here to help with your problem."
"Tell us!" Marigold and Christian cried together, curiosity warring with their need to get going.
"Well, let me see then." Wendell rummaged in his many pockets until he came up with a crumpled piece of paper. "Ah. Here it is." He adjusted his glasses on his nose. "Oh, no, wait. This is my dry cleaning ticket. I forgot to pick it up." He rummaged some more, and came up with another piece of paper. "Here. Oh, no, this is my grocery list. I was completely out of capers and maraschino cherries. Ah, here it is. It says, The coming month will bring winds of change in your life."
"You think that's for me?" Christian said. "It could be for anybody. Even you. Everybody's life changes in some way from month to month."
"Oh," he said. "I suppose you're right. It does sound a bit like something from a fortune-teller. Does it ring any bells for you?" he asked Marigold.
"Not a single tinkle," she said, pulling on Christian's arm.
Wendell scratched his head. "Dang! Now I remember where I heard that. From a gypsy at the crossroads on my way here. It was just cheap fortune-telling, not necromancy. Sorry." As he wandered off, they heard him mumble, "Why can't I get the hang of this stuff?"
"Keep working on it, Wendell," Chris said. "Now we really have to go. We'll see you later." And they rushed off to Beaurivage.
THIS TIME, however, Rollo was paying attention and wouldn't allow them to cross the drawbridge into the castle.
"Orders from the queen," he told them. "You no longer have free passage. She says you're to stay in your own kingdom and mind your own business. Those are her words, not mine." He seemed a little embarrassed, but adamant.
When an eight-foot-tall person says you can't come in, the sensible thing to do is to go away. Which is what Chris and Marigold did. There are occasions when insisting on your prerogatives, royal or not, is just a waste of time.
As they walked away from the castle, Chris said, "I was tempted to try to get by him but I knew that wouldn't work. And then I was tempted to pull rank on him. After all, I'm a king myself." He always sounded a little surprised when he said that. "But I know Rollo's not easy to intimidate."
"But Papa!" Marigold exclaimed. "And Ed and Magnus! What are we going to do?"
They stopped in a little copse of trees to mull this over.
"Is there any other way in?" Chris asked.
"We could scale the bluff from the river up to the terrace with ropes, I suppose, but I'm not sure we're strong enough to accomplish that. I haven't been doing my weight-lifting exercises diligently enough lately. Besides, somebody would probably see us. The flying machine was never repaired after it crashed on the terrace on our wedding day, so we can't use that." She sat on a stump, her chin in her hand, her brow furrowed, and thought while Chris watched her.
Suddenly Marigold sat up straight. "There's a door! A little door right at the water's edge that opens out from the dungeon. They used it in the olden days to dump the torture victims into the river." She shivered at the thought. "It hasn't been used since long before I was born, though Olympia would threaten me with it when I'd been bad. But it might still work."
He grabbed her hand and yanked her to her feet. "It's our only chance. We have to try. Our fathers are in there."
23
They made their way through the woods around the castle until they came to the river's edge. Scrooching down the steep, muddy bank to the narrow strip of beach, Marigold lamented (but only for a moment) what was happening to her cute little beaded shoes. What were shoes, even cute ones, compared to the life of someone she loved? They were a worthy sacrifice. She hoped they would be the only one.
The curtain wall of the castle soared high above them, and plunged straight down into the riverbank. Moss and lichens covered the wall higher than their heads, and looked altogether quite slimy and vile.
"There's a door under this stuff somewhere?" Chris asked. "Are you sure?"
"Are you doubting me?" Marigold asked. "I told you it's here."
"Okay, okay. Don't get your—" and then he thought better of what he'd been about to say. He knew now where a remark like that ended up, and he didn't want to start that again with Marigold. "I mean, then let's find it."
She took a deep breath, and put her hands on the slick, mossy wall, feeling around for the edges of a door. "Ick, ick, ick," she said. But she kept groping through the gloppy growth. So did Christian.
"Hey!" he called after a while. "I think I've found a hinge." He scraped away a thick layer of moss with his fingers. Marigold hurried over to help him, and before long they had revealed a door with an iron ring mounted in the center.
"Pull it," Marigold said. "The longer we're out here, the more chance there is that someone'll see us from up on the terrace."
"You and your father spent more time out there than anybody else ever did," Chris said. "And I ought to know. I put in a lot of hours watching you through my telescope." He gazed down at her, remembering that sweet and nervous time when he was first falling in love with her.
She gazed back at him, remembering the first p-mail message she'd received from him, when she'd been convinced that she'd be lonely for the rest of her life. And then he'd come along, first with his friendship, then with his love. How could she ever be irritable with someone who had changed her life? What came over her that caused her to speak to him the way she sometimes did?
Christian had turned back to the door and was tugging on the iron ring, to no avail. "This door is stuck, or locked," he said. "I can't get it open."
"Pull harder," she said. "I'll help."
But the door remained stuck shut.
When they stopped to rest, shaking out their cramping arms, Marigold had a sudden thought. "Maybe it's barred from the inside! Then we'll never get in!"
"We're not giving up yet," Chris said. "It hasn't been opened for a long time. It could just be rusted closed. We need something to pry it with."
"Why didn't you bring something?" she wailed. "You've got a workshop full of tools over there." She pointed across the river to Zandelphia.
He was about to snap, "Well, I didn't know I'd need a workshop full of to
ols, did I?" but changed his mind in a hurry. He took her stiff body into his arms and said, "I know you're scared and upset. I am, too. But we need to be calm and sensible. So let's think a minute about what we can do."
He could feel the tension leave her as she brought her arms around him. "You're right. I'm so scared I can't even think. Thank you for being my bulwark once again."
For a while they just stood holding each other, feeling the double beat of their hearts, being afraid together.
Then Christian raised his head. "You know," he said, "that door has a keyhole in it. Maybe it's locked."
"Then it might as well be barred. We can't unlock it without a—" Then Marigold remembered the two oddly shaped keys she'd taken from Mr. Lucasa. Digging in her pocket, she pulled them out. "Here."
Christian took them. "Where did you get these?"
"From some fellow in the castle. I'll tell you later. Hurry! Try them before somebody sees us down here!" She was so anxious she was jumping up and down.
The first key wouldn't even go in, much less turn. But the second one slid right into the lock and turned easily. "Well, how do you like that?" Chris asked in amazement.
"I like it a lot," Marigold said, grabbing the iron ring. Chris grabbed it, too, and together they pulled the door slowly open. Luckily the rush of the river was loud enough to drown out the prolonged squeal of rusty hinges.
Inside was a long dark tunnel with a flickering light at the end of it. For a few scary moments they just looked down the tunnel, not knowing what they'd find, or whether they'd ever be coming out again.
Then they took deep breaths and straightened their backs. They had a job to do, and there was no getting out of it.
"Wait," Chris said, putting his arms around Marigold. "Before we go, I just want to be sure you know that I love you."
Tears swam in Marigold's eyes. "Oh, Chris. I do know that. We've been having a sort of bumpy time lately, but I really do know that."
"Good. We can talk some more about the bumps when we get out of here, but right now we need to move."
"All right. But you know I love you, too, right?"
"Right." He kissed her, and they stepped through the doorway into the fetid air and slime of the tunnel.
24
Finbar was leaning against the wall dozing when he heard a voice in his ear say, "Sit down on the ground and keep quiet."
His eyes snapped open to reveal two mud-covered figures, one of whom was holding Finbar's own pike pointed directly at his midsection. "Who?" he mumbled. "What?" He cast a quick glance at his prisoners, to find them with their hands over their own mouths to keep from making any sound that would have awakened him.
"Where, why, and when should be the next questions, I believe," Chris said. "But never mind all that. Give me the keys to the cells."
"Are you kidding? I'm the guard here. I can't do that."
"Then I have no choice," Chris said.
Chris removed a set of handcuffs from a hook on the wall and brandished the pike while Marigold fastened Finbar's hands behind his back. Hanging on the same hook was a ring of large keys, which Chris appropriated.
"One of those is for the door at the top of the stairs," Swithbert said. "The rest are for the cells."
"And still hanging in the same place as when I was a prisoner here," Chris said. "Doesn't Olympia know that cleaning out a dungeon every now and then isn't enough? Once in a while a dungeon has to be brought up to date, with all the latest improvements. Such as a new hook for the keys."
He tossed the keys to Marigold, who went from cell to cell, unlocking the doors. When she got to Swithbert's, she stuck the key in the lock and said, "Hi, Papa. You didn't think I'd let you stay in here, did you?"
"I didn't think you'd even find out I was here until it was too late," he said, and his voice quavered.
Marigold jiggled the key in the lock. She joggled and twitched and wiggled the key around, but the lock wouldn't open.
Ed and Magnus tried the key, too, but they couldn't get the tumblers to move, either. And the other key Marigold had taken from Mr. Lucasa was way too big.
While everybody's attention was focused on Swithbert's predicament, Finbar began scooting on his bottom toward the curving stone stairs that led out of the dungeon. He'd made it up the bottom step before Chris turned away from the lock problem and spotted him.
"Oh, no, you don't," Chris said, grabbing him by the ankle and pulling him back down onto the dungeon floor.
"Ow!" Finbar yelped as his head hit the bottom step. "That hurt."
"Sorry," Chris said. "But you know we can't let you get out of here to warn the guards. Jailbreaks work better without an audience."
"Not having much luck with this jailbreak, are you?" Finbar said, struggling without success to get to his feet.
"We'll get it done, don't worry," Chris told him.
At that, Ed went back into his cell.
"Ed, what are you doing?" Chris asked. "The point is to get out of here."
"Keep your horses on," Ed said. "I'm just getting something." He brought the bent fork from his cell over to Swithbert's, where Magnus was wrestling with the key with his right hand, and trying to keep his dressing gown closed with the other. "Let me try this," Ed said.
Magnus moved aside, and Ed began fiddling with the lock by sticking a tine from the fork into the keyhole. His brow puckered in concentration for a few moments, and then he said, "I'm not a Jack Frost of all trades for nothing."
The door to Swithbert's cell swung open and the king stepped out.
"Good man!" he exclaimed, clapping Ed on the shoulder. "I'd want you with me in any spot, but I'm especially glad you were with me in this one."
Ed beamed and looked down at his shoes. "I was just lucky," he mumbled, grateful that the meagerest remnant of his precious collection had still been useful.
Chris squatted down by Finbar. "See? We got it done."
"And now what?" Finbar asked. 'Are you going to take on all the castle guards?"
"Maybe we won't have to," Swithbert said. "Maybe some of them would like to join us."
"Join you in what?"
"I'm taking this kingdom back. Ed and Magnus and I are traitors. We want Olympia off the throne."
"Nobody can stage a revolution alone," Chris said. "Us monarchs have to stick together. I'm in."
"Me, too," Marigold said.
"Me, too," Magnus said.
"Me, too," Ed said.
"Me, too," Finbar said.
They all looked down at him.
"I can help. I can keep quiet that you've escaped. I can get weapons. I can recruit revolutionaries from among the other guards."
"Are you sure you just don't want those handcuffs off?" Swithbert asked, sounding very kingly and in charge. "Are you sure you won't just go straight to Olympia and tell her what's going on?"
"Well, I would like to get the handcuffs off, that's for sure," Finbar said. "But I'd also really like to see you back on the throne, Your Majesty. Beaurivage was a better place when you were, no matter how peeved I am about the way you let the queen push you around. And I know it's important to do more than just complain when there's something you don't like. You need to try to do something about it, or you're nothing but a whiner."
"Well stated, Finbar," Swithbert said. "Maybe I could take a few backbone lessons from you."
"That's the only lesson I've got, what I just said." Finbar's voice sounded a bit strangled from his awkward position on the floor.
"Do you think Rollo would help?" Swithbert asked.
"Rollo!" Marigold and Christian said in unison.
"Rollo stopped us at the drawbridge," Marigold said. "That's why we had to come in through the old disposal tunnel."
"And Rollo hates me," Chris said. "He has from the first minute he ever saw me."
"And he threw me and Bub and Cate into this same dungeon and ransacked all my treasures when I still lived across the river," Ed said.
"What makes you think R
ollo would want to help?" Magnus asked.
"I'm just asking," Swithbert said. "If he'd be with us, we'd barely need anybody else. He's big and he's influential. Nobody wants to argue with him any more than they want to argue with Olympia. And he's captain of the guards. They'll do what he tells them to do."
"Most of them, I think," Finbar said. "But like it or not, Olympia does have her followers—mostly other ferret fanciers, but they'd support her. A revolution always has two sides."
"Yes, that's true," Swithbert mused. "We need to get a reading of who would join us and who wouldn't. And none of us can go out into the castle and ask."
"There's a new maid," Finbar said. "She arrived with Olympia. Maybe she'd help us."
"Olympia's own maid?" Ed yelped. "Have you lost your crackers? Who'd be more loyal than her own maid?"
"No, wait," Marigold said. "Finbar's got a point. Who would know her better? Especially after many days of traveling together? Who would have plenty of reasons for mutinying after all that time being bossed around by her? But how to get to her, that's the question."
"Last I heard, she'd been sent down to the scullery," Finbar said.
Chris's eyes narrowed. "You seem to know an awful lot about this new maid. You wouldn't be trying to set us up, would you? Betray us?"
Finbar blushed and shook his head.
Marigold had to giggle. "It's simpler than that, Chris," she said, taking his hand. "I'll bet she's pretty. Right, Finbar?"
"Pretty enough," he said gruffly. "For someone her age."
"See, Chris? It's more about Finbar's eye for the ladies than about treachery. And I think the fact that she's in the scullery is a good sign. That means Olympia is displeased with her. So this maid—what's her name, Finbar?"
"I heard her called Susan. Lazy Susan."
"Why, that's Sleeping Beauty's half sister! I've heard of her. She has a big reputation for laziness. We're going to need somebody who's willing to really pitch in, not just stand by watching."
