Twice Upon a Marigold (12 page)

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 tools, 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.

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 Rollo 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."

"How are we going to find out if she's up to it?" Magnus asked. "None of us can go upstairs."

"I can," Marigold said. "Look at me! I'm barefoot and filthy, and my hair's a mess. Nobody would guess for a moment that I'm me. I look like I belong in the scullery and nowhere else."

"Oh, precious," Swithbert said. "It's much too dangerous. Olympia would know you no matter how dirty you are."

"What are the odds Olympia'll be hanging around the scullery?" Marigold asked, wiping her hands across the floor and rubbing even more dirt onto her cheeks.

"Your father's right," Chris said. "It's too dangerous. I'll go."

"Don't be silly," Marigold said. "No scullery maid is going to spill her deepest thoughts to anybody but another maid. Especially not on short acquaintance, which this will definitely have to be."

"Marigold is right," Magnus said with a sigh. Even though he'd been sure he and Marigold would be badly matched as spouses, he had no doubt that she was smart and brave and knew what she was talking about.

"She is," Finbar concurred. "Queen Marigold is the one who has to do it."

"There, then, it's settled," Marigold said, with a surge of exhilaration that she had rarely felt before. One that came from knowing she was doing something important, no matter how it turned out. "I'll be back as soon as I can. In the meantime, just in case Olympia comes down here, the rest of you should maybe pretend to still be locked up."

"What about me?" Finbar asked. "How convincing am I going to be as a guard if I'm lying on the floor with handcuffs on?"

"He's got a point," Marigold said. "You all work it out. I've got to get going."

They watched as she took the key for the dungeon door, ran lightly up the stone stairs, and disappeared around the curve. They heard the creak of the great
iron door as it opened, and then the sound it made as it closed behind her.

For a long moment there was silence as Chris, Magnus, Ed, Swithbert, and Finbar continued looking at the stairs, as if willing her back. Then Chris cleared his throat and set about unlocking Finbar's handcuffs.

F
ORTUNATELY FOR ALL OF THEM
, at that moment Olympia was not thinking about the dungeon at all. She was sitting at her gilded writing desk working on the speech she would give to the citizenry on execution day.

Perhaps that was not so fortunate, after all.

Marigold crept along a passageway, hoping she wouldn't run into anyone. She'd spent a lot more time roaming around the castle when she was a little girl than most princesses did—out of curiosity mainly, but also because hardly anyone had paid much attention to her. Consequently, she knew the back ways and secret accesses to every part of the castle—including the scullery.

She came out through a little-used doorway that led to the farthest-away storage rooms in the bowels of the castle. That passageway was so seldom used that there was an inch of dust on the floor. Marigold tiptoed through it, glad to add another layer of grime
to her disguise. She slipped through the back door to the scullery and stood still, holding her breath.

Luckily, there was so much noise that her entry went unheard. Before her was the backside of someone bent over a kettle so deep that the person was almost all the way inside it, scrubbing away with a brush so apparently big and bristly that it was banging on the sides, setting up a din that, under other circumstances, could have been interpreted as music. A continuous moaning reverberated inside the pot, a sort of singing sound to accompany the scrub-brush timpani.