Once Upon a Marigold (10 page)

"How kind of you." Prince Cyprian preened. "How very kind."

Christian ducked his head to hide a smile. Narcissus was handsome, all right, but the only person he loved was himself. He sat by a pool staring at his own reflection in the water for so long that he forgot to eat and drink, and so he wasted away to his death.

Princess Marigold caught Christian's eye, and he realized she'd seen his smile. He hoped he wasn't going to be punished. Perhaps she had meant to give Cyprian an honest compliment. But no. The way she gave him a faint smile in return made them conspirators. How clever she was. How subtle and smart. Prince Cyprian wasn't good enough to carry her train. What a choice her mother was going to insist she make, Christian thought: Cyprian or Magnus.

If only there were a way for him to give her a third choice.

As Christian worked on the wall, Prince Cyprian rose from his chair and approached King Swithbert, drawing him apart from the rest of the party, closer to Christian. Like all servants, Chris was invisible to those he served—at least until they wanted something from him or he did something wrong.

"Listen, Swithbert, old man," Cyprian said. "You know this daughter of yours is a hard sell in the marriage market. I mean, the fact of her curse, and that she's plainer than those bombshell sisters of hers. And smart. Don't forget about that. Not many men wanting to take on a smart woman these days, you know."

"She
is
smart, isn't she?" King Swithbert agreed, sounding proud. "And pretty nice, too, don't you think?" He beamed benevolently at Prince Cyprian.

"Oh sure, of course, nice as pie," Cyprian said quickly. "But a hard sell all the same. You may not know this, but I've also been approached by the kingdoms of Skydonia, Figland, and Sproon to court their princesses, all of whom are prettier and more charming than your Geranium."

"Marigold." King Swithbert sounded irritated.

"Right. Marigold. So, what do you think about sweetening the pot a little?"

"Sweetening the pot?" the king asked.

"You know, beefing up the dowry. To get somebody to take her off your hands."

"Why, I'm not looking for someone to take her off my hands," King Swithbert said, blinking up at Prince Cyprian, who, Christian had to admit, was pretty dazzling with the sunlight bouncing off his golden curls and gilded crown. "I'm looking for someone for her to be happy with, a companion and best friend for a lifetime. The dowry is to make sure she'll have what she needs when I'm no longer the one taking care of her. It's not a bribe."

Prince Cyprian drummed his fingertips on the wall. "No. Of course not. Not a bribe at all. But you do want to make sure she's well taken care of, don't you?"

"Certainly I do. I've been to Upper Lower Grevania, young man. I know it's a wealthy kingdom. And I know you could provide quite adequately for her even without
any
dowry. What are you trying to do here?"

So King Swithbert wasn't the dim bulb he might appear, Christian mused. At least not when it came to Marigold.

Prince Cyprian took a step back and drew himself up to his full height. "I don't like what you're suggesting," he said pompously, annoyed at being so accurately appraised. "You must know I have nothing but the greatest regard for you and all your family. But I am in great demand as a suitor, and I only want to make sure that I get the best arrangement for myself that I can. And for my future queen, too," he put in as an afterthought. "Under these gravely insulting circumstances, I shall have to withdraw my offer for your daughter's hand. My retinue and I will be leaving for Upper Lower Grevania as soon as we can get our bags packed. Which should be in the morning. After breakfast."

"Fine with me," King Swithbert said, and returned to the table where he'd been playing a game of snipsnapsnorum with his chancellor of the exchequer.

Prince Cyprian gathered his entourage, and they clattered off down the stairs, in huffs and dudgeons, even though most of them didn't know what was going on. The rest of the guests, including Magnus, fearing that they had missed an announcement about the next event, hastened after them.

It was a sure thing now that Marigold would be married off to Magnus, a man who might be decent enough but who didn't love her, couldn't possibly appreciate her, and only wanted a secure place to live. Her choice had been made for her, and she didn't know it yet.

Christian looked over to where she played happily with her dogs. He wished that he could save this moment for her, this last precious sparkling summer afternoon before she had to know that she would soon be bound to a ... a ... oh, he didn't even know what to call him. He'd have to consult with Hayes Centaur to beef up his vocabulary.

The unconcerned king and the chancellor of the exchequer finished their game and decided there was time for a nice long nap before dinner. After they'd gone, the servants removed the dirty luncheon plates and the tables and chairs, and swept up. The terrace was empty except for Christian, Marigold, and the dogs.

Should he tell her? Why would she listen to a person she believed was a stranger, who had been at the castle for less than two days, and was a servant as well? She'd think he was a lunatic and have him fired. Then it would be impossible for him to keep an eye on her, just in case Olympia was serious about her accident scheme.

All right, so he wouldn't tell her. But he would stay very, very alert.

The ball rolled away from the dogs and came to rest against Christian's basket of tools. When the barking floor mops came running after it, Christian couldn't help reaching out to pet them from where he knelt next to the wall. He missed Bub and Cate to the point of pain, and at this moment especially, he needed a dog to pet.

The little dogs responded enthusiastically. Maybe no one was willing to touch them, either, because of their connection to Marigold. They leaned against him and licked his hands and jumped up on him.

"Are they bothering you?" Marigold asked, a bit shyly, Christian thought, considering how outspoken she'd been before lunch.

"Not at all," Christian said. "What are their names?"

"Flopsy, Mopsy, and Topsy," she said. "Topsy's the one that got kicked last night."

For a moment they both looked down at the dogs as indulgently as fond parents. Then Marigold said, "So you've read Greek myths?"

"I happen to know about Narcissus," he admitted. "I hope I didn't offend you."

"Not at all. I was merely surprised." She didn't add "...that a servant would know such a thing," but he knew that's what she meant.

"Prince Cyprian must have been asleep during his Greek-myth lessons."

"I know about the style of education in the court of Upper Lower Grevania," Marigold said. "Not rigorous at all. Consequently, Prince Cyprian is an uneducated blockhead without even the sense to know what a moron he is."

Well, he could see he needn't have worried that Cyprian had charmed her.

"Perhaps as Queen of Upper Lower Grevania you could improve their schooling system," Christian said tactfully. He couldn't reveal that he knew Prince Cyprian had withdrawn his offer.

"I have no intention of being Queen of Upper Lower Grevania," she said disdainfully. "I'd rather harvest potatoes for the rest of my life."

"So Sir Magnus will be your choice?" Christian asked carefully.

"That's what my father, the king, would like," the princess said a bit wistfully, "because then I could continue to live here and see him every day. And I love him so much I hate to disappoint him."

Christian waited for the "but," and it soon came.

"But," Marigold went on, "Magnus is so ... so
meek.
It makes me want to order him around, as if I were his mother. Besides, he kicked Topsy." After a pause, she added, "Oh, I suppose he's harmless enough, and kicking Topsy probably really
was
an accident. But I know what he wants, and it's not me." After another pause she said, "My father has been ill, you know. And he's quite old. I want him to be happy."

Christian couldn't keep his mouth shut. "But what about this morning when you said there was nothing you wanted that you could get by being married?"

She smiled sadly at him. "I forgot about my father's happiness. My marriage could give me that."

"But ... to
Magnus
?" Christian asked. He knew he'd long ago crossed the line of what was proper for a servant to say to his mistress, but it was harder and harder for him to think of her that way. Because he was already in the danger zone anyway, he decided to keep going. As Ed would say, might as well be hanged for a goat as a cow, whatever that meant. It made even less sense to Christian than most of Ed's sayings.

"There isn't anybody else," she said. "Every eligible royal male for many leagues has been here to have a look at me, and I've rejected them all. A bigger collection of egos, nincompoops, or martinets I've never seen. As well as a few nice young men I just had nothing in common with. And most of them haven't really been interested in me, anyway, since I'm not your traditional princess. Magnus is my last chance."

"Does he have to be royal?" Christian asked. "Is that the part that would make your father happy?"

"I don't think Papa really cares about that. He just wants me to have a good companion for my life. But don't forget about my mother. She's got something to say about it, too. And for her, it has to be a royal suitor or nothing. She'd make my father miserable if he allowed anything else, and then my marriage would be for naught."

This was so complicated, Christian could hardly keep up with it. Luckily, Marigold was smart or she might do something really stupid. Though Chris couldn't quite see how marrying Magnus was the smartest thing to do. Still, Christian was happy that she was talking to him as if he were her equal, someone she could trust with her confidences.

"I have three beautiful sisters, as you probably know," Marigold said, playing with the tassel at the end of her sash, "and they've all married royalty, and they all married for love. Calista and Eve are married to twin brothers, Princes Teddy and Harry of Zandelphia, King Beaufort's kingdom next door. They'll both be queens someday because both brothers will have to be king. When they were infants, they looked so much alike that they got mixed up and nobody knew which was which, so nobody's sure who's the oldest. Imagine what a mess that'll be—two queens and two kings. My other sister, Tatiana, is already Queen of Middle Sanibar. Her husband, King Willie, inherited the throne when he was only fourteen, and he still rules like a well-meaning but birdbrained teenager, if you ask me. Luckily, she's a very sensible person, and he's smart enough to ask her for advice. Their weddings—all on the same day—were a madhouse, but my mother loved it. Every royal personage in this hemisphere was here, packed into every space in the castle, and the feasting was monumental—enough to make you sick. So you can see, even if it was all right with my father, my mother would never permit a commoner son-in-law. She has a reputation to uphold. She always says she wants to be the mother of at least three queens. By that, I guess, she means she isn't convinced I'll make the grade."

Christian sat back on his heels to listen to her. He couldn't tell her that he had watched her sisters' wedding festivities from across the river, that he knew how she chafed in her finery and had been ignored and avoided by the wedding guests.

He also couldn't tell her that one reason Queen Olympia wasn't convinced Marigold would be a queen was that she might be the one to prevent it.

"If you were queen, how would you rule?" he asked, trying to imagine her in Queen Olympia's place.

"You know," she said, settling down cross-legged on the flagstones, her skirts poufed out around her so that, to Christian, she looked like a flower growing in a fancy pot, "I've thought about that a lot—because ruling means having power, and when you have it, you have to use it wisely. You can't ignore it, the way I'm afraid my dear papa has done, or abuse it the way—well, the way some royals do—and you can't take it for granted, either."

When she talked about abuse, Christian knew she was thinking of her mother, and when she talked about taking it for granted, he was thinking about Queen Mab.

"First of all," she went on, "I'd make sure everybody had a place to live and enough to eat. You can't do anything else well if you're worried every day about that. Then I'd make sure everybody could read. That way they could learn how to do anything they wanted to do, and they could entertain themselves, too. And I'd make sure everybody had good manners so my kingdom would run smoothly. And that everybody had the right amount of work to do. Too much idleness makes you boring and useless, and too much work makes you bitter and tired."

These were wonderful ideas, Christian thought. He would definitely want to be a subject in any kingdom she ruled.

"What about disciplining people who did bad things?" he asked her. "There are always some."

"That would be the hardest part. I'd hate that. What would you do?"

He was flattered to be asked. And even though he'd never thought about it before, an answer came directly to him, as if it had been sitting in his brain just waiting for him to use it. "I think I'd have a list of punishments for specific crimes, so everybody would know what the consequences would be before they did something bad. And then I'd give the punishments even if I didn't want to, even if the criminal was somebody I knew and liked a lot. That way everybody would know I meant business, and they'd think about it before they did bad things."

Marigold looked admiringly at him. "Well, of course. That's exactly the right thing to do. Papa just exiles everybody who commits crimes, because he can't bear to think about doing anything worse. And Mother would probably execute them all if she had her way, but she doesn't, so she just yells a lot and then tells Papa to exile them. Even for little things."

"Could I make one suggestion about your rule?" Christian asked, wondering how he had such nerve. But in his pocket was the diamond earring she had given him, still wrapped in her monogrammed handkerchief, so in some basic way, she was just his best friend, not somebody who might one day rule the kingdom in which he was a subject.