Once Upon a Marigold (19 page)

Marigold stood abruptly, furious tears pooling in her eyes. "Whose idea is this?" she demanded. "In the first place, I don't care if Christian
is
royalty; I'd
marry him if he were a goatherd. And in the second place, he hasn't asked me. And in the third place, I'll not have him railroaded into something he doesn't want to do. Where's Mother? I'll tell her myself that there's going to be no wedding today."

"But I want one," Christian said, trying to get out from under the pile of dogs. "The only thing I want in all the world is for you to be my wife. We can sort out the rest of the stuff later."

"Oh," Marigold said.

Her sisters grabbed her and dragged her off to get dressed.

Ed and Swithbert, bringing clean clothes, shaving gear, and explanations for Christian, rushed in as the sisters rushed out.

I
N WHAT SEEMED
like no time, the wedding guests were reassembled on the terrace, which had been hastily put to rights by a platoon of servants. The audience couldn't be blamed for casting anxious glances over the parapet, considering what had appeared from that direction only a couple of hours earlier. But all they saw was the oncoming twilight, with its swathes of primrose and cinnabar, amethyst and ultramarine. None but Christian knew that this was Marigold's favorite time of day, with all her favorite colors.

Teddy, Harry, Willie, Ed, and the five dogs stood waiting beside the bishop on one side of the altar, and the triplets stood on the other side, as Swithbert and Marigold started down the aisle between the little gilt chairs. The princess was radiant in her pale pink linen (starting a fad in wedding gowns that lasted for decades}, which was just the right match for Christian's crystal on a chain around her neck, the rubies in her best everyday tiara, and the cloud of plain, unadorned veiling that followed her down the aisle.

While everyone was watching the bride and her father approach, Christian stepped up to the altar, waiting with a look on his face that, if you didn't know how happy he was, might have been mistaken for mental impairment. So much had happened so fast, his mind was still trying to catch up and hadn't yet made it. The fact that he was standing next to his newly found brothers, who would also be his brothers-in-law, wasn't even the half of it.

Neither was the fact that he'd discovered his birthday was April 19, the same day as Marigold's. They were both fire signs, the most confident and dynamic combination.

The real half of it was that, in the deepest part of himself, he knew this was what he'd been headed toward for as long as he could remember. He'd been
preparing for a life with Marigold—and for a life as a good king.

The wedding guests, when they turned in his direction, caught their breaths.
They
didn't think he looked mentally impaired. Not at all. Especially considering that the last time they'd seen him he'd been wearing dirty livery, hanging on to a rickety flying machine, and yelling at a couple of dogs to run faster. Now he was cleaned up, shaved, and splendid in fine leather breeches, an embroidered waistcoat, and a single diamond earring in his newly pierced ear. He wore a crown sparkling with gems—a borrowed crown, to be sure, but who except Christian and Swithbert had to know that?

But the guests were also looking as bewildered as Christian felt. Where was Magnus? Who
was
this new bridegroom? And where was Olympia?

Marigold and Christian stood before the bishop, hands clasped, eyes locked, knees weak, and heads reeling, repeating words they unequivocally meant with all their hearts.

Just before they were asked the question best answered by "I do," there came a commotion at the arched doorway. The guests could be excused for flinching and ducking reflexively. They had already had a great deal more commotion than most of them were used to.

"What's going on here? What are you doing behind my back?" Olympia came through the archway dressed in the most extravagant array—even for her—of silk, jewels, and furs that anyone had ever seen. "Stop the wedding!" she roared, rushing over with Fenleigh—freshly bathed and blown dry—clinging desperately to her shoulder. "
This
is the groom—" She dragged Magnus behind her. "Not
him.
" She pointed at Christian. "We know nothing about him. He's an impostor, a ... a
servant.
" She spat the word.

There was total, stunned silence as she pulled Magnus down the aisle. He wouldn't look at anybody, just stumbled along after her, his head bowed.

Bub and Cate, as disoriented by the day's events as everyone else, went into fierce protective mode as they saw the ferocious queen bearing down on Ed and Chris. Bub ran at her, barking his head off, and Cate circled her, jumping and yipping and having a grand, dramatic time. The three floor mops, not wanting to be left out of the fun with their new friends, and having their own reasons for wanting to have a go at Olympia, joined in—crowding her, yapping and bumping, jumping for Fenleigh, creating new definitions of chaos.

The queen let go of Magnus, who hastily stepped back from the pandemonium. "Stop it!" Olympia said,
flapping her hands at the animals and backing away. "Somebody get those monsters away from me!"

No one moved. Perhaps they were pausing to figure out just exactly how to enter the fray. Or what would most effectively lure the dogs away. Or how best to extricate the queen. Or maybe they were thinking that it was high time Olympia got what she deserved. Whatever their thoughts were would remain a mystery.

What happened was that Olympia backed against the terrace wall, the broken part that Christian, what with all that had been happening to him, had never finished repairing. And, with the dogs still after her, playing, or defending their loved ones, or just giving her a hard time—who can ever tell with dogs?—she tried to back up some more. The wall crumbled and gave way. Her feet went up, and she flipped backward over the side in a welter of gold lace, heavy brocade, thick furs, snapped necklaces that showered pearls across the terrace, and one frantic ferret.

By the time anyone from the stunned assemblage reached the wall to grab for her, it was too late. All that could be seen, in the fast-running river water, swollen with mountain snowmelt, was a puff of brocade skirt and a single silvery shoe with a curved heel and a bow on the toe. And even as they watched, those disappeared around a bend.

"Rollo!" the king ordered, in a voice of command that no one had heard from him in a very long time. "Go downriver and find her!" Rollo, with a sinking feeling that he already knew
how
they would find her, rushed off to assemble his troops.

In the same strong voice, Swithbert said, "Continue with the ceremony. We've had enough interrupted weddings around here for one day. We're going to get one finished."

Marigold and Christian were on their knees consoling the bewildered, whimpering dogs, who had the feeling that they'd done something seriously wrong but didn't know what.

Magnus, still standing where Olympia had left him, stammered, "B ... b ... but, what about m ... m ... me? I was supposed to be the bridegroom."

"Not anymore," Swithbert said. "Now sit down and keep quiet while we get Marigold and Chris hitched, and then you and I are going to have a chat. If things work out right, maybe we can find a spot for you to have your own little manor house."

Magnus shut his mouth and sat down so suddenly it looked as if his knees had been hit from behind.

Marigold and Christian finally got to say "I do." And when it came time to kiss the bride, Christian, who hadn't known what to do when Meg kissed him,
somehow knew exactly what to do when the kissee was Marigold.

Then the guests rushed off to the Great Hall to carry on with the feasting that had been interrupted by the interrupted wedding.

Marigold and her sisters clustered around Swithbert. "Oh, Papa," they said, hugging him, "I'm sure Rollo will find Mother and bring her home."

"I'm not," Swithbert said, dry-eyed. "And if he does, I'll have to send her straight to the dungeon."

Well, the girls could hardly argue with him about that, but under the circumstances, they kept a tactful silence. Christian observed this and approved. It's exactly what the etiquette book would have advised: Refrain from bad-mouthing somebody when their situation looks particularly bleak.

He was happy to see that what he'd learned from Ed's book applied to royal life as well as to forest life, since he might soon actually need to know how to address a duke or recognize an oyster fork.

"You girls go down and mingle with the guests. I need to think. I'll join you later." So King Swithbert went off to his turret to think about what life might be like without Olympia, or maybe with an Olympia under better control than she'd been up to now. And
what life would be like with Marigold gone off to Christian's kingdom.

"I'll go with you, Bert," Ed said. "I've got some thinking to do, too."

Swithbert wasn't used to people treating him like an ordinary person but decided he liked it, at least from Ed, so he said, "Come along, then." And off they went.

"Do you think it looks right to go to a party when our mother is—well, who knows where?" Eve, the most proper triplet, asked.

"To tell you the truth, I don't care how it looks," Marigold said. "This is my final wedding, and I'm going to enjoy it. When somebody is plotting to do you in, it's a little hard to feel sad when something bad happens to her." Her eyes filled for a moment, and she said softly, "I just wish I knew how she could even think of doing such a thing to her own daughter." Being one of the few royals practical enough to carry her own handkerchief, she wiped her eyes and turned to Christian. "Come along, my dearest heart," she said. "Let's go to our party." And they went off down the stairs, surrounded by dogs.

Eventually the other sisters joined them, and they all ended up having a very good time in spite of the
need to remind themselves to look somber from time to time, since there was no word about Olympia.

By the time the festivities ended and everyone staggered off to bed, there was still no word.

At breakfast time Swithbert announced that all Rollo and his men had been able to find was the single shoe with the bow on the toe, so they were calling off the search. Wherever Olympia was, she would have to get along with only one shoe.

Just before dinner, when the last of the wedding guests had finally packed up and gone home, Swithbert called his family together in the library. He shut the doors and said, "Girls—and boys, too—I have some interesting news for you. Mrs. Clover came to me with a secret she's been keeping for years. One that she's kept until now only because Olympia threatened her with the iron maiden if she told. This will come as a shock to you girls, but I have to tell you that Olympia was not your real mother."

"
What?
" eight voices said in unison.

"That's right. She pretended to be expecting—she wanted to avoid the real thing because she thought it would be too hard on her figure—and she threatened Mrs. Clover into bringing babies to her in secret when the proper time came. Mrs. Clover says the babies were from decent village girls who had made mistakes
and wanted good homes for their children. Mrs. Clover says she told the girls only that their babies would be going to noble families, so no one but Olympia and Mrs. Clover knew the whole truth."

"But then, who are we?" the triplets asked, holding each other's hands.

Swithbert scratched his head. "I don't know. The village Mrs. Clover brought you all from was burned to the ground and the inhabitants scattered during the last Visigoth raids, when you were little girls. So I guess you'll just have to be who you've always been."

"So you're not our papa?" Marigold asked, her lower lip trembling. Christian took her hand and stroked it.

King Swithbert took the other one. "
I
think I am," he said. "I'm the one who loved you all from the first moment I laid eyes on you, and who walked the floor with you when you were sick and played games with you and taught you to ride and shoot and cheat at cards. What else makes somebody a father?"

"You're right," Marigold said, and put the whole thing out of her mind, relieved to know that she was not related in any way to Olympia, who had done none of the things Swithbert had done for her. And further relieved to know why she had always felt as if she didn't quite fit into the life she had. Yet somehow,
it seemed to fit better now that she knew all the parts of it. Secrets have a way of making themselves felt, even before you know there's a secret.

Christian spoke up. "Then Ed's my father. He did all those things for me. Except ride. We never had a horse." He knew he had another father over in Zandelphia, but that didn't mean Ed wasn't the real thing, too. And because he'd learned how sick King Beaufort was, Ed might soon be the only one.

"I'll teach you to ride," Marigold said.

"Will that make
you
my father?" Christian asked, teasing.

"S
O
I
APOLOGIZE
to every one of you," Swithbert said humbly, "for marrying this person who was so bad for us all."

"But it was an arranged marriage, Papa," Marigold said. "You had no choice."

"I could have resisted harder, the way you did, Marigold, when all those suitors came calling. Or I could have controlled her more. I could have been a better king." He put his head in his hands. "I failed all of us, and my whole kingdom, terribly. I feel just awful."

"Start now," Ed said. "Be better now. If you could have done better before, you would have. But now
that you have your act on the ball, you
can
do better. So start now." He was sounding parental, he knew it, but once a person had started with that job, it was a hard habit to break. Maybe breaking it was impossible. And didn't everybody need a little parenting from time to time, no matter how old or how royal they got? "All you have to do is keep your shoulder to the grindstone and your nose to the wheel."

Swithbert lifted his head. "Thank you, Ed. That's good advice. I think. I owe you one now."