Twice Upon a Marigold Read Free Page B

breath.
    To his surprise, Angie—or Olympia, or whoever she was—said, "Are you suggesting I'm a thief? I pay for whatever I take." She bent, felt the hem of her dress, and straightened, her eyes flashing fire. "Where are my gold coins? My dressmaker uses them to weight my hems so my skirts hang correctly, but I can also use them for purchases."
    "You've already spent them," Ubaldo said. "In the year you've been here. Mostly on shoes."
    This seemed to make sense to her. "Very well. Then I'll have to compensate you once I get back to Beauri-vage. And I'll also return these"—she pointed to the wheelbarrow and the mules—"
things.
I certainly will have no further use for them. Now let's get started." She stepped into the wheelbarrow, rolling her eyes as she did so. Fenleigh clung to her shoulder. "Well? Who's going to drive this thing for me?" In the silence that followed, she pointed to Lazy Susan. "You!"
    "But I can't," she began, and then paused. "So you want me to come with you? You did say we'd be friends forever."
    "
I
said a thing like that?" Olympia asked, 1 n-credulous.
    Lazy Susan nodded.
    "Hmmm," Olympia mused. "Well, all the better. You can be my maid as well as the driver. But you'll have to ride one of those." She pointed to the mule. "This"—she patted the side of the wheelbarrow—"is all mine. And Fenleigh's, too, of course."
    "I need to get dressed," Lazy Susan said. "And I know I can get you to Beaurivage. I was there once before with Beauty." She sneered at the name. "For the triplets' weddings."
    "You were at that wedding?" Olympia asked. "Wasn't it lovely? My daughters may not be the smartest girls, but they did marry well. Didn't I look splendid in that peach mousseline?"
    "I have no idea. I was so far back in the crowd I couldn't see a thing," Lazy Susan said, hurrying away to dress and pack.
    Olympia drummed her fingers on the side of the wheelbarrow until Lazy Susan returned with a gunny-sack full of her clothes, which she tied onto one mule. Then she mounted the other one.
    "Good-bye, everyone," Lazy Susan said, waving. "I'm going to the castle at Beaurivage with Queen

Olympia. You can tell that to Beauty if you see her. Ciao!"
    Once the wheelbarrow procession reached the edge of town, which took only a few minutes, Ubaldo turned to Wivinia and said, "I hope we never see that woman again. I wouldn't ever be able to trust her to stay whoever she said she was. Do you think everybody will blame me for rescuing her from the river? Do you think that will hurt my chances for reelection?"
    "It might, dear," Wivinia said. "But they also liked her for a long time, and they know you couldn't have had any idea how it would work out. So you'll want to keep reminding them that you're the one who figured out how to get rid of someone who, with her memory regained, would have been very unpleasant to have in Granolah. Make it seem like your idea."
    "Thank you, Wivinia. I'll use that in my campaign slogan. I just hope she remembers to pay for the mules."
    They watched the puff of dust that was Olympia, Lazy Susan, and the mules recede into the distance.

4
    A few days before Olympia finally showed up, Christian, King of Zandelphia, and Marigold, formerly Princess of Beaurivage and now Queen of Zandelphia, had their first fight ever. They were sitting on the new terrace outside the crystal cave-castle at Zandelphia, enjoying their breakfast, the sunshine after all that rain, and the
Daily Discourse.
Usually Christian didn't mind Marigold reading over his shoulder and sharing her opinions on the day's news. For the whole last year, their first as a married couple, he'd loved hearing whatever was on her mind. But this morning, for reasons he only recognized later, as she leaned on his shoulder and crunched her toast in his ear, he had to restrain himself from shrugging her off. Then she said, "Look at that. Alison Wonderland has gotten lost again. That girl just never learns."
    "Marigold, my