by Jean Ferris
Once the soldiers had finished and left, Ed cast a melancholy look at the mountain of his possessions languishing in the murky black hole of Beaurivage's dungeon, then went upstairs to tell Swithbert what was going on.
13
Lazy Susan sat stewing in the scullery. Waiting on somebody as bad-tempered and demanding as Olympia had been no fun, that was for sure, but scrubbing out kettles in which dragons' heads had been boiled was even less fun. Yet, she didn't want to go back to Granolah. Not without something to show for her stay in Beaurivage. It wasn't everybody who got to live in a castle and rub elbows with royalty. Lazy Susan wanted to be able to tell Beauty some stories about this adventure—and not just ones about being yelled at by Olympia, and about being up to her elbows in dragon fat.
She needed a better job.
Mrs. Clover came into the scullery and looked down at Lazy Susan sitting idly on a stool with her hands between her knees.
"How are those kettles coming along?" she asked pointedly.
"They're repulsive," Lazy Susan said.
"That's true," Mrs. Clover agreed. "But getting them clean is a necessity. And a great accomplishment. Something to be proud of."
"How would you know?" Lazy Susan muttered sulkily.
"Because that's how I started out here at the castle," Mrs. Clover said. "I was a scullery maid scrubbing out repulsive kettles."
"I don't believe you."
"It's true. Ask anybody."
"So how did you get to be head housekeeper? Who did you know who helped you out?"
"I didn't know anybody except the other scullery maids, and the footmen. But I worked hard and did the best job I could and didn't complain even when I was dead tired and my fingers were bleeding from the scrubbing. And the head housekeeper noticed. Somebody always notices when you're doing a good job, even if they don't say anything. They notice when you're doing a sloppy, haphazard job, too." And she indicated the kettle in front of Lazy Susan.
"What happens then?" Lazy Susan asked. She was experiencing an unfamiliar sensation. She didn't even know what to call it. Always before she'd been content to avoid effort of any kind, and she hadn't cared who knew it. But the things Mrs. Clover had said to her made her feel ... maybe ashamed? Or chastened? Or embarrassed? Whatever it was, it wasn't a good feeling.
"Well, if you do a lousy job for long enough, what happens is, you get fired. Then you don't have a job. And most people need their jobs."
"I never have before."
"Why is that?" Mrs. Clover asked.
"Well—" Somehow now she didn't want to mention Beauty.
"Is it because you're Sleeping Beauty's half sister?" Mrs. Clover was smarter than you might think at first glance. "People do you favors because they think you'll get them in good with her and her prince?"
"I—maybe." She was regarding Mrs. Clover with new respect.
The housekeeper shook her head. "Poor Susan. Beauty is busy living her own full life and you're wasting yours. Don't you want a life of your own? One that's not stuck to hers?"
"Even if it involves a lot of dragon fat?" Lazy Susan asked.
"You can be sure there's something in your sister's life that's the equivalent of dragon fat. Maybe she hates formal dinners, or having to spend hours on harpsichord lessons, or embroidering with her ladies-in-waiting when she'd rather be outside digging in the garden in a simple country girl's dress. No matter how good somebody else's life looks from the outside, you can be sure there's something about it you wouldn't want to have in your own life."
Lazy Susan didn't want to believe this. She'd envied Beauty's circumstances for such a long time, she didn't like thinking that maybe they weren't so enviable, and that she'd wasted a lot of energy on something so unnecessary. But Mrs. Clover's words had been delivered with such surety that it was hard not to think there was at least some truth to them.
"But what you've got in your life right now," Mrs. Clover went on, "is a lot of dirty kettles. I'll leave you to decide what to do about them." And she left the scullery.
Lazy Susan sat, looking and deciding. To scrub dragon fat or not to scrub dragon fat—that was the question.
14
Mr. Lucasa delivered an armload of dresses to Olympia's quarters. He was met at the door by Miranda, who had been Olympia's personal maid before she'd floated down the river.
"She's on one of her rampages this morning," Miranda whispered. "You might not want to go in there. I can take the dresses if you want."
"My work," Mr. Lucasa said with a note of pride in his voice. "My rampage."
"Don't say I didn't try to protect you, then," Miranda said, opening the door wide.
Mr. Lucasa could hear Olympia before he could see her. He might not have been able to understand every word, but he definitely got the drift. She was mad at almost everybody for the way the kingdom and the castle had been run for the past year and she was going to fix things if she had to put half her subjects in the dungeon.
Miranda had been right to warn him, but she'd underestimated his ability to handle somebody having a tantrum. They just had to be ignored. It was so simple a tactic it's no wonder people didn't want to believe it; they persisted in thinking solutions needed to be complicated.
He took the dresses into her sitting room and began laying them out across the settees and armchairs while Olympia roared on to a cowering Sedgewick.
"And the gardens are a disgrace! There's scum in the reflecting pool, a blight on one of the rosebushes, and I even saw a unicorn loose in the orchard, eating the cherries right off the tree!"
"The pool was scheduled for cleaning last month, but it was raining, Your Majesty. And Razi loves cherries." Sedgewick quavered when Olympia stopped for breath. "The king said it was all right. He's so fond of that unicorn."
"And Swithbert!" Her voice went up a few more decibels. "Why isn't he wearing his crown at all times? How is that incompetent valet Denby allowed to let him get away with looking like some old vagabond? You are head butler, you know. You're supposed to keep things running perfectly smoothly—and I can see that you haven't. You know I've had the dungeon cleaned out. There's plenty of room down there now."
Sedgewick gulped so loudly that Mr. Lucasa could hear him. He continued smoothing out the dresses. "I have your gowns," he said quietly.
"Can't you see I'm—" Olympia looked sharply at the array of finery. "Those are my gowns? The ones you took away a few days ago?"
Mr. Lucasa nodded.
She came over to inspect them, fingering the new trimmings, checking how the necklines had been altered and the skirts draped. "This sleeve," she said. "It needs to be an inch shorter. And this waistband—too wide. And ... uh ..."
He could tell she was looking for something else with which to find fault and failing.
"Who helped you with these?" she finally asked. "I'm quite sure it wasn't that do-nothing Lazy Susan."
"Mrs. Clover sent me to Mrs. Vienna."
"She's the chief seamstress now," Sedgewick put in timorously. "She's new since you ... left, Your Majesty."
"And she helped you?" Olympia asked Mr. Lucasa.
"No. I did it all. She just gave me the supplies."
Abruptly Olympia turned to Sedgewick. "Go! Get that unicorn back in its stall! And see that the reflecting pool is cleaned out! And rip out that blighted rosebush." She pointed to a dress. "Give me that one. I'm going to try it on."
Mr. Lucasa handed her the gown, and while she and Miranda were in the dressing room, he wandered around the sitting room looking at the paintings and statues and ornaments and carvings. There were lots and lots of them. Some were fine and beautiful, and others were garish and ornate. Olympia seemed to want everything, without any kind of discernment, just to have it.
"Well?" she asked when she came back into the room.
He examined her silently for a moment, and then said, "Here." He touched one shoulder. "And here." He indicated a seam on the bodice. "I'll fix those. Try another one."
&n
bsp; At the end of an hour, Olympia had tried all the gowns and was impressed at Mr. Lucasa's creativity and attention to detail, though she certainly wasn't going to tell him. To her way of thinking, praise made people slack and shiftless (except for herself, of course, for whom there was no such thing as too much praise). It took criticism, and plenty of it, to keep people performing.
15
Swithbert and Ed rode out into the countryside on Razi and his stablemate Petunia for one of their regular visits to Magnus. As they rode along, they had the odd feeling that they were being followed. But every time they turned to look, they saw nothing but the trail, surrounded by the trees of the forest.
At Magnus's manor house, they banged on the front door. Winterbottom ushered them in, saying, "I'll see if Sir Magnus is up yet."
"Up?" Ed said. "It's afternoon. Is he sick?"
"Ever since the queen was here, he's taken to his bed. I'd say he's sick in his spirit, thanks to her." Then he remembered who he was talking to and added, "Begging your pardon, sire. I meant no offense." He, too, had heard that the dungeon had been reopened.
"Never mind that," Swithbert said with a sigh. "I'm afraid I know too well how she can have that effect. But I didn't know she'd been to see Magnus."
After Winterbottom had gone upstairs, Swithbert said to Ed, "You know, she used Magnus before, when she was trying to get rid of Marigold and me. I wonder if she's recruiting him again. If she is, I know just what she'd threaten him with."
"His house," Ed said. He knew how that could feel. He'd voluntarily given his crystal cave-castle over to Marigold and Christian. After all, it was in Chris's kingdom of Zandelphia, and it was just across the river from Swithbert's castle, and Chris had grown up there, and it was beautiful enough for a royal residence. But sometimes he wished he hadn't. After all, he had lived there for over one hundred years, and he did have all his collections stored there, and he did love the place more than anywhere else he'd ever lived. He knew you couldn't cross back over a burned bridge when you came to it, as the saying went, but some days, much as he'd liked living at Swithbert's, he wished he had his own place again.
After a long while Magnus, in his dressing gown, came draggling down the stairs behind Winterbottom.
"Hello, Your Majesty. Hello, Ed. I beg your pardon for my appearance. I'm a little under the weather."
"Yes, I can see that," Swithbert said. "And I have an idea of what's wrong with you."
Magnus gave him a startled look. "You do?"
Winterbottom herded them into the sitting room. "I'll bring tea," he said.
"So ..." Magnus hesitated and then tried again. "What do you think is my problem?"
"Could it be—Olympia?" Swithbert asked.
Magnus went paler than he already was. "Did she say something to you?"
"No. But I know her. I know how she operates. And I know what she did to you once before."
Magnus hung his head. "I shouldn't have cooperated with her then. But I was younger, and a little desperate, and—"
"It's all right, Magnus," Swithbert said. "I understood."
Magnus raised his head and looked at the king. "I really did like Marigold. But I knew all along we had nothing in common."
"I know. What you wanted was a place to belong. I really do understand that. Which is why I made sure you got your own house. And now ... I'm just guessing, but could it be that Olympia's threatening to take that away from you unless you do what she wants? And what she wants probably has something to do with my health, just like last time. Am I close?"
Magnus jumped. "How did you know?"
Swithbert shrugged. "Unfortunately, I know Olympia."
"But this time I told her no. I swear it."
"I believe you. And that's why you're so under the weather. Wondering what her retaliation will be. I'm sure you've heard she's cleaned out the dungeons, ready for business again."
Ed jumped in. "We aren't ones to want to wash our dirty hands in public, so we'll need to keep this conversation confidential. But we have to stop Olympia."
"Do you think we can?" Magnus asked doubtfully.
"That's what we need to talk about."
So they did, spending a long time over the tea and cakes that Winterbottom brought. Ed was especially fond of the raisin scones and ate more than he should have. Trolls have very little restraint when it comes to food they love.
Swithbert ate modestly, mostly because that was his usual practice, but also because he had had such perfectly boiled eggs for breakfast that he'd requested them again for lunch and was quite full still. Either the old cook had finally learned how to boil an egg properly, or someone else had taken over the job.
Magnus was too upset and bilious to eat a bite.
AT THE END of the afternoon they'd gotten exactly nowhere. Every plan they came up with had holes even they could see through, which meant it wouldn't have fooled Olympia for an instant.
"It'll be dark before we return to the castle if we don't leave now," Swithbert said. "But we'll keep racking our brains about Olympia, and we'll meet again tomorrow. We must solve this problem before it goes any further."
Ed opened the door to the sitting room and found Winterbottom on the floor, held down by Rollo's boot in his back, and with Rollo's saber poised at the nape of his neck. An eight-foot-tall captain of the guards is intimidating under any circumstances, but especially when he has his blade on one's neck.
"Rollo!" Swithbert commanded. "What are you doing here?"
"I've been eavesdropping all afternoon," he said. "I and two of my archers followed you. Queen's orders. And she's not going to like what I have to tell her."
"Olympia's had you spying on us?" Swithbert asked in astonishment.
"For good reason, apparently," Rollo said. "The three of you are under arrest."
"Me?" squeaked Winterbottom from the floor. "All I did was make tea. And more raisin scones than I thought anybody could eat. But he did." And he pointed a finger at Ed.
"Not you." Rollo removed the saber. "Him, and him, and him," he said, waving the blade at Ed, Swithbert, and Magnus. "And I can promise you, there won't be any raisin scones where they're going."
"I need to get dressed," Magnus said, looking down at his bare legs, slippers, and dressing gown. "I can't go anywhere like this."
"You think I'm simple enough to let you go where you could escape or fetch a weapon?" Rollo scoffed. "You're coming just as you are."
16
It was a pitiful little procession that Rollo and his archers escorted back to the castle in the twilight. A storm was brewing off to the west, and the rumble of thunder and flash of lightning accompanied Ed (his stomach aching from all the scones), Magnus (struggling to keep his dressing gown closed while on horseback), and Swithbert (fighting back tears at his own failures).
The downpour started just before the entourage reached the castle, and by the time Ed, Magnus, and Swithbert were locked into separate cells in the dungeon, they were dripping wet and shivering.
"When will we get our trial?" Swithbert asked. "It's in the Beaurivage constitution that everybody accused of something gets a trial."
Beaurivage was unusual because it was a constitutional monarchy. Most monarchies operated at the whim of the monarch; Beaurivage had rules. But Swithbert had a sinking feeling about Beaurivage's famous rules just then. Olympia had never been fond of rules—unless they were her own. And if she were sole monarch, there would be plenty of whims.
"I guess you haven't heard," Rollo said. "The queen is rewriting the constitution."
"But it says in the constitution that no single person can do that," Swithbert protested. "There's a process that has to be followed."
"That was the first thing she changed," Rollo told them, and left them in the dankness of the dungeon.
The king slumped down against the damp cell wall. "Can you ever forgive me for getting you all into this?" he called to Ed and Magnus. "It's completely my fault. I should have been able to manage Olympia
on my own."
"Nobody can manage her on their own," Magnus called back, and sneezed.
"At least it's clean in here," Ed said rather dolefully, since the cleanliness reminded him that all his precious possessions were gone. He paced around his cell in the guttering light from the torch stuck in a bracket on the corridor wall. He found, overlooked by the cell shoveler-outers, a bent fork and a gold button. Not much help there.
They were silent, each trapped in his own gloomy thoughts, until a commotion on the stone stairs leading down to the dungeon roused them from their funks. They were all standing at their barred cell doors when Olympia came sweeping along the corridor with all the trappings of royalty and then some—crown, ermine cape, scepter, orb, ropes and ropes of pearls, diamond-studded badges, emblems, and brooches pinned to her dress, feathers and ribbons attached here and there, and an escort of four soldiers carrying standards with her coat of arms on them.
She stopped in front of his cell. "Hello, dear," she said coldly.
"Hello, Olympia." Swithbert, with effort, kept his voice level.
"Got yourself into a spot of trouble, I see."
He was silent.
"And your friends, too," she went on. "A shame to have brought them into this. Now you'll all be guilty of treason."
"Guilty?" Swithbert said. "We haven't been tried yet."
"Oh, what's the point of a trial?" she asked airily. "Why waste everybody's time? I have a lot to do to get this kingdom on its feet again. No time for such nonsense."
"Fairness is hardly nonsense," Swithbert said. When she only glared at him, he swallowed hard and said, "Is there—is there a sentence?"
"I'm still thinking about that," Olympia said, tapping her chin with an index finger almost covered by a huge ruby ring. "I can't decide which would be more satisfying, and instructive to my subjects—a public hanging, or a lifetime in here following a public flogging. I really do need to make an example of you, just so I don't have any more of this kind of trouble. I'm sure you understand."