Once Upon a Marigold Read Online Free Page B

fork was the one with the three little tines; never be late to the opera. Yet somehow he'd never gotten around to any discussion about girls. Women. The opposite sex. For pete's sake, how could he discuss them when he didn't even know what to call them? Besides, his own love life wasn't anything to blow your horn home about. He admired the same red-haired troll maiden every year at the LEFT Conference and still, after all these decades, had never gotten up the nerve to speak to her.
    Ed sighed. Now he'd have to stand by while the boy got his heart broken, and he wasn't looking forward to that. A princess, even a plain, unpopular one, wasn't going to give Christian the time of day, you could bet your bottom doubloon on that.

    C HRISTIAN ROLLED his message into the metal cylinder and attached it to Walter's leg. He didn't know why he hadn't thought of this before. It's what carrier pigeons were meant for—and if the technology existed, he was a fool not to use it. How much harder communication had been before p-mail.
    He told Walter where to go, released him out over the waterfall, and scurried to hide behind a bush, where he watched through the telescope.
    It seemed to take Walter forever to cross the river, but finally he fluttered to a halt on the arm of the girl's chair. Absently, without looking up from her book, she tried to push him away with her elbow. Walter squawked and stayed where he was. She tried again, and again he squawked. This time she looked up. He stuck out his leg. She hesitated, looked quickly around, and then unhooked the cylinder, read the message, and hurried inside. Walter flew along beside her; he'd been trained not to leave until the cylinder had been reattached to his leg, preferably with a return message in it. Walter could make a terrible nuisance of himself. It was Ed's way of getting prompt answers.
    Oh, man, Christian thought. Ed's going to kill me if we never get Walter back. What was I thinking? She could have a dragoon of castle guards over here in the morning to hunt me down.
    As it so often does, an impulsive, daring act suddenly—and too late—seemed seriously flawed in its conception and in its inability to be retracted.
    But the princess returned in a few minutes, Walter in her arms. She took him to the terrace wall and flung him out into the darkening sky. As he flew away, she leaned forward, squinting, trying to follow his flight. Even after Walter had landed in the bushes on his side of the river, Christian could still make her out, leaning over the wall, her pale yellow gown glowing faintly in the dusk.
    Christian hustled Walter back into the cave, snapped the cylinder off his leg, and popped him onto the perch next to Carrie. Walter gave Christian a baleful look, fretfully settled his feathers, and tucked his head beneath his wing. All the while Ed bent over his letters, giving furtive glances from under his shaggy eyebrows as Christian opened the cylinder, extracted the message, and read it.
    He looked up at Ed. "She's reading Greek myths. I asked her what she was reading and she told me. Greek myths. We have those, too! I've read them a bunch of times. And she signed her name. At last I know her name."
    "Well, what is it?" Ed asked with resignation. For some reason he was remembering King Louis the Stammerer, who had died on horseback while chasing a girl who'd run into her house, splitting his head open on the lintel of the door. Ed always wondered if that was because he hadn't been able to say "W-w-w-whoa" in time. What had happened to King Louis supplied plenty of evidence about how dangerous getting interested in a girl could be.
    "Marigold. Isn't that a pretty name? Marigold." His eyes on Marigold's tiny letter, Christian left the room in search of the book of Greek myths.
    Now why'd she have to go and answer him? Ed wondered. Is she just going to play games with him before she breaks his heart, the way a cat will toy with a mouse? That's about what he'd expect a