Aleksia rolled her eyes and described her latest charge. Elena shook her head, a single blond tendril escaping from her upswept hair to bounce against her cheek. “I ought to talk to some of the others around Led Belarus, and see about getting you some congenial company. Perhaps a Snow Maiden, or someone of that sort. There must be some intelligent creatures that would find all that cold to be attractive. You are too much alone, Aleksia. I know you have your Brownies but — ”
“But they hardly stay more than a month before another takes his place. And my three faithfuls — ” she paused “ — I would not for the world say anything against them, but I can generally recite everything I expect them to say, and I do not doubt that they can do the same for me.”
The wood on the fire today was cedar, and Aleksia was mirror-watching from her cushions. There was a terrible blizzard outside, and she had felt disinclined to get out of her bedgown. Instead, she had wrapped herself in a dressing gown of quilted silk lined with rabbit fur, tucked her toes into slippers that matched, and was enjoying a very late breakfast of battered sausage and tea while the wind raged at her windows and it looked as if there was nothing out there but a solid white wall.
The idea that Elena had suggested was appealing, provided the poor guest didn't perish of boredom. “I would not for the world want to replace any of the Brownies, but it would be nice to see someone new, not a servant, and someone that I didn't have to discipline,” Aleksia said, with a melancholy sigh. “If it is at all possible — if you could find some compatible beings that could do their own work from here, I should love to play permanent host. You are very lucky to have the Order about you: Sometimes the lack of peers to talk with is very wearing. Especially once I am snowed in. I know I shouldn't complain but — ”
Elena sniffed. “You have every right to complain. You hardly ever come down from the Palace, and none of us ever get up there. How often do you see someone not in a mirror? I would be lonely, too! It's not as if you are close enough you can easily come down for a wedding or a christening. Mind, I would love to see you in person. The Champions — ” Elena rolled her eyes “ — they are all very hearty sorts. I have no one to discuss gowns and hair with, even the women want to talk of nothing but armor and weapons! Not that this is bad — it is just not something I care to debate for hours at a time. And I have not yet found a way to translate across the leagues instantly, or I swear, we would be having tea once a week.”
“Nor have I…” She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “But it does occur to me that I might research stepping through a suitably enchanted mirror. The Elven-kind must do something of the sort, the way they can simply appear and disappear at will.”
Elena laughed, and shook her head ruefully. “I am no inventive magician, really, to research this sort of thing. I will leave that to you — but — ” she bit her lip “ — I am glad that you contacted me, and brought this up yourself. It is good to know that you actually have not been able to invent such a thing yet. There are some troubling rumors I wish to apprise you of. All is not well in the North.”
Something about the expression in Elena's eyes put Aleksia on the alert. “I trust you are going to enlighten me.”
“Well, unless you actually are turning to the bad, and you have found a way to walk through mirrors and are hiding this from me, the fact that I am speaking to you and that I know you are in your Palace, means that whatever is going on, it is not your doing.” Elena's lips thinned. “Someone is causing…problems…in the vicinity of the Sammi. And she is using the name of the Snow Queen.”
Suddenly the sausages were no longer so appealing. Aleksia set them aside to listen very closely to everything Elena had to say.
When Elena was finished and the mirror was back to reflecting nothing more interesting than her own face, Aleksia found herself in a very disquieted state. It was not greatly surprising that she should have heard nothing of this. To most people, everything out of their immediate geographic sphere was vaguely “over there” and concatenated into a single whole in their minds. Granted, a Godmother's sphere did tend to be much larger than even the average monarch's — but there were five hundred Kingdoms, and a great many places which, like the land of the Sammi, were not strictly Kingdoms at all, and there was a lot of distance between the Palace of Ever-Winter and the land of the reindeer-herders. The very nature of this mountainous country magnified the distances; the eagle might fly from here to there at will, but people had to find pathways through and over the mountains. So to Elena's mind, rumors of something that might herald trouble seemed to be centered on an area very near the Palace of Ever-Winter, when in fact, it was not at all surprising Aleksia had heard nothing.
She got up from her nest and allowed her attendant to help her into a gown, not paying much attention to it, until the Brownie was doing up her back-laces. Only then did she notice that her little servant had intuited that she was not going to want to see Kay in person today; this was not one of her Ice Fairy gowns, not a magnificent silk creation. In fact, when she was Princess Aleksia, her stepmother would probably have been horrified to see her in something so plain — it was a very simple, tight-sleeved gown of gray wool, without a single ornament.
But the wool was not just from any sheep — it was from special flocks that lived only in the mountains, and grew fleeces softer than those of newborn lambs. Yarn spun from this wool could be made so fine that a lace shawl knitted from it could pass through a woman's wedding ring. It made her look businesslike, even a bit severe; when she spoke to her various contacts via the mirror, they would know this was no light matter.
She continued to plan what she would do as her attendant put her hair up in braids and wrapped it about her head, crownlike.
That someone up to mischief would have the audacity to use the title of the Snow Queen…that made her angry and just a trifle alarmed. As the blizzard outside subsided, she made out a list of who might know something about these rumors. And it was going to take some organization on her part.
She spent the rest of the afternoon until well after the sun had set and the moon was rising over the snowfields in front of her mirror, reaching out to those Witches and Sorceresses she knew who lived near the Sammi. Speaking with someone via mirror who was not expecting you to contact her was not just a matter of casting the spell and seeing them. Alas, no. She had to work a rather complicated bit of magic that would leave a message on whatever reflective surface was nearest them. It was simple — it had to be — just that she needed to speak with them. Then she had to wait for them to go to their own mirrors and initiate the contact. And, of course, none of this would happen in a controlled manner. At one point she had a conversation going in three different mirrors at once, resorting in desperation to her little hand-mirror that she used to see the back of her head when she was checking a complicated hairdo on the rare occasions when she made an appearance in public.
None of those she contacted had heard any of the rumors that Elena had reported. All of them promised to probe their own sources of information. And that was the best she could hope for at this point. The thing was, the land of the Sammi was rather — unregulated. There were not many Witches and Sorceresses of the sort that made regular reports to the Godmothers. Truth to be told, the few who actually knew anything about Godmothers tended to think of them as…i rrelevant to the condition of the Sammi. And it was very true that in the land of the Sammi,
