[500 Kingdoms 04] - The Snow Queen Read online

  So it was that when he emerged from his drug-induced trance, it was to run straight to the Tyrant with the description of what he had seen—a conspiracy against the ruler, the meeting of the conspirators, all of whom were robed identically and masked. And just to make it all the more interesting, she had made the leader some sort of Magician, who had conjured up a demon that promised them success in their endeavor. The surroundings, as crafted by Aleksia’s imagination, were opulent, but apparently subterranean. When anyone spoke, it was with the cultured tones of the upper classes. And they made reference to the King In Waiting. It was quite the fantastic creation, but very believable, especially to someone like the Tyrant. The Tradition would be working against him in that way, making him suspicious and looking for conspiracies; the fact that he couldn’t find any would make him all the more certain that they existed.

  Now the Tyrant would be actively searching for this conspiracy, powered by a Magician. His search would concentrate on those of the upper classes. He would not be able to tell if these were his own nobles or those in exile, for she had given no clues at all as to the location. He would only know that whoever was involved had wealth, as well as occult power. He would assume that somewhere along the line he had missed a potential heir.

  This would drive him mad trying to ferret it out. And he would be so fixated on it he would leave his peasantry alone.

  Aleksia made a mental note to keep sending more false visions whenever she managed to think of some new variation.

  I should also make an attempt to put disturbing things in the palace from time to time. Perhaps an ornate dagger in the Tyrant’s bedpost, or a burned rug and the smell of brimstone in his dressing room. These things would take some arranging, but they would be worth the doing. Anything that kept him nervous and alarmed. Perhaps she could leave a hint that the apocryphal conspirators knew about his immunity to poison. Brownies could slip in anywhere, and slip out again undetected; alone of the Elven-kind, they had no difficulties with cold iron. They could easily leave daggers and burned places anywhere they chose, and one of them might find it amusing to slip some concoction into the Tyrant’s nightly draught to make him sick.

  And this would have the effect of making Valeri’s job so much easier when she and her band were ready and made the attempt to depose him. It was not wise to depend too much on The Tradition alone to take you where you wanted to go. It was always better to have so many hedges around what you wanted accomplished that The Traditional power flowed downhill in the channel you wanted like so much runoff water.

  Aleksia dismissed the image in her mirror and looked up with the realization that she had been bending over it for hours. Her shoulders and neck were stiff and sore, and her eyes felt dry. One of her Brownies was at her side as she straightened, appearing, as they often did, without needing to be summoned.

  “It is after midnight,” the little woman said, as Aleksia massaged her own shoulder carefully. Rosemary, that was her name. “Young Kay moped about the dining room, pushed food about his plate and retired to his suite when you did not put in an appearance. It seems he has decided to experiment with getting drunk tonight.” Rosemary grinned, with just a hint of malice. “He is going to have a head in the morning.”

  “Then one hopes he won’t repeat the experiment.” Aleksia smiled a little herself. If Kay was suffering from a hangover, he would not be a nuisance for some time tomorrow. “Rosemary, would you have any objections to other residents here? Not like Kay,” she amended. “Pleasant ones. And hopefully permanent ones. Peers of mine.”

  “None at all, Godmother,” the Brownie replied serenely. “The Palace can hold a small army, and if we need more help here, ’tis easy come by.”

  “Ah, good.” That was a relief. There were times when Aleksia was not quite sure just what her privileges as a Godmother were, nor what they extended to. As a Princess of the Blood, she had taken such things as servants and where one put guests for granted. As a Godmother, who tended to both the highest and the lowest, she had learned that it was never wise to take anything for granted.

  In fact, her first apprenticeship year had been very enlightening. She would not have considered herself spoiled—but her eyes had certainly been opened to just how much work went on behind the rooms frequented by the noble and wealthy. She had learned that magic was not always the answer to a problem. She knew now, for instance, that the Palace was so remote that her Brownies changed monthly. At first, she had thought there was a never-ending stream of them, but now she knew that the little folk, who were highly social, aside from her very particular three—Tuft, Pieter and her special maid, Moth—most simply found remaining for any length of time at the Palace of Ever-Winter too much of a hardship. Aleksia did her best to learn their names in the month or so they were with her, but if she forgot one, she merely apologized, since the Brownies themselves didn’t take it amiss.

  Of course, one benefit of this was that her menu, which could have gotten very tedious with the same cook, was instead changed with the tastes and training of the Brownie in charge. This month, there were a lot of lightly spiced fish dishes, an excellent change from the cook of the previous month, who favored stews and complicated soups and meat dishes with fancy sauces. And that had been a change from the month before that, when the menu had boasted very little meat, and many varied noodle and vegetable concoctions, some of which had been so highly spiced her eyes had watered.

  “Well, Godmother Aleksia, I trust you are hungry? You have certainly been working hard enough to warrant something before you sleep.” Rosemary had the expectant look of one who is prepared to honor any request, from a single teacake to an entire baked horse.

  “Just some herb tea and one of those cheese biscuits,” Aleksia replied. “If there are any left.” Not that she would be denied; even if there hadn’t been any, she had the feeling the Brownies would produce a batch just to satisfy her. “I still need to record all this in my Occurrence Book.”

  Without being asked, Rosemary brought the latest volume of the Book. Aleksia—as had her predecessor Veroushka—recorded all her projects, whether they succeeded or failed, as well as work in progress. There were eleven other volumes so far for Aleksia; the work of the previous Godmother had filled more than seventy. Aleksia found them very useful, especially in the first year or so of her tenure as the sole Godmother here. Whenever she had been at a loss for what to do in a given situation, even if she had not found an exact answer in those books, she had at least gotten some direction.

  Sometimes, she actually sat down with a pen and ink and wrote it all out by hand, especially when the situation was vexing or puzzling. But tonight, she simply dictated what she wanted to say, and watched as the words formed of themselves on the page.

  More magic, this of her own making. Each book was enchanted to respond to her voice when she began it; when she had filled it, she ended the enchantment. In part, that was so she was never tempted to go back and revise. A few projects had ended very badly indeed, and she felt the need of honesty there, for the sake of the Godmothers who would come after her, as well as her own sake. Living in isolation, answering to no one but herself, self-deception was an easy trap to fall into.

  When she was done, she left the book on the desk and went to her bedroom. As she had expected, a hot pot of tea and a freshly split and buttered cheese biscuit waited for her. The aroma was both heady and comforting at the same time. Her silken nightrobe was laid out on the bed—if she wanted to be dressed, she could, of course, ring for someone, but as often as not, she simply disrobed herself. It wasn’t as if most of the gowns of the Ice Fairy were complicated or difficult to get into or out of. Not like the corseted, laced, and ruffled court gowns of her birthplace. It took two servants to get a girl into the simplest of those, and three to get her out again. Sometimes Aleksia wondered how anyone managed to have children; by the time one was ready for bed, one was already exhausted.

  But the gowns of the Ice Fairy were intended to mimic the
sweeping, snow-covered slopes of her mountain; for the most part they were loose, flowing and draped, with trains and sleeves that trailed behind her on the floor, and generally a diadem of quartz crystals. Depending on where she was going, the gowns were either of velvet lined with ermine, or of Sammite with embroidery of tiny crystal beads. White, of course. Except when she was in disguise, she never wore colors.

  Tonight, though, she didn’t immediately go to her fireside chair, which was a lovely warm pouf of a thing, rather like a soft nest. Nor did she go to her collection of cushions on the other side of the fireplace. Instead, she went to the window and swept back the gold-and-scarlet curtains to look out at the view.

  The moon shone brilliantly down on the white breast of the snow, and the stars gleamed in the blackness of the sky like the most perfect of diamonds on sable velvet. And she wondered, as she looked out at it, if she was becoming as cold and unfeeling as that landscape.

  Because tonight, she had had three major tasks to deal with. The first had actually involved working against The Tradition to save the lives of those two tiny children. The Tradition had another end to their story—exhausted and in tears, they should have gone to sleep in each others’ arms and died out there, to be covered by leaves. Gerda’s plight in the hands of the robber band was a terrifying one for any young woman; when Aleksia had banished her image, Gerda’s expression of fear and grief should have melted a stone. And as for the Tyrant—there she was juggling life and death on a massive scale. Any sensible person would have been shaking with trepidation.

  Instead, she had been unmoved. All that had excited her had been the need to find a clever solution, to outwit The Tradition and win the game. She had not been afraid for the children, in tears of sympathy for Gerda, or angry at the Tyrant.

  And now, she was only tired. Not triumphant, only satisfied, as having done a good day’s work.

  Was she slowly becoming as locked in ice, emotionally speaking, as that perpetually frozen landscape?

  She shivered and dropped the curtain over the window.

  Perhaps before she went to bed, it would be wise to try to find some way of looking in on the Sammi. Even if she could not contact one of the Shaman, or Wizards, perhaps she could watch him. It did not matter what kingdom you were in, people brought their magicians information.

  Perhaps by seeing a Wizard who was involved with the lives of his people she could reconnect with real life herself.

  The difficulty, of course, was to find someone in the first place. To watch, she needed to have a reflective surface, and Mages that were aware of mirror-magic kept such things covered or dulled. Still…

  Wonder-smiths. The Sammi have magicians called Wonder-smiths. And no smith worthy of his forge is going to turn out dull blades.

  So that would be what she would look for. The reflective surface of a weapon, in the possession of one who could make it more, much more, than just a weapon.

  As it happened, she found exactly what she was looking for far sooner than she had expected.

  4

  THEY WERE BROTHERS, AND THEIR NAMES WERE ILMARI and Lemminkal. Lemminkal was the elder of the two, though neither was young. It was Ilmari who was the smith, and Aleksia first saw him in his forge, stripped to the waist, corded muscles giving lie to the gray in his hair and beard as he labored over a—

  Scythe. Not an ax, not a sword, but that most humble of farmer’s tools, putting as much effort and magic into it as she would have expected of a warrior’s prized weapon. Which was interesting.

  She learned their names and that they were brothers when the elder entered the forge to check on his brother’s progress. There was only the briefest of exchanges; the elder brother, looking not particularly impressive in the simplest of woolen tunics and breeches, finished with a wise waggle of his head, and the comment, “That stream has been overfished, brother Ilmari,” and took himself off.

  Ilmari only grunted and went back to his work.

  But then she chuckled when the purchaser of the scythe came to the forge; it was clear why Ilmari had taken such trouble over it.

  “Greetings, Ilmari.” The voice was pleasant, if a trifle high-pitched. The owner of the voice was not exactly what Aleksia had expected from so breathy a tone. Instead of being petite and fluttery, the woman in question was exceedingly buxom, sturdy and had languid eyes that held a great deal of warmth in them. The full lips echoed that warmth with a half smile. But the hands that reached for the scythe were strong and no strangers to hard work.

  “Ah!” she exclaimed, examining the implement with pleasure. “A masterwork, for certain. And the magic you bound to it?”

  “As you asked. It will never cut flesh, it will never need sharpening until it is taken from the field, and whoever uses it will tire much slower. I could not make it so that the wielder never tired—”

  “No more than you could make it so that it never, ever needed sharpening,” the woman agreed, nodding. “That would be unnatural. But this will help my brother do a man’s work until he gets a man’s height, and he and I can keep the farm until he grows into our late father’s place.”

  “There are many who would help you with that, Maari,” Ilmari began, coaxingly, with a glint in his eye. “Many who would help you for the sake of a friendly—”

  “Oh, and you mean yourself, Ilmari?” The young woman chuckled. “Nay, nay, Wonder-smith. You know nothing of farming and care less. You would trample half the corn instead of cutting it. Your shocks would come undone and the grain would rot on the ground before it dried. Stick to your forge, Ilmari. Stick to your runes, and my brother and I shall stick to ours. Now, tell me what I owe you for this.”

  “Three silver coins, or a bargain.” Ilmari hesitated before setting the price, and little wonder; most people in a small village wouldn’t see that much money in hard currency in the course of a year. And indeed, the girl bit her lip, and in her anxiety, betrayed her youth. Aleksia reckoned her no more than sixteen or seventeen.

  “That’s half my dower—” she said, as if to herself.

  “But I would readily make you another bargain, Maari.” The coaxing tone was back in the man’s voice, and the gleam in his eyes told as clearly as speech just what sort of a bargain he would like to make. “For so good a friend and neighbor, things need not come to money between us—”

  “And for the dear friend of my father, who has been like a father to me and my brother, and a respected elder of our village, I would have it no other way. Cheap at the price to keep my brother safe and the farm in our hands.” Maari did not need to say anything more, and the man flushed a little. Properly, too, in Aleksia’s estimation.

  And yet, she had said it with such politeness that there was nothing the man could do but graciously take the three coins she told over into his hand, and accept her thanks and let her go.

  Aleksia chuckled as he swore a little and kicked at the floor. Outfoxed! Well there it was, even a Wonder-smith and a magician could be tripped up by his own desires and find himself making a fool of himself in front of a clever girl.

  She watched him as he crossly banked the fire, then pulled on a tunic, like his brother’s—plain and somewhat the worse for wear, clearly in need of a woman’s hand. So these were bachelor fellows, then? Not surprising that he was making a fool of himself over a girl a third of his age. Or perhaps not a third his age, but surely less than half. A man without a wife could delude himself into thinking there was no gray in his hair and beard, that he was the same fellow he’d been twenty or thirty years ago. A man with children about him that were the age of this young maiden had no such delusions. And besides, he would be far too busy keeping close watch on his own young maidens, eyeing old rakes and impetuous young bucks with equal disfavor, to have the leisure to go making a fool of himself in the first place.

  Lemminkal came in again just as Ilmari finished shutting the forge for the night. He was trailed by a handsome fellow who was the right age for the departed maiden. Ilmari saluted the
m both with ill grace, and Lemminkal laughed.

  “And what did I tell you, brother? That stream’s been overfished. You should be casting your hook for a tasty big salmon, not chasing after the slim little minnows.”

  “Bah,” Ilmari said, as the younger man chuckled. “And I suppose that’s to leave the stream for your apprentice!”

  “Not I!” The young man laughed. “Oh, no, I have the sweetest girl in the world waiting for me at home, and compared to her, your pretty caller is a candle to a star.”

  “Well I’d liefer have a candle than a star,” Ilmari grumbled. “It’s of more use.”

  The three men went out, and Aleksia searched for another reflective surface near them, so she could continue her observation.

  She quickly realized that there were not many in the home of a pair of bachelors…No polished ornaments. No mirrors—not that she expected glass, so expensive and so fragile, in such a place. But no polished metal, either, no shiny pots, the housewife’s pride.

  No wonder Ilmari thinks he is still a handsome young dog. I doubt he has seen his reflection in years.

  Finally, though, she did find a reflective surface—the water in a barrel somewhere near the fire. She got a most unedifying view of the ceiling of the place, but at least she could listen.

  She had often wondered what Witches and Wizards and Godmothers talked about when they sat around their own fires of a night. She discovered that it was of very little use to her. The young man—Veikko—spoke of the doings of the village at some length, while the older men commented, Ilmari with a touch of good-natured mocking. At least, she thought it was good-natured. Lemminkal asked how Ilmari’s commissions were coming, cautioning him that Winter was coming and his patrons would be ill-pleased if their tools and weapons did not leave with the last trader.

  “Well enough, old woman,” Ilmari said, his tone a trifle peevish. “I take but one extra bit of work, and you pester me as if you thought I was falling behind.”