Trolls. Only trolls were big enough to have felled the trees these logs came from, and strong enough to move them here. Why they had built this place, Aleksia had no idea, nor why they had abandoned it. Perhaps a Hero had come along and tricked them into the sunlight. Perhaps they had just wandered off. They might come back today, tomorrow, a hundred years from now, or never.
This mattered not at all to the current situation. And it was very important this time that Aleksia hear what was going on. Her point of view was a huge old mirror, very dusty and tarnished, that had been shoved over against the wall of this, Valeri's room in the outer fortress. Her father, Aleksia had learned, had claimed this room as her nursery long ago because it had a fireplace. She had kept it because she liked her privacy.
Aleksia could only hear and see through reflective surfaces, although it was surprising how many of those there were that people were not aware of. A drop of water in a forest, the shiny surface of a metal cup, even a bit of mica embedded in a rock wall — any and all of those were enough for her to see and hear through. So it didn't matter how tarnished and dusty this old mirror was, it still served.
“Give over,” Valeri said, pushing Gerda's hands away from her head. “And hand me that knife. I'm tired of this.”
Gerda picked up the scissors instead. “If you are going to have your hair chopped off, let me do it and make it tidy,” she retorted. “You don't have to go about looking like a magpie's nest.”
The Robber Girl snorted, but let Gerda cut her hair for her, long black tresses falling around her like Autumn leaves. When she was done, Gerda handed her a hand-mirror and she surveyed the result and grunted her approval. Her hawk-sharp face was suited to the shorter hair, Aleksia thought. Having it braided up made such a face, all angles and planes, look even more angular than it already was. “This business of being a lady gives me a pain,” she announced. “It was fun to play at it, but it gives the men ideas. I don't want 'em thinking of me as somethin' they can pounce on.”
“Like me, you mean,” Gerda replied steadily. There was silence in that cramped, cluttered room. Then Gerda bent over, picked up all the hair and tossed it into the fire without a word. Valeri took out her knife, cut the women's clothing she was wearing off herself, and pulled on her usual leather breeches, heavy woolen shirt and leather vest. With a look of contentment, she strapped on a belt with two heavier knives on it, as well as a whip. She crammed a wool hat on top of her newly shorn head.
“Now I feel like meself,” she said, with pleasure. Then she stopped, and looked sharply at Gerda. “You noticed,” she said. “'Bout the men, I mean.”
Gerda raised her chin. “You'd have to be blind not to. And deaf. They're just waiting, like crows watching something dying — ” She caught herself and looked away.
Aleksia smiled. This was going well….
Valeri put her hands on her hips. “Aye, and they think I dunno. That I dunno my rabbit ended up i' the stew an' my fawn ended up there, too. They think I just forget things an' don't care about 'em no more.” She clenched her jaw. “Bet they're just waitin' for me to get tired of bein' a lady an' not needin' you.”
Gerda nodded wordlessly.
Oh, very good, girls, Aleksia thought with approval.
“Well, I might get tired of things sometimes, but that don't mean I don't care about 'em.” Valeri's eyes flashed. “An' what's more, I haven't forgotten about things since I was nine an' they ate my deer. I see when my things disappear. I just don't say anything. But I'll tell you what, missy. They ain't getting you.”
And just like that, Gerda found herself with a rucksack in her hands, shoving things in that Valeri threw at her. Of course, half of those things were weapons, which Valeri then took back, muttering something about a rock being more use to someone like Gerda. But it certainly was not much more than an hour later that they had a tolerable pack put together, with a bedroll tied atop it and plenty of journey-bread in oiled paper inside the top. Gerda looked at it doubtfully, then back up at Valeri. “But how am I to get past the men out there?” she asked.
Valeri grinned. “You just leave that to me. You put on them things, and be ready when I come for you.”
Gerda shook her head, but obeyed, pulling on the thick woolen breeches — though she settled her discarded skirt over them, Aleksia presumed for modesty's sake — the knitted wool shirt and the leather tunic. She put on two pairs of stockings to make the too-large felt boots Valeri had thrown at her fit, then crammed on the battered fur hat and sheepskin shepherd's coat. And just as she was swinging the pack onto her back, Valeri reappeared.
She put her finger to her lips, eyes sparkling with mischief, and beckoned. Gerda followed her out into a cavern that the bandits used as their main room. Aleksia flitted her point of view to the reflective surface of an overturned silver goblet.
There were snoring bodies everywhere.
Carefully, they picked their way through the sprawled bandits, Valeri leading Gerda deeper into the caverns. She stopped once to get a lantern and lit it with a candle left there for that purpose, then made her way to a hole in the wall only a little taller than a man. That allowed Aleksia to transfer her focus to the glass of the lantern.
They both plunged into the darkness.
Valeri's lamp cast just enough light to show that they were in a narrow tunnel, too rough and too small to have been carved out by the trolls. Likely, this was the original cave that the trolls had enlarged. With the lantern held out in front of them, Aleksia had a fine view of the tunnel. Well, a few feet of the tunnel, anyway.
The two young women were very quiet. Finally Gerda whispered, “Is it safe to talk?”
Valeri chortled. “Oh, aye. Them back there won't be waking up any time soon. I rolled out a keg of brandywine for 'em.” Her laugh grew deeper. “Not the first time, neither. See, I'm the one thet brews it. Papa, he got no notion where it comes from, and he'll be all over 'em to find out which one of 'em does the brewing. They can say for true it ain't one of 'em, an' Papa never thinks of me. I been doin' that since one of the lads we ransomed showed me how. He figured he'd use it t' get into me breeches, but he got ransomed 'fore he could try.”
There was a silence from Gerda that Aleksia could only imagine meant she was stunned by Valeri's bluntness. Not that Gerda could possibly be ignorant of sex — the town she lived in wasn't that large that a girl her age hadn't seen animals and possibly even servants fornicating. But in Gerda's class, you didn't talk about it.
Valeri continued on. “I found this passage when I was half this tall, and I been usin' it to come an' go when I wanted t' creep off somewhere where Papa and the men didn't know.”
“But it's not secret — ” Gerda protested. “All those lanterns — ”
“This part ain't. It goes down t' the little lake where we get our water from. See?” She raised the lamp and light bounced back at her as they came out into a much larger chamber. The steady drip of water from the ceiling echoed around the rocks. This was a sizable room and it was hard to tell just how deep the “lake” was. Valeri skirted along a ledge to the right so narrow that she and Gerda had to put their faces to the rock wall and edge along sideways. At the back of the cavern was another crack, this one very narrow and not at all visible from the other side. Gerda had to take off her pack to squeeze through it.
“Papa thinks when I disappear it's 'cause the men have gotten drunk an' I want some peace,” Valeri continued when they were finally making their way down yet another rough tunnel. “I told him I come back here to think and get some quiet. So he don't come lookin' for me. I did just that just enough times that he figures that's what I always do.”
“That's clever!” Gerda exclaimed. Again, Valeri chortled.
“You think that's clever, you just wait.” It seemed that Gerda and Aleksia did not have long to wait, either. There was light at the end of this crack, and soon the two young women pushed through a screen of cedars into a tiny pocket valley.
And there, look
ing at both of them with great interest, was a tall, shaggy reindeer. When he saw Valeri, he snorted, and shambled over to them.
“I learnt my lesson,” Valeri said, scratching around the base of the deer's antlers. “I got me another fawn, an' I kept this 'un safe.” She pulled an old, withered apple out of a pocket and offered it to him. While he crunched it up, she blew out the lantern and pulled a sledge and an oiled canvas bag from out of another tangle of bushes. In moments, she had the deer harnessed and hitched to the sledge. The deer snorted happily.
“Well, get on!” Valeri said impatiently to Gerda, who hastily — if gingerly — settled herself onto the back half of the sledge. Valerie led the deer to a cleft in the rock walls surrounding them, pulled back yet more brush to reveal a stout and very tall gate, and opened it. Then, taking up the reins and jumping onto the front part of the sledge, she snapped the reins briskly on the deer's back. Without a moment of hesitation, he loped forward, starting the sledge over the snow with a jerk.
Aleksia moved her viewpoint to a shiny buckle on the deer's harness.
They made very good time. Valeri drove standing up, looking like a practiced sailor in a storm as the sledge bumped and skidded over the snow. Gerda clung to the sides of the sledge, white-faced.
It was at that moment that Aleksia heard Kay's footsteps outside the throne room. Satisfied that things were going well for now, she dismissed the mirror-vision, and turned to face him.
He looked miserable.
He had certainly lost weight, and if the reports her Brownies gave her were true, of how at meals he listlessly pushed things around the plate before finally swallowing a few bites with apparent difficulty, there was no question of why he had lost the weight. His eyes were darkly circled. More reports had reached her that he woke up in the night often, sweating, shaking, out of the grip of nightmares.
She simply looked at him, schooling her features into a mask of boredom. “Yes?” she said, finally, when the silence had stretched on too long. “You may speak.”
He coughed. “Great Queen,” he said, hoarsely. “I — uh — ”
“You began with „Great Queen' rather than „I' and that is certainly an improvement,” she said coldly. “I presume you have more to say?”
He went red, then white. “It — it's very lonely here — ” He faltered. Interesting. All of the arrogance seemed to have leached right out of him!
“You should have thought of that before you accepted my invitation,” she reminded him.
“It's — not — ” He faltered again. “It's Gerda. It's — I'm worried about her — ”
She tilted her head to the side. “Gerda? What a common name. Who is this wench?”
She could see him struggle. He wanted to lash out at her because she dismissed Gerda as common and insulted her by implication. But he had finally accepted the fact that she was, and always would be, more powerful than he was and that he was under her control.
“Gerda…” he finally managed, “Gerda is a young lady who has…always been my friend. And I — am very fond of her.”
Aleksia almost laughed, but her control was too good to let that slip. He had almost said that he loved Gerda.
She shrugged. “I am sure she will find someone else. You have important work to do. You should not be distracted by a mere girl.”
Once again he went red, then white. “She wouldn't — I am worried about her!” He persisted. “Without me there, she might — ”
“Might find someone with an equally shallow mind, who is only interested in settling down and raising fat babies.” She shrugged. “You are destined for greater things as long as you concentrate on your work and not on silly girls.”
She could see him struggling with all this. On the one hand, she was complimenting him. She clearly valued him, and for the thing he had once thought was the most important. On the other hand, somehow over the past several days, Gerda had pushed everything else out of his mind. She knew that look in his eyes now. He was lovesick, obsessed. His nightmares were probably compounded of equal parts of terrible things happening to Gerda, and Gerda finding some other young man.
My, my. An interesting development.
“Go,” she said, with a shrug. “If that is all that concerns you, put your fears to rest. The girl will be fine. Her parents will find her a husband, she will have a litter of brats and all will be well in her world. Meanwhile, you will be uncovering the secrets of the Universe. And in the end, it will be you who makes a difference, while she just adds another lot of round-faced children to be good, obedient subjects of your King.”
She watched him struggling with his desire to retort, watched him conquer himself, and watched him walk away in defeat, shoulders slumped. It was all she could do to keep from jumping up and dancing.
She did retire to her own rooms for a bit — partly to make sure, should he brace himself up and return to confront her, that she would not be there, and partly because, despite her warm clothing, her hands and feet were cold and numb. Her Brownies brought her pea soup and hot bread with butter melting on it. Peasant fare — the cook must have changed again. She sighed with satisfaction. It was a good change; peasant fare was tasty, hearty and very comforting. She felt strongly in the need of comfort. Meanwhile, she watched the boy in her small mirror. And it was obvious that her deduction was correct. The boy was lovesick. Thoughts of Gerda clearly intruded on everything he did.
She could not have engineered a better outcome here if she had personally directed The Tradition into this path.
Actually, I wonder if I have…. or rather, if all the Godmothers have. Is it becoming part of The Traditional Path for us to intervene?
She shook off the thought. If it was, well…the work would be going easier. And aside from the occasional moment like this one, it wasn't.
Pity.
Because if things would just go a little easier…she might be able to leave them for a bit. Go somewhere. Somewhere without ice and snow.
She made a face and put down the empty bowl with a sigh. Outside, the sun was westering. She wasn't sure how far Valeri was going to take Gerda, but there was not a chance that Valeri would be coming with her. She hadn't packed up her own things, after all. No, Valeri would take her out of immediate reach of the bandits and then leave her to find her own way. That should be just about now.
6
Aleksia returned to the throne room feeling all the better for the meal and the chance to warm herself. She settled down to her mirror in a much better frame of mind than when she had left it.
The great mirror clouded for a bit as she reminded it of what it had last been reflecting, then the cloudiness resolved into the image she had expected, a look backward across the loping reindeer's back, the grin of Valeri as the sledge flew over the snow, and behind her, Gerda's white, strained face. Interestingly enough, they were out of the trees and tearing along a long, flattish slope. From the look of things — yes, Gerda was within striking distance of the Palace of Ever-Winter. With help.
Just as Aleksia recognized that fact, Valeri brought the sledge to a halt.
“And here is where I leave you!” she said cheerfully. She waved her hand in the general — and correct — direction of Aleksia's Palace. “What you want is over that way. Not sure how far, but it's there all right.”
“You aren't coming with me?” Gerda faltered, getting carefully up from the sledge. From the way she winced, it hadn't been an easy ride.
“Of course not! I've got the band to help look after! And when I do leave — ” Valeri's face took on a look of speculation. “When I do, it'll be t' see the world. No offense, but not t' go rescue some little girl's boy. So! Best of luck and off you go!”
And Valeri did not even pause to see Gerda sling the pack over her back. With a yell and a slap of the reins, she was off again, turning the sledge back along the track they had made, the reindeer's head high as he loped along. And Valeri did not look back.
Poor Gerda…standing there all alo
ne in a vast expanse of white, she looked very small, and very lost. And there was no way, no way at all, she was going to get across the mountains on her own two feet. No matter how brave she had been so far, no matter how earnest she was, she was still a town girl. She simply did not know how to survive out there.
She was going to need help.
And now was the time for her Godmother to arrange for some overt aid.
Aleksia redirected the mirror for a moment, into the depths of an ice-cave. And there, as she expected, was what she was looking for. It did not at all surprise her to see Urho, the Great White Bear, looking back at her.
My scrying told me you might be needing me, said the slow, heavy voice in her mind.
Urho was one of the Wise Beasts, the sort that could speak and reason like humans. He was a frequent visitor to the Palace, and although she could not exactly call him good company, his stories were interesting, and he actually enjoyed breaking up the monotony of Winter with the occasional task for her. His usual tasks — for he was something of a Mage himself — were to see to it that the more inimical of creatures were reported, and if possible, kept far from her door, and to come to the aid of travelers wise enough to see him for what he was or innocent enough to trust him.
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