Rosa looked up, and her face took on some expression again. "Probably that you are lecturing me. Should I start acting cowed and puppetlike?"
She considered this. "That's not a bad thought, at least for now. Not too unlike yourself, however, or they'll think I've stolen your soul or some other nonsense. Now, I want you to sit there and think of what I might need to help me out with your courtiers, while I tend to some other matters."
She opened the mirror to her own Palace and stepped through. Normally she would never have expended this much magic, but between Rosa and Siegfried, there was enough to be profligate, so she might as well use it. Perhaps if she could drain enough of it off, this kingdom would manage to avoid attracting a powerful Evil Magician along with everything else.
Her Brownies heard the news in silence, "I don't trust the kitchens for now, not until I can afford to have Jimson spy on the help. So I want food and drink for us, and — " she looked for, and found, the four Brownies who tended her wardrobe " — I want you Gayna, Tris, Latti and Mira, to bring your tools. I'm going to need some special things and quickly." The Brownies sped to relay her orders. In an amazingly short time, they returned, with what might, to other eyes, have been a strange series of burdens. Trays of food and hot tea, but also the tools of a seamstress.
She brought them through the mirror, and before Rosa had any idea of what was happening, turned them loose on her. While they fed and measured her, held up bits of fabric to her face and buzzed around like a flock of fat brown quail chasing bugs, she turned to Jimson's mirror.
Jimson, of course, already knew what had happened, and his wordless look of sympathy warmed her deeply. "Tell me what you want, and it will be done, Lily," he said simply, without the honorific. "If I have to, I can collect enough embarrassing information on every important person for twenty Kingdoms around to coerce them into — "
She held up her hand. "I've another idea altogether," she replied. "I plan to make this a real contest, but I am going to need a lot of help. Id like you to speak to as many of the other Godmothers and magicians as you can reach and ask them to speed the Princes who want to come here on their way, by whatever means they can. I honestly don't care what they do, if they want to hand-deliver a boy, then do so. The sooner they get here, the better, and honestly the more fuss there is, the better. I want our enemies to be caught utterly off guard by how swiftly we moved."
"Done," Jimson replied immediately. "What else?"
"As repugnant as this is, set a watch on the nobles and the staff in the Palace, the kitchen in particular. We can afford deserters, but not traitors."
"Easily done," said Jimson, and chuckled. "You know, Godmother,we have apprentices, too. This is just the sort of thing to put them to. We don't often get carte blanche from a Godmother to do a wholesale watch. It will be good practice for them."
"I need you to think as you never have before, and see if the other Godmothers can and will help with this, as well. We are going to need some real trials here. Hard ones, but not fatal ones. Trials that require a lot more than brawn. Honestly — " She paused and rubbed her aching head. "Honestly, this is going to have to be a set of trials that sets Tradition, not just follows it."
Jimson's head bobbed. "You don't intend to marry any of these princes yourself, do you?" he asked hesitantly.
"Good God, no!" she exclaimed. "Oh no...I only added myself to the letter so that we'd get those who would otherwise hesitate by reason of age. The only reason I am continuing on here as Queen Sable is to protect Rosa. And truth be told, if it weren't for those wolf packs on the borders, she wouldn't need any protecting." She sighed. "I hope, I really do, that what comes out of this is a Traditional love match."
"I'll settle for a strong, clever, kind man I can like, who w ill care for my people as I do, Godmother," said Rosa herself, coming up behind Lily, wrapped in one of Lily's own black velvet dressing gowns, and carrying a little tray with tea and scones on it. "Now, it's time someone tended to you, or you'll spin yourself out into nothing. Right, Jimson?"
"Well said, Princess," the Mirror Servant replied, bestowing a look of approval on her so heavily that she blushed, and Lily smiled.
"Beset on all sides," she mock-complained, then sat down and took the tea from the Princess. "None of this would be necessary if your neighbors had Godmothers, you know," she observed ruefully.
Rosa looked thoughtful. "That might be another reason for me to take over some of the Godmothering here," she said, slowly. "If I can manage some of the day-to-day matters in this Kingdom, perhaps you could...well...interfere a bit with the neighbors."
Lily raised an eyebrow, but it was a good thought. "You know more than you've told me," she said, narrowing her eyes.
Rosa shrugged. "Mama wanted me educated in everything. She always said it was nothing more than a lot of village politics, just on a bigger scale."
"She wasn't far wrong," Lily replied wryly. "Well then. That's for the future. Let's survive this first."
By the time they were finished, it was dark and they had gone through several pots of tea and two meals. And Lily had a fairly good idea of which allies were trustworthy, which were trustworthy only if they were bought, and which would stay bought, once bought. Within the Kingdom itself, she knew which of the Councillors were loyal only to their purses, which were weak-willed, which were strong-willed, and those few that Celeste had known were motivated by something other than selfishness and could be trusted, no matter what befell. This had not much mattered in Thurmans time, but Rosa and Lily between them decided that it was time for a bit of a shake up on the Royal Council. At the moment, while she didn't much mind that these men were soft, Eltaria couldn't afford anyone who put his own interests first.
"Not dismissal, though," she warned Rosa. "That makes for enemies. No, we'll find them appointments. Make them the heads of things that don't matter, but a position that comes with a meaningless title. We can make them Lords of some brand-new Order, give them spurious duties and send them home."
But Rosa shook her head. "No, sending them back to their estates, that would be a bad idea. That will look like disgrace, or exactly like it is, that they are being shuffled off."