Leopold examined his nails critically before answering. "I could think of reasons why she wouldn't, but...they seem a bit specious, since the Godmother here seems to be pretty powerful."
"It seemed very odd that she just drove off," the Northerner persisted. "And the more I thought about it, the odder it seemed that we never again saw her, even though her magic was clearly everywhere." He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to think of examples before Leopold could challenge him. "The mouse-horses. Why would the Godmother give the Queen mouse-horses to use in the trials? That made no sense at all. The idea for the first trial was a smart one, but there was no reason for the Godmother to supply mounts for it. If the Queen was a powerful sorceress, and those were her mouse-horses, why didn't she...do more?" He groped for more examples. "It was a great many very small things. The Godmother and the Queen are exactly the same height. I'm good at measuring those things by eye. The Godmother and the Queen have exactly the same accent, yet the Queen is supposed to be a foreigner. They have the same inflections when they are angry."
He glanced over at Leopold, whose long hair had gone wild in the steam, curling around his face in tendrils. He wondered if Leopold was listening to all this and thinking he was a loon, Leopold nodded. "Then there was the Princess. When she arrived, she wasn't out of her rooms for two days, and when she did appear, the Queen took her off to the Royal Suite and was locked up with her when the messenger came. After that, she's been spending most of her time at the Queen's side. And you would think she would be terrified, being locked up with the Queen for hours at a time. The Queen is older. She has a commanding way, and a young woman like that can only stand up to a woman like the Queen for so long. You'd think she'd be cowed, getting meeker every day." He waited for a response from Leopold.
The Prince scratched his head thoughtfully and stared off into space for a moment. "She wasn't. Even I could see that. She didn't seem properly frightened, in fact, it seemed like she was — they were — "
"Acting together." Siegfried nodded. "It looked to me as if they were pretending they didn't like each other, but they didn't go any further than that, because people here already don't like the Queen and they'll think anything bad of her that you suggest. But the two of them, when it came to getting things done, didn't argue. The Queen didn't even give the Princess an insult now and again, or sneer at her. All she did was keep up the glacier facade, and even that didn't hold up if you looked at her closely."
Leopold pulled a face. "You are still making sense. I didn't even think about it, but then, why would I?"
"Why would anybody? People see what they expect to see." Leopold mustered his thoughts, splashing some hot water over his face to rinse off the sweat. "Then they put together the first contest. I was wondering, when they said that it didn't matter if the contestants didn't have a horse or armor, because they would supply them, if somehow we were going to do this thing in small groups over the course of several days. Because there just weren't enough horses in the Palace stable for all of us, and armor doesn't grow on trees. But no, they say it's going to be one big race, and suddenly there's enough horses for all of us, and matching armor out of nowhere, all the same."
"Magic," said Leopold. "Could have been the Queen — "
"But she had never done anything like that before. That's not small magic. Transforming, creating out of nothing — that's big. If the Queen could do things like that, what does she need with a little Kingdom like Eltaria? No, that's Godmother magic. But where's the Godmother? Nowhere." Siegfried returned Leopold's nod. "So you see. Then I realized the horses were the same ones we rode here on. Exactly the same. I'm big, and there aren't many horses, transformed or not, that are up to my weight."
"Still — " Leopold looked as if he was about to agree but still had a reservation or two about Siegfried's conclusions.
So Siegfried drove his argument home. "But what clinched it was when I saw the Queen and the Princess at the starting line, watching, and then when we got to the middle section and sheep part, there they were again, watching.Maybe they could have gotten faster horses than ours, but we would have seen them passing us. They couldn't have gone by horse, so they had to go by magic and the Godmothers are the only people I ever heard of that could do that." He had to smile as Leopold accepted his clinching argument.
"Do we tell them?" the Prince asked instead. "Do we tell them that we know what the Queen is?"
He shook his head. "Not unless something comes up and she needs to know that we know. It gives us an advantage. I like advantages. I like — " he was about to say "the Princess," but stopped himself in time " — the idea of knowing things no one else knows in a situation like this."
"The bird might tell — " Leopold began, then shrugged. "I suppose you can ask it not to."
"And I will." Siegfried ducked farther down into the hot water. "Tomorrow. Right now I want to soak until all my aches are gone, and then I want to sleep past dawn."
Leopold rolled his eyes and laughed. "Past dawn! Shame! Civilization is making you soft!"
Siegfried threw a handful of water at him.
The Palace ballroom, which had many doors that opened up on the garden, had not been in much use over the past few years. Every time Celeste intended to hold a ball, it seemed, the enemies on the border decided it was time to rattle sabers again, and off King Thurman would go.
All that had changed, and although there was no ball taking place, the ballroom was no longer closed up and dark. Tonight, as on the past several nights, it was lit with thousands of wax candles, and all the doors were standing open wide to a wonderful night breeze coming in from the garden. The garden itself had been illuminated with torches, their light reflecting in the water of little ornamental pools and tiny fountains.
All of the sons-nephews-grandsons of the neighbors were still in the running, and as a consequence, the borders were still clear, and Godmother Lily had told Rosa not to worry for now. So she was trying not to; trying to actually enjoy some of this.
The much-thinned ranks of the Princes milled about the garden and ballroom, while a single minstrel played in one corner. There was wine to drink, and there were still lovely ladies to flirt with, and none of those lovely ladies but the Princess had been present to see what fools they all had made of themselves at the sheepfolds. Princess Rosamund moved among them and her courtiers, congratulating and commiserating in turn.
At the moment, things were not going as she had planned or hoped. She had looked in vain for Siegfried and Leopold; they were nowhere in sight, and she felt a twinge of disappointment. She told herself again that she wasn't supposed to have favorites, but it didn't really help.
Then she heard her name in an unfamiliar voice. "Princess Rosamund." Just as she was turning around on hearing a little stir from the garden, hoping she might finally catch them coming in the door, one of the crowd in front of her detached himself from the people he was talking to, moved into her path and bowed a little.
She returned the bow with a gracious nod. It was a good thing she had early on learned the trick of pinning names to faces quickly, for she had his name on her tongue before he had straightened. "Prince Desmond. You did well out there, and I understand from all that I saw you were particularly deft in the middle stage." She did not say that Siegfried and Leopold had been just as quick without the use of magic. That would not have been politic, and besides, this was the first time she had seen this particular young man except at a distance. He certainly was worth a closer look.