They expected her to solve the problem, of course. It was going to be a great surprise for them to discover the problem was solved.
Meanwhile, in the carriage, Rosa listened carefully as her Godmother explained what she should do, and why. "Once I've driven away, go ahead and dawdle, try to give me as much time as you can. It won't be hard, your loyal supporters will be pressing on you on all sides — answer every question, even if it means repeating yourself twenty times. Wait for Queen Sable to make her appearance and then you take over the situation. The Tradition will expect you to be meek and self-effacing. Don't be. Act like your mother."
Rosa nodded, and whatever Lily saw in her face, it made her smile. She thought for a moment. "Mother would have been gentle, but firm. Polite, but quite clear." She pondered a while longer. "Do you want the Huntsman to flee, or stay? I can lie about him, or tell the truth, but if I tell the truth, he'll probably do his best to escape."
"Stay, if possible," Lily replied instantly. "I would like to see what he does next, and now that we know he is an enemy, and you know what I am, I can make sure you have a protector at all times."
"Then I'll say that I was attacked and fled, but never saw the attacker's face. And that once I was on the horse, it ran away with me." She nodded decisively. "I hesitate to tell any other story because he will know I am lying and wonder why. This is close enough to the truth that he might be cautious, but assume that I am telling everything I know."
Lily gave a nod of approval, and Rosa felt warm and proud. "One way I can keep you safer is to keep you with me more. I'll drop suggestions that I don't believe you, that I think you ran off on purpose as a kind of temper tantrum, and it will look as if I am keeping you from your loyal folk out of spite. To keep this from getting boring, I am going to start you on Godmother training."
Rosa gave a gasp of surprise and delight; Lily smiled. "Now mind, I have no idea if you can ever become an actual Godmother, or if you'll be able to work any magic at all when this is over and you stop getting so much Traditional power focusing on you. But there are a number of simple spells I can teach you that you'll be able to use now, and there is a great deal of information I have that you need. If you have the native ability, which I think you do, I can also train you to see magic — that is, the power twisted into spells that are on things and people." Her smile broadened. "It won't hurt. You already know a great deal about The Tradition. And if it happens that you do become a Godmother, well, that is even better, if you ask me. It's been a long time since a Queen was also a Godmother, but if any kingdom needs two, it's this one."
Rosa's smile was rueful; after the initial moment of excitement wore off, she realized just how much more complicated her already complicated life was about to become. "I wish I didn't agree with you so much."
When the carriage pulled in through the gates of the Palace, it was practically mobbed. When Lily was handed down, the crowd became so quiet that Rosa heard the cooing of the pigeons on the roof above them, and the scuffling of feet in the gravel as people in the crowd moved restlessly.
But when she turned without saying a word, and Rosa herself stepped down, the crowd erupted in a roar.
Lily merely smiled, sphinxlike, waited for a few moments and motioned to her footman. The footman handed her into the carriage, and she drove off. The two Princes sat on their horses, the dark one looking disgruntled, perhaps because he hadn't gotten the credit for a rescue, the blond one looking lost.
Rosa remembered what her mother had done in situations like this and made the same hand motions Queen Celeste had to ask for quiet. It worked for her as well as it had for her mother; she got instant quiet — not quite dead silence, but more than enough for her to be heard. "I know you are all wondering what happened, and how I came to vanish. On my way to my quarters on the day of the great storm, I was attacked in the passage nearest the stables," she said, in a firm, clear voice. As those around her gasped, she continued quickly, "Whoever it was meant to kill me, for I saw the flash of a knife in his hands. I did not see my assailant's face — he must have been wearing a hood or a mask. I fled, hoping to find a Guardsman or a footman, with my attacker in hot pursuit. I saw a horse standing ready, and I did not even think. I simply flung myself into the saddle and rode for my life. I intended to try to pull up once outside the gates, but the horse was too strong, and ran away with me. Once we were deep inside the forest, he was frightened by something, and threw me, and I landed hard and fainted. The thunderstorm revived me. I found a cave and lived on the mushrooms and berries I found until the Godmother found me again, for I was mindful of what my mother had taught me."
The last was an outright lie, and she hoped that it wouldn't lead to a problem later. Well, that was more or less what she probably would have done if the Dwarves hadn't found her first. And she didn't want to mention the Dwarves. She had the feeling they would be very bad enemies. Better to let them fester in their hovel, never knowing who they had played host to, eking out a bare existence from their wretched mine, at least until their law-abiding kin found them.
She glanced at the Princes. If they were a little confused about her version of the story — or at least, as much of it as they knew — they didn't show it. They were, in fact, waiting very politely and quietly. And since the Mirror Servant had advised that they be kept around, she wove them into her story, too.
"We encountered these gentlemen on the road, who had learned of my plight and were searching for me. Because of such gallantry, the Godmother advised that they be rewarded. We offered them the hospitality of the Palace, therefore I beg you show them to the guest quarters and make them comfortable."
The dark one looked a little better satisfied with that. The blond was whispering to his bird, which flew off to join the pigeons on the roof.
As soon as the coach was out of the gates and out of sight, Lily ordered the Brownies to pull it off the road and set up the mirror. Swiftly, she returned the horses to their mouse state, the coach to a squash and the Brownies to themselves. By holding their hands as they crossed the threshold, she was able to ensure that the mirror spell allowed the Brownies through it; a tap of the hilt of her wand shattered the mirror and the spell with a single blow. Then, with a wave of her wand, she reduced glass fragments and wood to merest dust. There would be nothing here that anyone could use, magically or otherwise. She hated doing this, it was a dreadful waste of a mirror, but didn't want to put the Brownies to the effort of taking it home, and she hadn't wanted to leave even a trace of her magic back where the Dwarves might possibly come upon it. Just because someone couldn'tuse something, it didn't follow they couldn't identify where it had come from.
She'd learned to take precautions like that a very, very long time ago. Never leave anything magical about unless there was no other choice. Such things had a Traditional tendency to turn up in the hands of people who only used them for mischief.
Then she shook out Old Maggie's cloak, tossed it over her shoulders, picked up the box with Jimson in it and trudged toward the Palace as if she had every right to be there, heading for the servants' entrance. No one stopped her; most of the servants and all of the Guards were up at the front, in any case, and very few people ever trouble an old woman who is carrying a box and looks as if she knows where she is going. She nodded to a few people, as if she knew them. That was another way to make people leave you alone. They nodded back, vaguely. Once she was in the Royal Wing, she ran up the back stairs to the hall of the Queen's Chambers, which were locked from the inside. She tapped on the door with the hilt of her wand and murmured the countercharm, "Open locks, whoever knocks," and the door unlocked for her with aclick.
She let Jimson out of his prison and hung him for the moment on the wall, pulled off the cloak and folded it away, to be returned as soon as possible to her own Castle. Or, possibly, loaned to Rosa. Being able to look like an old woman might be very useful to the girl.
Then, she put on the much more powerful illusion that kept her in the form of Sable no matter what she was wearing, and resumed her disguise as the Queen.
She just stood in the middle of the room, composing herself, slowing her breathing. She reminded herself of who she was supposed to be, settled into the personage of Queen Sable. At last, without hurrying her steps, she made her way from the Royal Wing into the more public parts of the Palace, and descended the Grand Staircase, arriving near the great door just in time to hear Rosa tell her altered story. She nodded to herself with approval. There was nothing in it that anyone could disprove, except for the part about the Princes. She was pretty sure that neither of the young men wanted to irritate the Godmother by giving the lie to anything Rosa said, especially not when going along with the tale gave them free run of the Palace as a guest.