“Lady Helaine said they weren’t part of Chantress lore.”
“Your godmother didn’t have much time for them, it’s true, but I don’t see why Chantresses should scorn to use them. Especially now that we’re coming up to Allhallows’ Eve. Only a few days now till it’s here.”
Norrie had always been anxious about Allhallows’ Eve, believing it to be a time when spirits walked and magical threats abounded. Her worries seemed to be based more on old traditions than anything else. According to Lady Helaine, however, Allhallows’ Eve was indeed a dangerous time of year, at least for Chantresses, because that was when Wild Magic was at its strongest.
This warning hadn’t affected me as Lady Helaine had intended. She’d taught me that everything in this world had its own Wild Magic, its own music—which could mislead or even kill a Chantress who opened herself up to it. Like most Chantresses, my godmother wore a stone that deafened her to Wild Magic—a stone that instead allowed her to work Proven Magic, a collection of safe song-spells that Chantresses learned by rote.
I had once had such a stone myself, but it was cracked and useless now. Wild Magic was the only way open to me. Fortunately, I gloried in it, finding it far more powerful and flexible than Proven Magic, and far less dangerous than my godmother had claimed. For a long time now, I hadn’t given Allhallows’ Eve a second thought, except to appreciate the greater intensity and clarity I heard in the music all around me at this time of year.
But perhaps I had been naïve. Perhaps Norrie’s vague anxiety and Lady Helaine’s solemn warnings contained more truth than I’d realized.
I thought of the furious singing I’d heard—so much like a Chantress, and yet so different. “Norrie, you don’t happen to know of any connections between sea monsters and Chantresses, do you?”
Norrie looked at me over the towel. “What a question!”
I pressed her again. “Do you?”
“I’m the wrong one to ask,” Norrie said. “You know that.”
It was true. Norrie wasn’t a Chantress herself, and she wasn’t privy to Chantress secrets. Which suited her just fine, as magic had always made her uneasy. By preference, she had as little to do with it as possible.
“All I know is the Melusine story,” Norrie said, “and you know that already.”
So I did, though I hadn’t thought to connect it with the monster I’d just battled. It was one of Lady Helaine’s favorite stories—a lesson, as she saw it, in the importance of respecting one’s elders and the awful consequences that came of not obeying their rules.
According to Lady Helaine, Melusine had been a first-generation Chantress, meaning that she’d been the daughter of a faerie mother and a human father. As a small child, Melusine went to live in the faerie realms with her mother, Pressina, but at fifteen she returned to the mortal world, where she tried to use her magic against her father. Pressina herself punished Melusine for this terrible act by cursing her. From then on, Melusine turned into a sea serpent from the waist down every Saturday, without fail.
For years, Melusine used her Chantress skills to hide the truth from everyone, even the man who became her husband. She was loved and respected, renowned not only as a mother and wife but as a builder of castles and walls and towers. But one Saturday her husband surprised her in her bath. When he saw her slick, green coils, he shouted out in horror, and Melusine turned on him in a rage, becoming a sea serpent from head to toe.
It was a tale that had given me nightmares when Lady Helaine first told it, for Melusine had ended her life as a monster, unable to claw her way back to human form. But of course there was no proof that Melusine had ever really existed. I’d heard other versions of her story elsewhere, and they were all different—and the very relish with which Lady Helaine had told her variation made me suspect she had embellished it mightily.
“I can’t see what that story has to do with the monster you saw,” Norrie said doubtfully.
I couldn’t either. The story was probably no more than a legend. And there was nothing to connect it with what I’d seen on the river.
“It was just a shot in the dark,” I said.
Norrie frowned. “But why are you asking about sea monsters and Chantress magic in the first place?”
I was saved from having to answer by a knock at the outer door. Norrie went to see who it was.
“The King’s calling the Council together,” she reported when she returned. “They won’t meet for another hour, but the King sent a page to ask if you will see him in the meantime.”
“Tell him I’m coming,” I said, and reached for the towel.
A quarter of an hour later, nestled in a warm blue gown of soft wool, I was on my way to the King. My body was still warm from the bath, but I could feel the chill in the air as I hurried toward the State Rooms.
I’d gone only a short way when the King himself appeared around a corner, an anxious look in his eye. “Chantress! Well met.”
“Your Majesty.” I was surprised to see him so far from the State Rooms. Usually he was so busy that I was the one who had to find him. His reasons for seeing me must have been urgent indeed. “You wanted to speak before the meeting?”
“Yes. Now that you’re dry, perhaps we could have a private word? I want to understand exactly what happened out there on the river.”
“Of course,” I said. “I can’t vouch as to how it started, but by the time I came out onto the riverfront—”
“Why don’t we go out to the river itself?” the King interrupted. “That way you can show me where you were standing.”
Before I could answer, he was already hurrying forward and motioning for me to follow.
“As quickly as you can, Chantress,” he said over his shoulder as I raced to keep up with him. “I know this isn’t the ordinary route, but that’s all to the good if we don’t want everyone at Court tagging at our heels.”
It was indeed an unusual route—Byzantine, even by Whitehall standards. Instead of emerging at the King’s landing, we came out by the workaday wharf at the far end of the palace, where foodstuffs and coal and other supplies for the Court were unloaded. Not much work was going on now, however. Whether because of the continuing rain or because of the fright the sea monster had caused, there were very few people to be seen.
“There.” The King seemed pleased. “Now we can talk in peace.”
I nodded, still catching my breath.
He gestured for me to join him at the wharf’s edge. “Tell me everything.”
As I stepped toward the river, I heard a faint flicker of anger buried deep in its usual songs. I stopped midstride. “Your Majesty, be careful!”
“Why?”
“There’s something wrong here.” I listened again. “No, it’s gone now.” Gone—or buried still deeper, where I couldn’t find it?
I sniffed the air. Was that a faint trace of magic?
With a worried face, the King turned again toward the water. “Could it be another sea monster? Come, tell me if you see anything!”
As I rushed over, I smelled magic again. Behind me, I heard a distant shout.
“Don’t look,” the King commanded me.
But I couldn’t help it. I glanced back. Two people were coming out of the gate by the landing—Nat . . . and the King.
Two Kings? I froze. They couldn’t both be real.
“Ignore them,” the King beside me snarled.
Now I knew for certain who the false King was. Leaping back behind a pile of crates, I started to sing in self-defense. And that was when I had my second shock, because my song shattered on the false King just as it had shattered on the sea monster. After a moment of cacophony, I heard the raging music again, the same music I’d heard out on the river—and this time it sounded more like a Chantress than ever.
“You’re coming with me.” The false King seized a stick from the ground and came after me with it, nearly knocking me into the water.
I heard Nat shout, but he was too far away to help. A wall di
vided the wharf from the rest of the palace waterfront, and he and the true King were still trying to scramble over it.
The false King swung his stick again, this time whacking me on the shoulder. I stumbled, and my hands came down on something hard. A broken bit of chain.
Iron chain.
I scrabbled for it, fingers slick with mud and rain. As the stick came down again, I rolled away and flung the chain into the false King’s face.
When it hit, he shrieked. For a second it looked as though his face were melting. Then his entire shape wavered and changed. He turned into something only half-human, and then into something not human at all.
A serpent writhed at my feet, its coils translucent where the iron had touched it. As I stood there in shock, it slipped over the wharf’s edge and vanished into the Thames.
CHAPTER TWELVE
IRON
Still reeling, I tried to call the serpent back from the river, using every bit of magic I knew. None of it did any good. My music ran into a wall every time, just as it had with the mermaid and the sea monster.
“But at least you unmasked it,” Nat said an hour later. “And now we know for certain that iron is a good defense against such creatures.”
Our Council meeting was only just opening, but it was already clear to me that Nat was indeed the King’s right-hand man. When he spoke, everyone listened, and most of them nodded in agreement. The only person who had trouble looking him in the eye was me. Too many emotions and thoughts were whirling inside me, and I was afraid he would see my turmoil.
“Before you say anything more, Walbrook, may I point out that we don’t know if everyone here is who he appears to be.” Eyebrows arched high over his sallow face, Sir Barnaby looked from the King to Nat to me to Penebrygg to Gabriel and on down the table to the Lord High Admiral, who had joined us for our deliberations. “For all I know, one of you is a snake in disguise.”
“No,” Nat said. “I’ve checked you all.”
“What?” Sir Barnaby looked disconcerted. “How?”
“Most of you touched the iron door handle as you came in. I made a point of shaking hands with those who didn’t, touching this iron ring to your skin.” Nat pointed to a thick black ring on his finger. “No one here is a shape-changer.”
Sir Barnaby’s brow relaxed. “Well done, Walbrook.”
“Hear, hear!” Sir Samuel raised a lace-cuffed hand in the air. “I say we should all wear something of the sort.”
There was a rumble of general support.
“I could create an emblem for us,” said Sir Christopher Linnet, well-known for his love of design. “We could have it stamped on rings for all the Council.”
“That would take time,” Penebrygg pointed out.
“Yes, we need a speedier solution.” Nat opened a box that had been sitting in front of him. “With that in mind, I’ve brought an assortment of iron objects that I’ve borrowed from the palace with the King’s permission. Each of you should take one.”
The box was passed to me first. I selected a simple, flat bracelet and slipped it around my wrist. One by one, the others found something to suit them—a badge, a cross, a ring.
“Now we must arm the entire country,” Nat said. “Here’s what I have in mind.”
He outlined his plans: all sea walls to be spiked with iron, all sailors and fishermen to be given iron spears and pikes, iron cannon to be set up along the Thames, iron bullets to be issued to new coast patrols . . .
Gabriel raised a well-groomed eyebrow. “A laudable plan, Walbrook. But where will we get all this iron, may I ask?”
“We’ll have to boost production, of course,” Nat said. “And in the meantime, we’ll have to commandeer the iron that already exists, especially inland.”
“People won’t like that, you know,” Gabriel said. “They won’t give up their iron without a fight.”
“I think they will, if the danger is great enough,” Nat said. “We’ll pull together, just as we did during the famine.” He turned to the King. “At any rate, I’ll do everything in my power to make it happen.”
“And we all know that your powers of persuasion are considerable,” someone called out from farther down the table.
Everyone laughed, even Nat. But then he added more soberly, “To fight this, we’ll need all the powers at our disposal.”
“Well, we shall give you all the backing we can muster,” the King said. “I take it we’re in favor of enacting Walbrook’s plan? Very good. Walbrook, I put you in charge of our defense efforts. You may call on any man here to help you.”
Most were eager to volunteer. But the King raised his voice; he wasn’t done. “Keep in mind, however, that the nature of the task before us may yet change. We have no idea who our enemy is, or what he or she—or indeed, it—has planned for us.” The King looked at me. “Unless perhaps you have some notion, Chantress?”
It was time for me to share all I knew, even though I was leery of the repercussions of doing so. “I can’t identify our enemy, not at this point. But I can tell you this: There is some kind of singing involved.”
“Singing?” Sir Barnaby’s jaw dropped.
The Lord High Admiral half-rose from his seat. “Chantress singing?”
Even Gabriel looked alarmed. “Do you mean to say there’s a Chantress attacking us?”
This was just the kind of reaction I’d feared.
I made every effort to appear calm and dispassionate. “Let’s not leap to conclusions, please. I didn’t say it was a Chantress—”
“But it might be?” It was Nat who asked.
I took a deep breath. “Yes. It might be. The music is different, but there are some similarities, especially in the phrasing and the resonance of the voice.”
“When have you heard it?” Nat said, his face unreadable.
It was the question I least wanted to answer. “I heard it when I tried to go after the mermaid, and then again when the sea monster appeared. And once more, very clearly, when I encountered the false King.”
“You heard it with the mermaid?” the Lord High Admiral barked at me. “And you didn’t say so?”
“It was very indistinct,” I said crisply. “For all I knew, it might have been mermaid music—and perhaps it was. Perhaps everything I’ve heard is. But the fact remains that I’ve heard it more clearly now, and it reminds me more of Chantress music than anything else.”
“You should have said something at the time,” the Admiral insisted.
He wasn’t the only one who was annoyed. Sir Barnaby was frowning, and so were several other Council members. But the King motioned to the Lord High Admiral to sit down. “The Chantress has shared everything with us now, and that’s what matters. The question is, what are we going to do about it?”
Everyone looked at me.
“I think we must start by finding out if any Chantresses besides me survived Scargrave,” I said. “None have ever come forward, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”
“You mean a Chantress hunt,” the Lord High Admiral said.
The words sent a chill through me. They called to mind all the terrors of Scargrave’s reign, when Chantress hunting had been widespread and all of my kind—even my own mother—had been hounded and killed.
“No.” I turned to the King. “I promise you I personally will look into this, with the assistance of Captain Knollys and my men. But there must be no general hue and cry for Chantresses. It would only lead to panic and confusion in the kingdom—and I think we have enough of that to contend with as it is. Besides, if it really is a Chantress behind this, I’d rather she didn’t know what our suspicions are. A general hunt would serve as a warning to her to be on her guard.”
The King nodded. “We will leave this in your hands, then, and you can report your progress to me. We all stand ready to help, should you need us.”
After he called an end to the meeting, everyone crowded around Nat, making suggestions and volunteering their services. Leaving them to it, I s
tarted on my way down to the guardrooms, pondering what I should say to Captain Knollys. I’d insisted to the Council that this was not a Chantress hunt. And yet the fact remained that I was about to order my men to track down Chantresses, and to consider them our enemies.
I could quibble over words all I wanted to, but there was no getting around it. I was a Chantress about to turn Chantress hunter.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
QUESTIONS
My men had been chosen for their discretion as well as their strength. Accustomed to delicate and secret undertakings, they took this one in stride. The only problem was in knowing how best to deploy them. After ordering them all to carry iron, I dispatched some to places where Chantress families had once flourished, with instructions to search for descendants whom Scargrave might have overlooked. The rest I kept with me at Whitehall—including young Barrington, who was still recovering from the injuries he’d sustained at Charlton Castle.
“But you can count on me,” he told me eagerly. “My left shoulder still catches me, but my sword arm is fine.” He slashed in the air to prove it.
“Put that down, Barrington.” The last thing I wanted was for him to start hacking at potential Chantresses. “It’s not your sword I need right now but your brain.” I turned to Captain Knollys and the rest of the men. “And that holds true for all of you. Our best scouts will go out into the taverns and meeting places of this city, where they will listen for any talk that may be useful to us. The rest of you will wait here for further instructions.”
“And where will you be?” Knollys asked.
“I will be having a word with someone who might be able to help us,” I said.
Knollys, who had plenty of discretion of his own, didn’t ask any more questions. Which was just as well, because I didn’t want to say that the person I had in mind was the Queen. I made my way alone to her chambers.
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