Under the circumstances, it might not have been best to remind people that Sybil was the granddaughter of a Chantress, but that was why I wanted to see her. Although she couldn’t work magic herself, she knew all kinds of odd facts about Chantresses. Well, perhaps “facts” was putting it strongly, since much of her knowledge came from hearsay or family tradition or stories that were close cousins to fairy tales. Still, she’d helped me in times of trouble before, and she might be able to help me now.
As I reached the Queen’s chambers, I found myself tensing. Behind the gilded door, someone was singing beautifully—Lady Clemence, with another love song. When I entered the Queen’s chambers, she broke off and bowed her head, not meeting my eyes.
Everyone else stared at me, even Sybil. Sitting in an opulent chair, she looked more like a portrait than a human being, a painting of elegance personified. But when she rose and held out her hand, I saw she was wearing an ugly iron ring among her jewels, as were her ladies. Evidently, word of iron’s powers had reached them.
After I touched Sybil’s ring, she gave me a strained smile. “How delightful. Shall we take a stroll in the garden, under the loggia?”
She spoke the words as if she were playing a role—as of course she was, I realized—the role of Queen. Her wish, it seemed, was our command. Taking it for granted that I would say yes, her closest attendants ran to fetch the Queen’s cloak and a pair of elaborately carved pattens to protect her brocade shoes from mud and rain.
“No, we wish to be on our own,” Sybil said in answer to their murmurs as they dressed her. Stepping daintily forward, she nodded at me. “Shall we go?”
She maintained her queenly bearing until we were just outside the garden and no one else was around. Pattens clattering on the wet pavestones, she threw her arms around me. “Lucy! I’m so glad to see you. Everyone keeps talking about your battle with that dreadful serpent, and how you and Nat fought it off together, and I feel so stupid because the guards sealed us away the moment it began and wouldn’t let me go to you. Then they told me you were in a meeting, and—”
“Never mind.” I hugged her. “I’m glad to see you, too.”
“Oh!” She jumped back, blond tendrils bobbing under her hood. “Something stung me.”
“What?” I said in alarm.
“I think it was that.” She pointed at me.
I looked down and saw the cloudy red jewel that was my birthright as a Chantress, the stone that had once deafened me to Wild Magic. Swinging on its silver chain, it had slipped free of my bodice and was visible in the gap of my cloak.
“You’re sure it was this?” I was skeptical. An intact stone could give a horrible shock to anyone who touched it—though not to its Chantress, or to any person she willingly gave it to. But my stone was riddled with cracks; I wore it only as a keepsake. The most it could muster up was a slight pinprick, and even that was rare.
“I’m sure.” Sybil eyed my stone warily. “I thought you told me it didn’t have any magic left.”
“It doesn’t.”
“If it can sting me, it must,” Sybil said with assurance. “Let me try again.” She put out a cautious and perfectly manicured fingertip. When it touched the stone, she jerked back. “Yes, there’s something there. It’s not deafening you, is it?”
“Not a bit,” I said cheerfully. “Ever since it cracked, everything sounds just the same whether I have it on or off. But I’m sorry it hurt you.” I tucked it safely away. “Look, let’s go into the garden, and then we can talk more freely.”
“Yes.” Sybil slipped her arm through mine. “On an afternoon like this, hardly anyone will be there.”
She was right. In the soaking rain, the garden was empty save for one man who was resolutely trudging at the far end with a wheelbarrow. Giving him a wide berth, we walked along the loggia, the rain beading up on our cloaks as it blew in through the pillars.
“Was it love at first sight?” Sybil murmured.
I looked at her blankly, my mind on the questions I needed to ask her. Love? What was she . . . Oh. My meeting with Nat on the Dorset.
“No,” I told her. “It was an utter disaster.”
Her radiant face lost some of its glow. “Oh no. Did you argue?”
“Yes,” I said. “But it wasn’t just that. We’ve been apart so long that we hardly know each other anymore. I’ve changed, and so has he.”
Sybil brightened. “Well, really, that’s only to be expected, isn’t it? You’ll soon get used to each other again. And in the meantime”—she dimpled—“there can be something rather exciting about a stranger, can’t there? I’ve known Henry since I was a child, and yet when he puts on his crown and his robes of state and holds court, it’s as if I’m seeing a whole new man. It’s quite a delicious experience.”
I shook my head as we continued down the loggia. “Maybe for you. But not for me.”
Even as I said it, I wondered if that was true. Did I really want to turn back time? Much as I hated the distance between us, I admired the man that Nat had become. More than admired, if the truth were told.
“You still love him.” Sybil squeezed my arm. “I can see it in your face.”
I hadn’t meant to reveal so much. Halting by a pillar, I looked out at the perfect squares of the garden, the hedges trim and glistening with rain. “Maybe I do. But love alone isn’t enough.”
“Why not?”
I glanced at her in surprise. “You of all people should know, Sybil. I mean, look at you. You married the King, and that defines your life, just as marriage to a Chantress would define Nat’s life. You aren’t free to live by your own rules anymore. You have to be Queen, whether you like it or not. And you don’t like it, do you? It’s making you very unhappy.”
Sybil bit her lip. “Is it that obvious?”
“To a friend, yes. And who could blame you? You’re a free spirit, but now you have to follow protocol every minute of the day. You’re under the scrutiny of the Court and the broadsides all the time.”
“Oh, the broadsides,” Sybil said miserably. “Don’t remind me.” We started pacing down the loggia again. “One unguarded remark, and they pillory me. And the ladies-in-waiting can be just as bad. Half of them are political appointments, you know, and they’re always looking for evidence that I really am the ‘Mad Queen,’ just as the broadsides say.” She paused, and added softly, “But I love Henry. And that makes it all worthwhile.”
Did it? I thought of her frustration the other night, when she’d said Henry and I treated her like an idiot, and I wondered how she would feel in the long run.
“It’s worth it,” she said again, as if I’d argued the point.
“But Nat and I aren’t like you and Henry,” I reminded her. “We never have been. Even at the best of times, we’ve argued more. And that would make it even harder to be on public display, with everyone watching our every gesture. We’d have to be very sure of each other to cope with that. And we’re not.”
“So you’re going to give up?” Sybil looked upset. “Just like that?”
I stopped short at the end of the loggia. “Sybil, please.” It hurt too much to keep talking about Nat. “This isn’t why I came looking for you.”
She glanced at me in surprise. “It isn’t?”
“No.” The gardener was coaxing his wheelbarrow toward a square of lawn that was altogether too close to us. I tugged on Sybil’s arm to guide her back down the length of the loggia. “You’ve heard about the serpent—the second one?”
“The one that looked like Henry?” Sybil shuddered. “Yes. The story’s all over the Court. The very idea makes me sick.”
“I think Chantress magic might be behind it.”
“Chantress magic?” Sybil’s smooth forehead wrinkled in doubt. “But how—”
“I’ve heard music.” We were well away from the gardener now, and I couldn’t see a sign of anyone else. Still, I spoke as quietly as possible.
Sybil too kept her voice down. “What kind of music?”
“I’ve heard it three times now, with the mermaid, and the sea monster, and the serpent that looked like the King—”
“They sang to you?”
“Not exactly. Well, the mermaid did sing—but the music I’m talking about was quite different. It came from the water around her, and it completely blocked my own magic. I heard it with the other creatures too—the serpents.” Even the memory of the song chilled me. “It’s an angry music, Sybil. Full of fury. And there’s something about it that makes me think of Chantress singing. Not the melody, or the tuning. But there’s something about the voice itself, and some of the cadences—”
“And yet iron broke the magic?”
“We didn’t try it on the mermaid,” I said. “But it struck down the other creatures, yes.”
“That doesn’t sound like Chantress magic to me.”
“But the singing does, at least a little. Have you ever heard anything to suggest that another Chantress might be out there? Even the merest ghost of a rumor?”
“Never.” Sybil had a beautiful voice, but it went rough as she spoke. “Scargrave was very thorough, Lucy. My cousins, our old friends—everyone who was a Chantress was killed so quickly. The only reason you survived was because your mother hid you and hedged you all about with enchantments.”
Was it my imagination, or was the rain growing heavier? In the distance, I saw the gardener heft his spade and fork into the barrow and wheel them away.
I quickened my pace. “But perhaps there was someone else like me, someone else who was hidden—”
“Who’s never been heard of from that time to this? It seems unlikely.”
Sybil stumbled, pattens clicking, and I realized I was walking too fast. I slowed down. “But what about the singing I heard?”
“Are you ready to swear it was a Chantress?” Sybil asked.
“Well, no. But I was sure . . . At least, I thought at the time . . .” I trailed off. The truth was that the memory was fading now, and I wasn’t sure of much of anything, especially in the face of Sybil’s skepticism.
“I don’t doubt you heard something,” Sybil said gently. “But I question whether it was a Chantress.”
“What else could it have been? Do you have any ideas?”
Sybil laughed a little wryly. “My upbringing being what it was, I have a hundred and one ideas. Mama used to say that all kinds of creatures could sing—goblins, demons, faeries, sprites—the list was endless.”
We reached the end of the loggia again and turned toward the garden.
“I don’t know,” I said doubtfully. “It’s true there was something unearthly about the music I heard, but there was something human about it too.”
“I see.” Sybil looked thoughtful. “Well, Mama also used to say that Chantresses weren’t the only humans who could work magic with music.”
“Really?” This was news to me. Lady Helaine had never mentioned there were others.
“Oh, yes. She adored telling stories about them—the high priestesses of ancient Egypt, the druids, various Greeks, the occasional prophetess. She even ran across a sect of wise women here in England who swore they could work magic by singing.”
“They weren’t Chantresses?”
“Apparently not. Just an odd little group that worshipped water and called on its powers through incantation.” She smiled, though her eyes were sad. “Of course, what you would have thought of them, I can’t say. You know how my mother was . . .”
She didn’t have to finish the thought. We both knew better than to accept Sybil’s mother as a reliable source. Sybil’s grandmother had been a Chantress, but the power hadn’t passed to her mother. She had spent much of her life seeking out the advice of charlatans, willing to listen to anyone, however disreputable, who had promised to give her magic.
Still, I wanted to know more about the water worshippers. “Where did she find these wise women?”
“Mostly in London, I think. She used to slip down to the Thames to meet them. There were all kinds of strange rituals involved, though Mama wouldn’t tell me much about them.”
“She thought their singing truly had power?”
“Oh, yes. Though whether it really did is anyone’s guess. Mama was always ready to see magic in anything.” Sybil looked out at the great sundial in the center of the garden, its concave bowl awash with rainwater. “That said, Mama once brought their leader to the house to pray over me when I was ill, and I must say she was quite uncanny. Tall, with the kind of voice that goes right through you, and the oddest sea-green eyes. And I did get well again.”
“Do you know if she survived Scargrave?” I asked. “If any of them did?”
“It’s possible,” Sybil said slowly. “He did go after all kinds of magic-workers, but what he wanted most were Chantresses. He didn’t pursue the others with quite the same vengeance. So I suppose the wise women might have escaped him, if they were lucky. Though more likely they were killed along with all the rest.”
A distant clock chimed the three-quarters hour.
“Oh dear.” Sybil put her hand on my arm. “I’m sorry, Lucy, but I have to get back. Otherwise my ladies are bound to come looking for me.”
“I understand.” I hurried away from the loggia with her. “I ought to be going too.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t more help.”
“You were a help.” It was disconcerting to think my senses might have misled me about the nature of my enemy, but I was pleased to think that the culprit might not be a Chantress after all.
Sybil gave me a quick hug and pattered away. I stood for a moment in the rain, watching her go, her shoulders stiffening under her cloak as she took up the burden of being Queen again.
It pained me to see the change in her. But then I had my burdens too—and they wouldn’t be lessened by my standing there in the rain. I strode off, determined to see what else I could discover about Sybil’s wise women.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
WISE WOMEN
“Wise women?” Gabriel’s well-arched eyebrows shot up, and his skeptical voice echoed loudly in the anteroom of the Great Library. “You want me to research wise women?”
“Yes,” I said crisply.
After one too many clashes with Nat and Sir Barnaby over the best way to proceed with the riverside defense efforts, Gabriel had offered his services to me. I’d gladly accepted, but I was beginning to think that I’d made a mistake. Captain Knollys and my men hadn’t given me this kind of reaction when I’d raised the matter of wise women with them.
“You mean cunning women?” Gabriel said, eyebrows still raised. “The ones who sell charms and fake love-potions?”
“How do you know they’re fake?” I countered.
“They must be. Most of those women can’t even read. It’s all superstition.”
“I wouldn’t be so quick to judge,” I said. “Just because they’re poor and unlettered doesn’t mean they have no power. And anyway, I’m not looking for love-potions. I’m looking for wise women who claim to have a special influence over water.”
Gabriel’s face told me what he thought of that.
I looked up at the coffered ceiling of the anteroom and told myself to be patient. “You’re the one who wanted to help,” I reminded Gabriel. “And right now this is what I need—someone to search the Great Library for any references that might be useful. Someone with a knowledge of old languages and arcane texts. I think you could do it. Will you?”
With a small sigh, Gabriel bowed. “Very well. Anything for you, Chantress.”
Was I right to put so much weight on what Sybil had told me? I wasn’t sure. Perhaps I was headed down the wrong path—and perhaps listening to the water would put me on the right one. That night, while Gabriel researched wise women, and Knollys and my men went looking for them, I stationed myself down by the river, paying especially close attention to the places where the strange sea creatures had appeared.
I had to concentrate quite hard to hear anything, however, for
Nat’s plan to arm England with iron was proceeding at a dizzying pace. All along the riverfront, men were hammering in spikes by lantern light and calling out to each other as they mended iron rails and chains. Here and there, blacksmiths had set up temporary forges where their anvils rang out like bells in the night. Meanwhile Sir Christopher, Penebrygg, and their friend Robert Rooke labored over a new design of water pump in the shadow of Whitehall itself. The hoses made a ghastly sound as they sucked.
I kept as far from the sound and fury as I could, the better to listen to the river. Mischievous as ever, it was full of songs, but they told me nothing I didn’t already know. If the Thames was privy to any magic secrets, it didn’t share them with me. At last, a few hours after midnight, I gave up and went to bed.
The next morning came much too quickly, and it brought more rain. A gloomy prospect, but at least my ankle was feeling better. I dressed as quickly as possible and gulped down some porridge with Norrie while I went over the night’s reports. No sea monsters or mermaids had been sighted overnight, which was cheering.
From Captain Knollys, there was nothing but a brief note asking me to come see him. Done with breakfast, I rushed off to the guardrooms to find out what was happening.
Halfway there, my hastily pinned-up hair slipped loose. Clapping a hand to the unraveling coil, I went in search of a mirror and found one in a tiny jewel box of a room nearby. While I stood before the mirror, twisting my hair up again, voices filtered through to me from the next room.
“You think Lord Walbrook will marry the Chantress? My dear Clemence!”
I couldn’t see the speaker, but I knew her by her tone alone. It was Lady Clemence Grey’s older sister, Ardella, who was married to the Lord High Admiral.
“It’s not so ridiculous,” another woman said. It sounded like Lady Gillian. “Didn’t you see the way he looked when they came off the river?”
“I heard someone say he’s never stopped loving her,” Clemence said wistfully.
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