Chantress Fury

by Amy Butler Greenfield

  After that, Melisande would say no more. Even when I made the water wall boil again, she only laughed more and more wildly.

  “She’s mad,” Gabriel said behind me.

  Maybe so. But even if Melisande were mad, it didn’t mean she was powerless. I’d smelled magic here. And her wild words about the Mothers sounded uncannily like the vicious warning the mermaid had given me: We are coming.

  “Who are the Mothers?” I asked Melisande again.

  Her only answer was crazed laughter.

  I turned to Barrington. “Your pike, please.”

  He gave it to me without hesitation, and I drove it through the water wall. Melisande shrieked, but I was careful not to let the point touch her, just the iron side of the shaft.

  Iron didn’t damage her, still less make her disappear. She looked exactly the same as before, only angrier.

  What now? It wasn’t easy for me to keep the wall up, and she had the kind of light in her eyes that said she was prepared to die rather than give in to me. We’d have to find something else to do with her.

  I motioned my men forward. “We’ll take her to the Tower.”

  Rising up from the east end of the city, the Tower of London was England’s stronghold. Officially it was a royal residence, and some even considered it beautiful, with its domes and battlements and its white-walled central tower. But as we passed through the gatehouse, I shivered. I could never forget how the Shadowgrims had made it a place of horror and death. For me, the Tower would always be more prison than palace. There was no question it was the most secure jail in the city, however, and I wasn’t willing to settle for less when it came to Melisande.

  Not that she was any more forthcoming here. As we put her into her cell and bound her with an iron chain, I noticed that she wore a strange ornament around her neck. Made of silver, it was shaped like two snakes, each swallowing the other’s tail. I no sooner started to question her about it than she began rocking and humming, making the stone cell echo with a strange sort of sound that reminded me a little of the sea monster’s keening.

  Was she attempting to work magic? I sniffed the dank air but smelled nothing.

  “Watch out!” Barrington cried as Melisande writhed backward.

  She collapsed on the straw-covered floor.

  “She may be pretending,” Knollys grunted.

  “I’m not so sure.” Gabriel had his hand on her wrist. “Her pulse is very weak.”

  For almost a full hour, we tried to revive her. We shook her. We splashed water on her face. We waved smelling salts under her nose till the room reeked with them. Nothing worked.

  Gabriel, still monitoring her pulse, said that it was even weaker than before. “It’s steady, though. Almost as if she were in some sort of trance.”

  Barrington crossed his arms. “We could put her to the rack.”

  “No.” Looking down at Melisande’s slack, dead-white face, I saw for an instant the ghost of my godmother, who had died in this place. It isn’t the same, I told myself. This woman is dangerous. Yet it took me a moment to speak with the authority my men expected of me. “Leave her here. The rest of you, come with me.”

  Out of earshot of the cell, I gathered them in a tight circle. “We still haven’t found any trace of her servant, have we, Captain Knollys?”

  “No sign at all. The trail leads to the water and then stops.”

  “Then all we have is Melisande, so we’d better treat her well. Give her plenty of blankets, and have some food and drink sent down. We’ll question her again later.”

  Knollys and Barrington looked less than satisfied, but they didn’t try to argue with me. Nor did the others. I knew, however, that they would be happier if I were harsher with Melisande—and perhaps I should be. At any rate, I couldn’t be as lax as I’d been with the mermaid. Yet the dark history of the Tower was itself proof that torture wasn’t the high road to truth. People would say anything to end the pain. What if Melisande told us lies? What if we pushed her too hard and she died? We wouldn’t have learned anything, then.

  Even if the others saw it as weakness, I was going to choose another way.

  “There is plenty to do while we wait,” I said. “The men who are searching her rooms may have more to tell us, and we can continue the search for her servant. I myself must go to Whitehall; I promised the King I would keep him informed of our progress.”

  “I could send a messenger,” Knollys said.

  “He’ll want to speak with me himself.” Which was probably true, but the real reason I wanted to go to Whitehall was to tell Sybil about Melisande and see what she made of what the woman had told me so far. Perhaps Sybil would know who the Mothers were. Perhaps she would even be willing to come here and see if Melisande was the same woman she’d met long ago. Though how we would manage that, I wasn’t sure, when Sybil was so carefully encircled by her ladies, and her every movement was a cause for gossip. Still, it was worth a try.

  “I’ll return as soon as I can,” I said. “I don’t know what tricks she might have up her sleeve, so don’t interrogate her without me. And keep her chained and guarded.” I wasn’t going to have her escape as the mermaid had.

  I left, with solemn assurances from Knollys, Gabriel, and the others that they would keep close watch over Melisande until I came back.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  WESTMINSTER

  I traveled by well-armed boat from the Tower to Whitehall, making good time. My plan to visit Sybil, however, was forestalled by the guards who greeted me at Whitehall. The King wanted to see me right away.

  I hurried to the State Rooms, only to discover that the King was nowhere to be found.

  “He did ask us to summon you a little while ago,” one of his secretaries said worriedly. “He wanted to speak with you. But then he and Lord Walbrook hurried off, and we haven’t seen them since.”

  “Where did they go?” I asked. “Do you know?”

  “To see one of the river walls in Westminster, I think. But to tell the truth, I’m not sure exactly where.” Grimacing, the secretary ran a hand through his thinning hair. “We’ve been at sixes and sevens ever since the removal orders went out.”

  “What removal orders?”

  The secretary looked surprised. “The King has requisitioned all rooms overlooking the Thames, my lady, so that they can be used for defense. Hadn’t you heard? We announced it an hour ago.”

  “I’ve been rather busy,” I said.

  “Of course, of course.” He gave me a wan smile. “Well, the river-facing rooms here at the palace are being evacuated as we speak, and the cannons are being moved in. But it’s a job working out where to put everyone, with so many rooms out of bounds. And the King’s papers have to be shifted too, and all his correspondence. And then there are all the people coming in from other parts of the city. Everyone along the riverside has been ordered to move out, and some of them are coming here. So I’m afraid everything’s rather chaotic right now—”

  “Never mind.” Westminster lay just southwest of Whitehall, an easy walk from here. “I’ll find the King myself.”

  A little while later, I located the King by the river’s edge in Westminster, huddled in the drenching rain with Nat and Sir Samuel. The King’s shoulders were hunched, and Sir Samuel cut a mournful figure, his lace cuffs sopping wet at the ends of his overcoat sleeves. Nat’s back was to me, but when he turned, I saw iron-dark circles under his eyes.

  “Chantress!” The King greeted me warmly, but it was only when we touched iron to skin that his shoulders went down a notch. “I was beginning to think we’d never see you.”

  I explained that I’d been at the Tower, and why.

  When I finished, he said, “So you think Melisande is the one causing all this trouble?”

  “She certainly knows something about it,” I said. “Whether she’s behind it is another matter. We’ll get the truth out of her, I promise you. But that’s all there is to tell for now.”

  He looked disappointed, and
so did Nat and Sir Samuel, but there was nothing I could do about that. “What’s been happening here?” I asked. “Have there been more attacks?”

  “Yes.” The lines in the King’s face deepened as he spoke. “Late this morning a sea serpent attacked boats downriver from here, near Tilbury. And there’s been a terrible attack at the Royal Navy at Portsmouth.”

  “The dispatch came in this morning,” Sir Samuel said morosely. “Yesterday evening a sea serpent destroyed four ships of the line. Some three hundred men drowned.”

  Three hundred men? Sorrow and anger engulfed me. I started to wish I’d pushed Melisande harder.

  “That’s the worst of it for now,” the King said, “but there are reports coming in from all over the country of mermaids singing, and monsters being sighted from shore, and fishermen’s boats vanishing.”

  “Which makes it all the worse that we’ve gone and ruined the wall that protects Westminster itself.” Nat pointed upriver. Through the driving rain, I saw a point a few dozen yards ahead where Westminster’s embankment all but disappeared.

  Dispassionately Nat explained what had happened. “Most of the river walls are sturdy enough, but when we tried to reinforce this one with iron, the mortar crumbled, and we were left with this enormous gap. Now there’s nothing to stop the river from flooding the whole district at the next high tide.”

  I saw what he meant. Long ago, all of Westminster had been an island—and a low-lying, marshy island at that. Since then, it had been developed and protected from the river by a series of embankments. Nothing, however, could make it high ground. Once the river rose above the gap, there was nothing to stop it from inundating all of Westminster—including Parliament and the law courts and the hallowed precincts of Westminster Abbey.

  “We need to mend the gap before the next high tide,” Nat said. “But that’s only hours from now. And that isn’t really enough time to get the job done, even if the weather were perfect. And in rain like this, I don’t see how it can be mended properly at all.”

  “That’s why I called you here,” the King said to me. “The wall. Can you help?”

  If I did, it would delay my return to the Tower. But there was no telling exactly when Melisande would revive—and a great many lives were at stake here. I looked down at the long gap and listened to the rain and the river. “I think I could hold back the Thames for you,” I said at last. “Just by a few yards, but that should be enough. I can divert the rain, too. And once the new wall is up, I can make the mortar set fast.”

  The King immediately looked happier, and so did Sir Samuel.

  Nat, however, gave me a troubled glance. “Didn’t you say yester­day that the river wouldn’t obey you?”

  “Only when I try to use it against the creatures that are attacking us. It wants to protect them somehow. Other than that, my magic is as strong as ever.”

  “Strong enough for my men to trust their lives to it?” Nat asked soberly.

  It was hard to be questioned like this, but I knew he was asking in all good faith, for the sake of the men in his command. I would do as much for my own men.

  Since our battle with the sea monster, I’d avoided meeting his eyes, but now I looked straight at him, commander to commander. “I believe the water will listen to me. If I have any doubts, I’ll warn you. I don’t want to put any lives at risk.”

  As his eyes searched mine, my pulse kicked up. But I couldn’t look away. He had to understand that I was telling him the truth.

  “All right,” Nat said. “We’ll try it.”

  While the King and Sir Samuel went back to Whitehall, I stayed by the wall in Westminster with Nat and a small army of bricklayers and ironworkers. After talking a bit with the chief bricklayer, Nat came over to me. “How do you want to start?”

  “I’ll sing the water away first,” I said. “It’s the kind of song-spell that will need constant replenishing, but I’ll keep it up as long as I can. I expect I could do it for several hours, if need be.”

  Nat still looked worried. “If anything goes wrong, we’ll need to get the men out of there fast. Can we work out a warning signal, just in case?”

  He wasn’t doubting me, I told myself. He was just being sensible. We settled on the waving of hands overhead, and then I gave myself over to the task at hand.

  I listened hard, but to my relief I couldn’t hear even the faintest echo of the furious song I’d heard yesterday, only the usual strains of Wild Magic. When I sang to the river and the rain, coaxing them away from the wall, they were as docile as lambs. Within minutes, the entire face of the wall was dry, down to the pilings.

  “All right, men,” Nat said. “Let’s get to work.”

  The men looked at the river, openmouthed, and then at me. No one moved.

  It was a lot to ask of them, to trust me with their lives.

  I moved to the far end of the wall, where a rope ladder dangled over the edge. Still singing, I stepped onto it.

  Alarmed, Nat came after me. “Lucy, no. There’s no need for this.”

  I couldn’t spare the breath to answer him, not even when I saw him following me. Everything in me was bent on keeping the water back—and on placing each foot carefully on the rungs, until at last I stood at the foot of the wall.

  I looked up at the men, and they looked down at me.

  “Can’t leave a lady on her own like that, can we?” one of them called out. Within moments, there were ladders being lowered all along the line, and the men followed me down.

  For the next three hours they laid bricks as fast as they were able, using pulleys and scaffolding and teamwork to speed the job. It must have been an amazing sight, but I hardly took in any of it. All my attention was trained on the watery wave that I was holding back with my music. Even at the start, it had towered over our heads. As the tide came in, it grew still higher—and not only higher but stronger.

  It took all my skill to keep the wave back. Chantress singing didn’t tire the voice as normal singing would, but it required enormous strength and patience to keep it going for so long. As I listened carefully to the liquid nuances of the river’s songs, I became all but deaf to every other sound. The slap of bricks, the squeal of pulleys, the banging of hods—none of it made a dent in my concentration. And so I didn’t notice that the work was done, until Nat came up and gestured to me to turn around.

  The men were back on land now, leaving behind the new wall, perfectly mended and riveted with iron spikes. Which meant I needed to rise to a new challenge, that of singing the wall dry while still holding back the river. Turning so I could see both the wave and the wall, I slowly began to weave the two songs together.

  The drying couldn’t be done too fast; otherwise the wall would crack. That was the trick of it, listening to get the pacing just right. I didn’t rush. Standing in the riverbed, I took my time and let the mortar grow white, grow dry. And then, just as I was all but done, I heard what I’d most dreaded—the faint echo of fury coming from the water.

  I waved frantically at Nat. The water was turning on me, and my wave was about to crash down on top of us.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE DROWNED LAND

  Nat understood my warning signal right away, but despite the alarm in his eyes, he didn’t rush to the ladder.

  What was he waiting for? For me to get out first? Of all the misplaced notions of gallantry! It was my song; I should be last out. He wouldn’t budge, however, and I couldn’t argue while I was singing. So I ran to a ladder—there were several still up—and started to climb.

  To my relief, he did as well, and he quickly reached the top. I made slower progress, hampered by skirts and the demands of singing and an ankle that was still giving me twinges. As I grabbed the last rung of the ladder, the water broke loose.

  Above the roar of the wave, I heard Nat call out to me. “Lucy!”

  His hands reached down, seized me, and hauled me bodily up to solid land. Drenched by the spray, I held fast to him, gasping for breath. Then
I looked up into his eyes, and the world dropped away. The wall, the wave, my narrow escape—I forgot them all as we stood there, aware of nothing but each other.

  A terrible shouting came from the men. “Watch out!”

  As Nat and I sprang apart, I glanced over my shoulder. Three slimy gray snakes were rising from the waters. They lashed at the air, eyeless and as thick around as trees. There were four of them now. No, five . . . six . . .

  Half-hypnotized, I stared at the sinuous, bubbled flesh. Snakes? No. They were tentacles. Which meant . . .

  With a horrible slurp, the fleshy head surfaced, all gaping mouth and teeth.

  “Giant squid!” someone screamed.

  “Kraken!”

  The tentacles reached for the wall.

  As Nat seized the iron-tipped spear he’d brought with him, I saw other men reaching for their weapons. The creature must have seen this too, or perhaps it simply sensed the iron embedded in the wall. It reeled in its tentacles and plunged underwater.

  “Hold on,” Nat called out to his men. “Wait till the creature comes up.”

  A few of them let loose their spears anyway. The wooden shafts twisted as they hit the water. I heard the sound of the water steering the spears away from the monster—and beneath it, scattered notes from the furious song.

  “The water’s protecting it,” I said to Nat. “Just as it protected the others.”

  “It’ll have to surface again if it wants to attack us.” Nat scanned the waters, spear at the ready. “And when it does, we’ll get it.”

  But he was wrong. At the foot of the wall, the currents of the river were shifting. Small waves appeared, then larger ones. I leaned out over the new bricks, listening. What was happening down there?

  And then I had it: “The kraken’s pulling on the pilings!”