Chantress Alchemy

by Amy Butler Greenfield

  No wonder the Philosopher’s Stone appealed to him. And then, with some dismay, I wondered: Did he think marriage to me would solve his money problems as well?

  As if he’d sensed my thoughts, Gabriel’s lazy grin reappeared. “But how did we get onto this gloomy subject anyway?” He leaned slightly closer. “Let’s talk about you instead.”

  “I’d rather hear more about Wrexham,” I said. “What has he done with your money? Do you know?”

  “Used it to make himself richer.” Gabriel downed a new glass of wine and poured himself yet another. Brown eyes a little unsteady, he murmured to me, “He rules the borderlands like a king. Only he’s not, you know. Not king. Not yet.”

  I murmured back in surprise. “Not yet?”

  “His ambition has no end,” Gabriel said softly, gazing at Wrexham with a mix of malice and fear. “But he’s merely third in line to the throne now—there are two cousins of Henry’s before him—and his position will worsen once Henry has sons. His only hope is to take the crown by force.”

  However much I hated Wrexham, I found this hard to swallow. “He saved the King’s life in battle,” I protested.

  “And made himself into a hero—the King’s most trusted man, the power behind the throne,” Gabriel said in my ear. “Putting himself in a perfect position to knife him in the back. He wants the King dead, I tell you. He’s plotting it right now.”

  I shook my head, still skeptical. “You have proof of this?”

  Gabriel thumbed his wineglass and looked warily up and down the table. “Nothing I can talk about. Nothing I can take to the King.” He took another sip of wine and whispered, “But it’s true.”

  Before I could question him further, the King surged up from his chair. “Help! In Heaven’s name, help!”

  As we all rose in alarm, the King turned to the man on his left, who had collapsed over his plate. I could just make out who it was: Sir Isaac, in a dreadful state.

  “What’s wrong?” Gabriel exclaimed.

  “Some sort of fit,” Lord Ffoulkes guessed.

  But it was Wrexham who riveted us all.

  “Poison!” He roared out the word, and the room went still.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  A QUESTION OF TRUST

  “Someone has poisoned the Chief Alchemist,” Wrexham bellowed over our heads. “Fetch the Head Cook at once.”

  “Send first for the Royal Physician.” Unlike Wrexham, the King did not bellow, but nonetheless his voice carried. “Sir Isaac still breathes. Perhaps he can be saved.”

  Gabriel leaped unsteadily from his chair. “Your Majesty, I have some knowledge of medical matters—”

  “And I!”

  “And I!”

  As half a dozen men converged on Sir Isaac and argued noisily about what was to be done, Wrexham stalked off, still shouting for the cook. Over the bedlam, the King called out, “Perhaps the Lady Chantress will come to our aid.”

  “Of course, Your Majesty.” I gathered my errant silk skirts and went forward anxiously. What did the King expect from me? Did he believe I could cure Sir Isaac with song?

  “Whatever you can do, Chantress,” the King said to me.

  I went up to Sir Isaac, still collapsed over his plate. His face was flushed; his thin-lipped mouth gaped open; his hands trembled like November leaves. Whatever had done this—illness, fit, or poison—he was in a very bad way.

  Even at the best of times, I would have found it a challenge to help him, since I had no specific magic for healing. And this was far from the best of times. But Sir Isaac might be dying: I couldn’t bear to stand here and do nothing.

  Of course I couldn’t even think of singing, not given what had happened this morning. But there was less danger in listening. I knew that all things—even poisons—had a characteristic music, a Wild Magic all their own. Perhaps desperate need would sharpen my hearing, and I would be able to tell if poison were present—or even which kind.

  This was Sir Isaac, my old ally and colleague; I had to try.

  I knelt by his slack mouth and listened. Yes, there was something there . . . but there was too much noise from the crowd to hear what it was.

  “Please,” I said to the King, “can you quiet them?”

  “Silence,” the King commanded. “Silence, all of you, for the Chantress.”

  The moment they went still, I realized I’d made a mistake. All eyes were on me now. People were expecting miracles. Yet strain as I might, I heard only the faintest slivers of sound, sharp and meaningless as a packet of pins.

  I rose and faced the King. “I’m afraid magic cannot cure this, Your Majesty. We must trust to medicine instead.”

  Was that anger I saw in his face, or merely agitation? The crowd began to buzz behind me.

  “You did send for the Royal Physician, didn’t you, Your Majesty?” I said.

  “Yes. Yes, I did—”

  “Tut, tut.” The Royal Physician himself, bewhiskered and bustling, pushed forward, eyeing me with a superior air. “Your incantations not up to the job, eh? Well, never bring a woman in to do a man’s job, they say.”

  My cheeks burned with anger and embarrassment, but what could I say? It was true that I had failed.

  Elbowing me out of the way, the Royal Physician checked the patient’s pulse, lifted his eyelids, and smelled his breath. “Poison, most definitely. Perhaps in the wine?”

  “No. He hasn’t drunk any,” the King said. “Or eaten anything either. He came in late, and he wanted to tell me something about Flamel’s cipher first. I couldn’t quite follow it, I’m afraid. There were too many people speaking at once.”

  The Royal Physician frowned. “So neither the wine nor the food poisoned him. . . .”

  Sir Isaac gagged. As I reached to steady him, a small packet fell from his coat, scattering little white balls everywhere.

  “What are these?” I picked up the half-empty packet.

  “Mint comfits,” Gabriel said. “He keeps a great supply in his room.”

  “Here, give that to me.” The Royal Physician snatched the packet from my hand. After crushing a single comfit between his teeth, he smelled it and tested it on his tongue. “A nasty dose of belladonna,” he pronounced. “And perhaps something else, too. I wonder Sir Isaac didn’t detect it.”

  “He hasn’t much sense of taste,” I said, remembering our conversation in the Treasury.

  “No, he hasn’t,” Penebrygg agreed. “More’s the pity.”

  Very quietly the King asked the Royal Physician, “Will he die?”

  “At this point, I cannot tell.” The Royal Physician pressed his thumb to Sir Isaac’s wrist again. “I will do my best to revive him. There are antidotes I can try, and purgatives. Their effect is not pretty to see, but they may do the trick. First, however, he should be moved to another room—one with a fire and a bed.”

  “Of course,” the King said. Again, Gabriel and the others were quick to offer their services. With the King and the Royal Physician leading the way, they carried Sir Isaac out of the room.

  Once they left, the banquet disintegrated into hubbub. Even though the poison had been in the mints, the incident had put most people off their food. They would not eat; they wanted to leave. But as they made their way out, they could and would talk about the poisoning, and what it might portend. I heard the gossip rising up around me.

  “Did you see his face? White as a flounder. He’ll never survive.”

  “Someone’s trying to stop him from making the Philosopher’s Stone, you mark my words.”

  “A woman’s trick, poison.”

  “God’s vengeance, for aiming so high.”

  “No, no. He’s doing God’s work, can’t you see? He’s trying to save the kingdom.”

  I looked around, trying to identify who had said what.

  A fist closed around my arm.

  “Chantress.” Wrexham pulled me close. “You will come with me.”

  He marched me to a far alcove, where we were alone.
r />   “You have failed us again.” Wrexham’s face was flushed and angry, and he did not release me. “God’s blood, but you have failed us most miserably. You have not found the crucible. And now you have allowed harm to come to our Chief Alchemist.”

  “Not for the world would I have seen him harmed—”

  “No? And yet he was. Which makes me wonder, Chantress.” Above his wide cheekbones, his flat eyes narrowed, and he tightened his grip on my arm. “Whose side are you on?”

  “The King’s side,” I said as steadily as I could. “Always the King’s.”

  “Then prove it,” Wrexham growled. “Find the crucible. Guard the King and his alchemists from harm.” His iron hand was like a vise on my arm, pressing so hard that I feared the bone would break. “Do it, I tell you—or by God, I will deal with you myself, as you deserve.”

  Just as I thought my arm would snap, he thrust me away.

  “As you deserve,” he repeated. Hand on his dagger, he stalked off.

  † † †

  After he left, I stood very still in the shadowy alcove, fingering my throbbing arm. Fear churned my stomach, and yet I felt fury, too. How dare he lay hands on me? How dare he make threats? If I had my powers, I would make him pay. . . .

  My arm throbbed again, reminding me that such vengeful thoughts were pure fantasy. The reality was this: I was a seventeen-year-old girl with a sore arm, and few friends, and no magic to speak of.

  I could reason, however; I could try to think things through. I sat down on a bench in the deepest recesses of the alcove. What did it mean that Wrexham had dared hurt me like that? Was it merely that he was so used to meting out violence that he thought nothing of it? Or did he know that there was no way for me to get back at him—know it because he had crippled my magic?

  Much as I knew him to be my enemy, I wasn’t convinced of that last charge. He had appeared truly enraged that I wasn’t helping the King. If he had known I had no magic to offer, he wouldn’t have acted that way. Unless, of course, he was playing a much more devious game than I would have thought possible. . . .

  But perhaps Wrexham was quite good at deception. He would have to be if Gabriel’s suspicions were right, and he was secretly aiming at the throne.

  How was I to protect myself against such a man?

  Oh, if only my magic would come back!

  As if by a miracle, silvery notes cascaded around me, the clearest music I’d heard in days. Magic? I shot up from the bench.

  Even before the notes broke up, however, I realized the truth: it was only a flute player out in the anteroom—probably here to provide music for the banquet. I sank back onto the bench.

  Such a stupid mistake to have made. How could I have thought, even for a moment, that a flute was magic? How could my ear have failed me so? How could I have lost so much in a matter of days?

  Magic, where are you? I need you!

  “Lucy, are you all right?” Sybil advanced on me, looking worried. “I waited outside for you, but you didn’t come. Someone said Wrexham was with you—”

  “He was, but that’s done.” Until he chooses to come after me. “Thank you for looking for me.”

  “Of course,” she said simply. “I was worried.” She lowered her voice. “He’s a vicious man, Lucy. He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

  The concern in her face decided me. It was time to set aside the small doubts that still niggled at me—time to trust her and ask for her help.

  “Sybil?”

  “Yes?” She looked at me, still worried.

  “That other magic you talked about,” I whispered. “Can we try it?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  A TERRIBLE EMBRACE

  Midnight, Sybil said. I was to meet her at midnight, in a small chamber not far from my rooms, where I could attempt the new magic without being disturbed.

  Now, having waited for what felt like forever for Margery to fall asleep, I was here in the appointed chamber, with only a single candle to illuminate the gloom. By the frail light of its wick, I watched the glimmering face of the golden clock on the mantel.

  Ten past midnight—and Sybil was nowhere to be seen. I pulled my nightgown tighter around me, wishing I had more than my thin shift underneath it. I had been waiting here in the cold and dark for twenty minutes. Should I give up and go back to bed?

  The door creaked open. Another candle gleamed in the gap, with Sybil’s bright eyes above it. Spying me, she slipped in. Dressed in a nightgown far more elaborate than mine, she pushed the door shut.

  “Oh my dear! I’m sorry I took so long. I gave Aunt Goring a bromide in her tea—”

  “You put what in her tea?”

  “A bromide,” Sybil said calmly, “to make her sleep. I’ve done it before, especially after any great excitement or distress. And having a poisoner in our midst has certainly distressed her.”

  It distressed me, too, even though it seemed likely now that Sir Isaac would survive. Before I’d gone to bed, I’d heard that the Royal Physician’s purgatives had proved effective. Sir Isaac was too weak to leave his bed, or even to sit up in it, but he was holding his own. He’d fallen into what everyone hoped would be a healing sleep.

  Sybil was still talking about her aunt. “She was having hysterics until the bromide took effect, and then she nodded off quite easily. But Joan was another story entirely. She wanted to stay up half the night sewing. I finally had to send her to bed, then wait till she slept.”

  “I had to wait a long time for Margery, too.”

  “Yes, she has sharp eyes and ears, that girl. Joan does too, more’s the pity. I was so afraid I’d wake her, especially carrying all this.” She hefted a pillowcase onto the table. “I wrapped everything in a spare petticoat to muffle the sound, but it’s an awkward bundle.”

  The pillowcase fell on its side, and I heard a soft clank.

  I reached out for it. “What’s in there?”

  With a crooked smile, she waved me away. “That’s my secret.” When I didn’t withdraw my hand, she frowned and pulled the case toward her. “Seriously, Lucy, you shouldn’t look. It will only ruin your concentration. One kind of magic at a time, that’s all you should be thinking about.”

  What she said about concentration made some sort of sense, but I didn’t like secrets at the best of times, and I liked them even less in a strange room at midnight, coming from someone I still wasn’t absolutely certain I should be trusting. “You’re not going to have me reading the stars or calling up spirits, are you? All I want to do is find the crucible.” Well, perhaps not all. But locating the crucible would go a long way toward improving matters.

  “We’ll only do magic for finding things, I promise.” I must have looked doubtful, because Sybil leaned forward earnestly. “Cross my heart, Lucy. Three times.”

  That childhood vow again—and she sounded sincere. “All right, then. What do we start with?”

  “This.” From the linen case, Sybil drew out a crystal pendant on a cord.

  I set my candle down and took it from her. “What is it?”

  “A dowsing pendulum. It’s used to find water, especially, but if you have the gift, you can use it to find almost anything. I’ve already buried it in earth and passed it through flame, so it’s ready for you to use.”

  I threaded the cord through my fingers.

  “No, not like that.” She looped the cord so that I grasped it between my thumb and forefinger. “Don’t grip it so tightly. You need a little looseness there, so you can feel the vibrations.”

  “The vibrations?”

  “Well, some say it’s more of a pull, really. You walk about, concentrating on the object you want to find, and as you get close to it, the pendulum twitches in your hand. When you’re very close, the pendulum might even dive straight down. I saw it do that once in France, in the hands of a man dowsing for water. It turned out he was standing over an underground river.”

  I circled the small, dim chamber, trying not to stumble against any furniture. The t
able was easy to see, but there were cane-backed chairs, too, and an elaborate high cabinet at the end of the room. “I don’t feel anything.”

  “Are you thinking about the crucible?”

  “As hard as I can. But I still don’t feel anything.”

  “Perhaps that just means the crucible isn’t anywhere near us,” Sybil said. “If you were closer to it, the pendulum might work.”

  I let my hand fall. “I can’t walk all over the palace like this, Sybil. Not in the dark. And not by daylight, either.”

  “No, I suppose not. Well, never mind.” She took the pendulum from me and rummaged in the case again. “I have other kinds of magic we can try.”

  “Such as?”

  She frowned. “I’d try a dowsing rod if I had one, but I don’t. And there are cards, but I’ve never heard of a Chantress being good at reading those. Anyway, they’re not the best way to find things. Palm-reading isn’t likely to help us find the crucible, either. I did bring something else, though.” From the case, she pulled out a luminous glass sphere no bigger than a cooking apple. “Here, take this.”

  I cupped it in my hands. It was beautiful, but what made it magic? “What does it do?”

  “You can scry with it,” Sybil said.

  “Scry?”

  “It means see. It’s for seeing the future, or the past, or another place entirely. Some people can even use it to spy on others—”

  Spying by proxy? It was an intriguing idea.

  “And, of course, you can also use it to find things,” Sybil went on. “You look into the crystal, and you ask it to show you what you seek. And the glass will reveal where it is. If you have the gift, that is.”

  “Let’s hope I do.” I rolled the ball from my left hand to my right. “How do I start?”

  She pulled a chair out from the table. “Sit down first. You can keep it steadier that way.”

  Once we were both seated, she adjusted my hands so that they loosely cupped the bottom of the sphere, then tilted them toward the candle. “It shouldn’t be too bright, but you want to have enough light to see by,” she explained.