Chantress

by Amy Butler Greenfield

  “The demonstration, of necessity, requires two people. Which of you cares to participate?” Penebrygg asked.

  Half the men raised their hands. Penebrygg singled out the jovial dandy at the back of the room. “Mr. Deeps, would you be so good as to come forward? The rest of you shall have your chance later.”

  Deeps shook out his lace cuffs and swaggered forward. “So you wish to read my mind, missy, eh?”

  He paused as if expecting a reply, but I was too busy drinking in the moonbriar song to offer any.

  “Not got much to say for herself, has she?” Deeps said in a stage whisper to one of the men sitting across from him. “But then she’s only a chit of a girl. Not exactly what we were hoping for, what? Even if she is a Chantress.”

  Let it go, I told myself, as Penebrygg explained to Deeps what was required. But the dismissal ate away at me, making it hard to steady myself for the singing.

  Let it go, I told myself again. Let it go.

  But it was only when I started to sing that I truly released the weight of his disdain. I gave myself over to the music, and when the notes were there singing inside me, I took Deeps’s hand and walked into his mind.

  It required more effort to read him than Nat or Penebrygg. Was that because I’d only met him a few minutes ago—or because Deeps’s mind was so fragmented? His skepticism warred with his pleasure at being an object of attention, and the rest of him was splintered among a dozen different private thoughts.

  Remembering Nat’s outrage, I decided to be very careful about what I shared. If I exposed this man’s secrets, I’d likely earn his enmity forever. Instead, I described in detail the picture he held out to me at the forefront of his mind: an instrument for making music with black-and-white keys—a spinet, his mind called it.

  When I finished, I opened my eyes.

  “Was she correct?” Penebrygg asked Deeps.

  “More or less.” Deeps fluffed his lace sleeves fretfully. “But who’s to say it wasn’t a lucky guess? Everyone here knows I bought that spinet a fortnight ago. Perhaps Penebrygg mentioned it to her—”

  “I did not.”

  “—or someone else did. But in any case, it does not signify. For even if this young miss did pluck the thought from my mind, it strikes me as a rather labored exercise. I doubt if our enemies will be kind enough to sit still and meditate on a single object for minutes at a time, so that she might more easily read their minds.”

  I regretted that I had held back from voicing his private thoughts. “The spinet was not all that was on your mind, Mr. Deeps.” I spoke clear as a bell across the space between us. “Let me tell you what else I saw: You keep a diary. It is written in code, and in it you record the details of—”

  “Hey, ho! How did you know that?” Deeps interrupted. The room buzzed with curiosity.

  “You are also annoyed with a certain dancing master because—”

  “Enough!”

  I had expected Deeps to be angry, but strangely enough, he seemed thrilled. “Did you hear that?” he said to his colleagues. “She read my mind. She truly read my mind!”

  “You shall have to watch your step now, Deeps,” one of the men quipped. “No more light-o’-loves for you.”

  “Ah, but I have met the lady who puts all others in the shade.” Deeps bowed low before me. “Your humble servant, Chantress.”

  After that, there was a rush to the front of the room. Half the men wanted me to read their minds; the other half wished to converse with me. Delighted to have made such a favorable impression, I did my best to make tactful use of what I learned of their private musings. But my most daring comments were the ones that delighted them most.

  “You are thinking of a building that does not exist—or rather, that exists only in your mind,” I told a dignified, straw-haired man named Christopher Linnet. “A cathedral with a vast dome that towers over London. Clustered around it are churches, mansions, arcades, and arches, each one of your own devising. Indeed, you almost wish that the city might be razed to the ground, so that you might have a chance to rebuild it.”

  “That’s our man!” a friend called out.

  Master Linnet blushed. “I must admit I’d rebuild it rather differently, if I had the chance . . . .”

  “A good fire, that’s what you need,” someone else said.

  The rest of the company laughed, save one: Nat. He sat stiffly, back to the wall, every inch of him conveying disapproval.

  Well, he might not like what I was doing, but I had won them over, hadn’t I? And that never would have happened if I had refused to give voice to their secrets.

  I looked down at the brilliant ruby in my lap. The problem with Nat, I decided, was that he was too touchy. Even Penebrygg had called him prickly. And that was putting it kindly.

  Doing my best to ignore him, I turned to the next man who wanted his mind read: Isaac Oldville. I closed my eyes and took his hand. “Red—everything I see is red. Red liquids, red light, red carpets. Even, if I am not mistaken, red hangings in your bedchamber. Why, so great is your love for the color red that I do believe . . . yes, you covet my own red ruby.”

  Hearing them laugh, I was emboldened to probe further. For a long moment, all was darkness, and I thought perhaps I had lost my connection to Oldville. But no, light was dawning . . . and now I had the uncanny sensation that I was actually seeing the ruby through Oldville’s eyes. “You cannot take your eyes off it. It lies there on the table between us, not a foot away from you, dazzling in its beauty and its power. The attraction is so strong that you do not care that the others are laughing.”

  They laughed harder at this.

  The picture was not entirely clear—there was a haze there, and sometimes it darkened unexpectedly—but nevertheless, I felt elated. “But you are determined to prove me wrong,” I went on. “You can look at something besides the ruby. There, you’ve done it: You are gazing at your friends and colleagues now. You notice that Deeps’s lace is askew, and that Linnet is still chuckling. In the back of your mind, however, you are wondering what the ruby is made of. You want to subject it to experiments—”

  “So I should.”

  I opened my eyes. Oldville did not seem in the least flustered. “And so would the rest of you, if you had your wits about you,” he said to his colleagues. “Never before have we encountered such a phenomenon, and there is much yet that we do not understand. Tell me, Chantress, can you read minds like that at a distance?”

  I stopped to consider the question. “I don’t know. I tried once at the start, and it didn’t work. But I’ve had more practice since then.”

  “You are willing to try now?”

  “If you wish.”

  “Whose mind will you read?”

  I knew no one in London except the men in this room. “Let it be your choice.”

  “Who shall it be?” Oldville, roused now, stood and took suggestions from the audience.

  “My wife.”

  “My son.”

  A pause, and someone said, “Scargrave.”

  “Yes, Scargrave!”

  There was no need to put the suggestion to a vote; Scargrave it was, by popular acclaim. But Penebrygg looked worried. “It seems a trifle soon . . .”

  Success had given me confidence, however, and I wanted nothing more than the chance to prove myself again. What a coup it would be if I could read Scargrave’s mind from this room! The battle would be half won on the spot.

  “Let me try,” I said.

  I closed my eyes, quieted my mind, and sang the moonbriar song again, so that it would have fresh life inside me. After so much practice, this gave me little trouble, but after that I was lost. There were thousands upon thousands of souls here in London. How was I to find Scargrave among them?

  At last I opened my eyes and admitted defeat. “I cannot do it.”

  The men seemed crestfallen, especially Penebrygg, though he rallied himself to say kindly, “Never mind, my dear. It was brave of you to make the attempt.”
>
  “Perhaps later, when you are better rested, we might try again,” Deeps added.

  “Or we might try again now,” said Oldville, “using stronger magic.”

  Everyone turned to look at him.

  “With other magic, it helps to have something belonging to the subject to act upon,” he said. “Why should this not be true for Chantresses? A strand of hair would be best. But another personal token may also work.”

  Christopher Linnet raised an eyebrow in mock appeal. “Anyone here happen to have a strand of Scargrave’s hair handy?”

  “Not a lock of hair,” said Oldville impatiently. “A ring. Lord Scargrave gave Sir Barnaby a signet ring last month—a ring that Scargrave himself used to wear.”

  “Why, so he did,” Sir Barnaby said. “It was a present for my sixty-fifth birthday.”

  I recalled what Penebrygg had told me: that Sir Barnaby’s good relations with the King and Lord Scargrave were part of what helped give cover to the Invisible College.

  “Do you really think it would work?” Sir Barnaby said.

  “We can but try,” said Oldville.

  “But do I have it here? That’s the question.” Sir Barnaby rose from his chair and surveyed the shelves, stopping before a case lined with curiosities and miniatures. “Ah, here it is.” He showed me the ring: a thick band of gold on which a flat, heavy emerald was mounted. Sir Barnaby pressed the stone, and it flew open, revealing a glowing portrait no more than half an inch wide; it depicted a serious boy whose red-gold hair shone like the sun. “Quite a wonderful likeness of the King, isn’t it? But then, Cooper’s portraits are always remarkable.”

  “It’s the first time I’ve seen a picture of him,” I admitted.

  “He has the Tudor hair,” Sir Barnaby said. “And the hands as well, though you can’t see them here. But more to the point, the ring was Scargrave’s and it has his mark on it.” He pointed to the raven incised inside the band.

  A jolt of fear ran through me. It’s only a ring, I said to myself. No need to be so afraid.

  But it seemed I was not the only one who was affected. A somber silence had crept over the room, and I was reminded of the risks they took merely in meeting here.

  “Will you make another attempt?” Oldville asked.

  I could not answer.

  “Give her a moment,” said Penebrygg, who was still standing nearby. To me, he added, “There’s no need to rush yourself. This can wait.”

  Had he sensed my fear? Not sure what to say, I looked up and saw Nat leaning up against one of the bookcases. He looked back at me, and something flickered in his eyes.

  Don’t do this, his expression seemed to say, louder than any words.

  A flash of anger drove my fear away. Who was he, to tell me what to do?

  “I am ready.” I took the ring from Sir Barnaby’s hand.

  It was not necessary to sing the song again. Enough of the magic was still with me that something was already happening. I felt myself swimming in darkness, a humming like music in my ears . . . and then, all at once, I found myself in another person’s mind.

  But not the one I wanted.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  A MEETING OF MINDS

  I knew at once that something had gone wrong, for the thoughts that flowed through me were not those of a man in control of a kingdom. Instead, they were young and sad and confused:

  He despises me, I know he does.

  No, of course he does not despise me. How could I think that? He loves me as a father loves his son. He would die for my sake. Truly he would.

  But he treats me as a child. A weakling.

  And then, overpoweringly:

  I am King, and yet my word means nothing . . . .

  It was beyond doubt, then: I had landed in the mind of young King Henry the Ninth. But how could that be? Did the subject of the portrait somehow matter more than its owner?

  The questions flashed through my head, but almost immediately I lost hold of them. I was so deep in the King’s head that I saw and heard everything exactly as he did. There was no veil as there had been with Oldville. Was it practice that was making me more powerful? Or was it merely that the King offered so little resistance?

  Standing before a gilded mirror, Henry stared anxiously at his own reflection. The room behind him was richly decorated with gilt and silken tapestries, but it was outshone by Henry himself—a Henry noticeably older and even more solemn than the boy I had seen in the ring’s miniature portrait. Underneath the magnificent cloth-of-gold trappings and the brilliant red hair, however, his face was pale and unsure.

  Someone spoke from a corner of the room.

  “Your Majesty, we bring you the account of arrests.”

  I hardly heard the words, for the voice itself—charming and musical—shook me to my marrow. The last time I had heard it, I had been hiding in Scargrave’s library.

  Henry wheeled around. “My Lord Protector?”

  Through his eyes I saw Scargrave at last: a man in his prime, iron-haired and agile, with the commanding stance of a man born to lead. In the set of his mouth and the breadth of his bones, he showed the calm strength that had made him a kingmaker.

  But then my gaze—Henry’s gaze—was drawn to Scargrave’s eyes. Deep-set and quicksilver gray, they blazed like a wildfire barely contained. Looking into them, I felt a blast of uncontrolled fear.

  My fear—or Henry’s?

  Both, I thought. But for Henry, fear was perhaps the least of it. As he looked on his Protector, I felt his envy and loyalty and hero worship—and also an onslaught of misery, like a heavy, soaking rain.

  Scargrave spoke with scrupulous care to his King. “In no way do I wish to rush you, sire. Indeed, if Your Majesty has reconsidered the plan of receiving these reports directly, rather than accepting a summary through me, then I shall be only too happy—no? You are quite sure? Seventeen is, after all, very young.”

  Henry’s revulsion was so quick and fleeting that I barely registered it. “I am quite sure.”

  Scargrave nodded at a lanky man in velvet. “Very well, then. Lord Winship?”

  Winship bowed low before Henry. “If it please Your Majesty.”

  “You may begin,” Henry said.

  Shuffling his papers, Winship began reading as the delegation fanned out behind him. “Herein is offered an account of the arrests made in the King’s name in the month of October: For treasonous speech against the King and his advisers, four hundred and fifteen arrests. For treasonous writings, one hundred and twenty-eight. For illegal assembly, three hundred and ninety-one. And for suspicion of treasonous conspiracy, one hundred and twelve. These were passed forward to the usual authorities, and the usual methods of interrogation were employed.”

  Although Winship recited these statistics in a cheery tone, I could feel King Henry’s revulsion returning and deepening.

  “Threats alone were enough to break fully a third of the prisoners,” Lord Winship continued, “while being held to the flame elicited full confessions from most of the others. The rest were, of course, given to the Shadowgrims, with excellent results. After a quarter-hour confinement, thirteen prisoners confessed everything; by then, of course, their confessions were not necessary, since the Shadowgrims had gleaned the relevant information. Subsequently, these prisoners were punished according to their crimes.”

  My horror was mirrored by Henry’s own.

  Winship, however, was still buoyant. “Of the remaining prisoners, all but two died in the presence of the Shadowgrims—some almost instantly, others after some time—thereby eliminating their dangerous persons from the kingdom. In every case, vital information was gleaned by the Shadowgrims before the prisoners’ demise. The two prisoners who survived have become the Ravens’ Own. They have joined the personal guard of the Lord Protector to the great benefit of all parties.” Lord Winship looked up from his notes. “I believe that is everything, Your Majesty.”

  “As you can see, we have matters well in hand, sire,” Lor
d Scargrave said. “It was a typical month, except for the rise in those attempting illegal assembly. We are looking into that, and it will soon be brought under control.”

  Henry’s hands twisted. And this is all done in my name.

  “Your Majesty?” Scargrave inquired. “Are you well?”

  I felt Henry’s despair. And then, faint but real, a spark of rebellion.

  “I have a question,” he said.

  Lord Winship’s self-satisfaction faltered. “A question about my report, Your Majesty?”

  “Yes.” At last, Henry sounded like a king. “Were all those arrests necessary?”

  Winship stammered a reply. “Oh, er, yes . . . indeed . . . I suppose . . .”

  Scargrave’s brow creased in irritation, but he spoke gently to Henry, as if humoring him. “Of course they were necessary, Your Majesty. As you have heard, we have the confessions to prove it.”

  Henry put out a hand. “I want to see the papers.”

  Scargrave leaned forward. “There is no need—”

  I could feel Henry’s heart pounding, but he persisted. “As your King,” he said to Winship. “We demand to see the papers.”

  With an apologetic look at Scargrave, Winship handed them over.

  “Your Majesty, this is highly irregular,” Scargrave said, his anger well controlled but visible. “As I have said before, there is a time and place for everything—”

  “This arrest here.” Henry’s hand shook as he pointed to the lines, but his voice was steady. “It says that the man complained about the price of bread, nothing more. But he was arrested for treason.”

  “If you will allow me, Your Majesty.” Scargrave took the papers from Henry. “Ah, yes. I remember now. That was indeed how it started, with a complaint about prices.”

  “That is not treason,” Henry said.

  “It is how treason starts. A complaint about prices is a complaint about the King’s policies—a complaint, in essence, about the King himself.”

  “But he was speaking of bread.”

  “He was spreading dissatisfaction and discontent. The merest whisper, you might say—and yet it takes only a tiny flame to start a fire. And like flames, such whispers can lead to disaster. They swell and grow and embolden others, until at last the murmur becomes a shout, and people are baying like madmen for the King’s blood.”