Chantress

by Amy Butler Greenfield

  It was so easy that I feared there must be a trick. “Through songs?”

  Lady Helaine dusted her palms in irritation. “Don’t answer like a scared little rabbit.”

  I did my best to sound confident. “The magic is worked through songs.”

  “That is correct. Using song-spells, we charm the objects, animals, and plants into doing our bidding.”

  “Only objects, animals, and plants?” I put the question boldly, since that was the tone my godmother admired. “Not people?”

  “Not often, not anymore. Long ago, there were some very remarkable Chantresses who could do it easily. Niniane, for instance, who trapped the wizard Merlin in a rock.” Lady Helaine’s battered voice subsided in a sigh. “But much that was possible for Chantresses in ancient times is utterly beyond us now.”

  “Dr. Penebrygg said that in the old days, Chantresses—”

  Lady Helaine stopped me with a look. “What others have told you is not to be relied upon. When I think of the damage they did to you, encouraging you to remove your stone . . .” Her lips tightened. “You must forget everything they told you and listen only to me. Is that understood?”

  I knew the answer my godmother was expecting. “Yes, Lady Helaine.”

  “Now, as I told you last night, there are two kinds of magic that a Chantress can work. One involves Wild Magic, and that is forbidden. The other is Proven Magic, and that is what I will teach you.” She paused. “But before we begin, let me be sure that I have made the fundamental rule abundantly clear: You must never, ever remove your stone.”

  “I understand.” The stone seemed almost to glow as I spoke. “Is it true that every Chantress has one?”

  “Indeed.”

  “Where is yours?”

  For a moment, I thought that Lady Helaine would not answer.

  But then she reached past her long string of bone beads, under the thick wool of her gown, and drew out a milky-white stone, clouded and cracked.

  “Once it was as clear as your own,” Lady Helaine said. “But see what the Shadowgrims did. When my stone had power, it shone like a diamond, and it was as heavy as gold; now it is dull, and no more weighty than a shell on the shore. The magic in it has gone.”

  “Back on the island, my stone was much duller,” I said. “It wasn’t a ruby then.”

  “That is because you had not begun to use your powers,” Lady Helaine said. “Our stones change and grow with us, you see, for good or ill. Your stone may change yet again, as our lessons in Proven Magic progress.”

  “Those are the safe songs—the ones we can sing with the stones on?”

  “Yes,” Lady Helaine said. “You will learn them by ear, as I did when I was an apprentice.”

  “They aren’t written down?” I asked in surprise. “Like the one Dr. Penebrygg gave us?”

  “Written-out songs are very rare. As a rule, we Chantresses have preferred to learn our songs by ear, one generation passing its wisdom to the next. An unfortunate practice, I must say, for it means that as our power has dwindled and our family lines have fragmented, a great many songs have been lost. My own godmother was in possession of only three song-spells, and none of them worked very well.”

  This did not sound promising. “What did her songs do?”

  “They worked magic on locks. Most Chantresses have a specialty, and that was hers.”

  I was disappointed but tried not to show it.

  Lady Helaine looked askance at me. “You had been hoping for something more exciting? No, do not deny it. I can see that you did. But almost everyone locks away something—their most desperate secrets, their dearest treasures. So a talent for locks is nothing to be sniffed at.” She paused, then added more kindly, “Nevertheless, I am glad to see in you a hunger for something more. When I was your age, I myself had such a hunger, and that ambition was the making of me.”

  I tried to imagine Lady Helaine as a girl—the “great beauty” that Norrie had spoken of. It was difficult.

  “My own godmother did not understand,” Lady Helaine went on. “She told me that locks were my destiny, and that I must accept it. But while I had a greater affinity for locks than for any other objects, I eventually found that I could learn other song-spells too. They did not come easily, but after constant practice, I could work them.”

  “Who taught them to you?”

  “At first, I learned from other Chantresses. But when they realized what I was doing, they turned against me. They were satisfied with what they had, they said, and I should be too.” Lady Helaine’s lips thinned at the memory. “Of course I wasn’t satisfied—why should I have been? The Chantresses of old would never have accepted such limits on their gifts. So I resolved to find another way forward. If present-day Chantresses wouldn’t help me, perhaps the ones of the past would.”

  I felt my neck hairs rise. “You mean . . . you called up the dead?”

  “The dead?” Lady Helaine raised her eyebrows. “What a question, Lucy. I am a Chantress, not a necromancer.” Shaking her head at my foolishness, she said, “I learned about our past as any serious scholar would: through the perusal of old books and manuscripts.”

  “So you studied grimoires—like the one that was given to Scargrave?”

  “Oh, that one I never saw, believe me,” Lady Helaine said bitterly. “Agnes never told me she had that book in her possession, though much trouble would have been saved if she had. As it was, I could only locate scraps of what I wanted: the outlines of a song-spell here, the notation of a melody there. But over time I found enough that I could begin to reconstruct the ancient ways. It required great dedication, however, as well as patience and perseverance. Not to mention endless attention to detail.”

  I nodded because it seemed Lady Helaine expected me to.

  She fixed me with a cool stare. “Can I find such qualities in you, I wonder? Because you will need them, of that you can be sure. I will teach you all that I know and remember, but I cannot work a single particle of magic myself. That will be entirely up to you. And it will be harder than you can imagine.”

  I met her searching gaze head-on. “Whatever you teach me, I will learn.”

  “Then let your hands fall to your side, and do as I say.”

  I obeyed, eager to learn my first song-spell. But what my godmother had in mind was something much more basic than singing.

  She looked straight into my eyes. “I must teach you how to breathe.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  BREATHING

  It was no small matter to learn a new way of breathing. The unthinking inhalation, the easy release—I had to forget these, my godmother informed me. From now on, my every breath would require thought and precision.

  I strained to follow Lady Helaine’s instructions, but as the hours wore on, I started to feel as if I were drowning.

  “Not so quickly,” she snapped as I exhaled. “Don’t pant like a dog.” And then, a moment later, “No, not like that, either. You sound like a broken bagpipe.”

  All afternoon it went like this, until at last Lady Helaine released me. “You begin to grasp the rudiments, I see. Practice every chance you have. Practice even while you sleep, if you can. We will resume our lessons when you have mastered this.”

  Left alone, I collapsed in a chair, feeling almost as if I’d declared war on myself. To breathe in the normal way seemed the greatest luxury in the world, and now it was denied me. My throat was on fire; my chest felt like a clapped-out bellows. I stared at the black stove and wondered: Could any magic possibly be worth so much pain?

  Yes. The answer came from the core of me. A safe magic was worth any price. Anything to avoid being at the ravens’ mercy again! And that’s what Lady Helaine was offering me: a safe way to sing. Somehow I must find the courage and the resolve to learn it.

  Determined to show myself willing, I practiced with all my might, taking care to breathe in the strange new fashion during my waking hours—which were many, especially since I was worried sick about No
rrie.

  I was still breathing in the new way, with mixed success, when Nat called on us two days later.

  The moment he came in the door, I asked, “How is Norrie?” It was awful, not knowing.

  “She’s well,” he said to my relief. “As soon as we came in view of a window, she got better, and now she’s cooking up a storm for Penebrygg and me. She misses you very much, of course—to the point that she’s almost prepared to brave the tunnel again. But I think it’s best if she doesn’t.”

  “I agree.” I didn’t want to put her through that again. “Tell her I miss her terribly too, but she should stay where she is.”

  “That I will.” Nat secured the door and looked around. “Where’s Lady Helaine?”

  “Asleep. We were up late last night.”

  “Oh.” He stayed near the door, looking a bit disconcerted. “Maybe this isn’t the best time for a lesson, then?”

  “I don’t mind.” But as we settled down by the firebox, I smelled the breath of autumn on him—the last of the leaves, the smoke of London, and a sharp, apple-scented tang utterly alien to this cramped cellar room. It threw my breathing off, and I coughed and gasped.

  Nat raised his eyebrows. “Swallow something wrong?”

  “Not exactly,” I answered. Though he looked interested, I did not say anything more. Learning magic was hard enough as it was, without trying to explain it to someone who hated it. Moreover, Lady Helaine had made it clear that such matters were not to be discussed with all and sundry.

  Instead, I concentrated on breathing slowly and steadily as Nat instructed me on the Tower of London and the various detachments of Warders and Ravens’ Own that guarded it.

  “The grimoire is in Scargrave’s Chamber,” he said, “which is in the very lowest level of the White Tower, very close to where the Shadowgrims are kept. Not far away is a chamber you’ll want to avoid: the Feeding Room.”

  “The Feeding Room?” I didn’t like the sound of that.

  “It’s where they keep the prisoners they give to the Shadowgrims.”

  I had to concentrate to keep my breathing even, but Nat didn’t notice.

  “Its walls are ten feet thick,” he said. “Here, I’ll draw you a map of the whole Tower.”

  As he worked, I thought only about breathing. (Not the Feeding Room, not the Feeding Room . . .) But when I finally looked down at the sketch he’d drawn, complete with cutaway views and concealed doors and overlooked passageways, I drew a different kind of breath entirely: one of astonishment. He had an artist’s hand and an artist’s eye, and the sketch was a thing of beauty.

  “How did you do that?” I asked.

  “Do what?”

  “Remember everything, and set it down so precisely.” I traced the edge of the sketch with my finger. “It’s like a tiny, perfect world.”

  He turned to me, clearly startled by my praise. I again felt a strong current pass between us, as if we were something more than reluctant allies—as if we somehow knew each other through and through.

  But that was nonsense . . .

  He looked away. “A dangerous world, more like.” He pushed the sketch toward me, though he was careful, as always, not to come too close. “Best if you can commit it to memory. Start now, and I’ll quiz you on it when I come back.”

  I gathered myself together and started to practice proper breathing again. “When do you come back?”

  “Saturday,” he said. “Look for me.”

  He’d touched on a sore point. I felt the windowless room press in on me. “How can I look for you when I’m stuck underground like this?”

  Was that a glint of sympathy in his eyes? “I’ll be here anyway,” he promised.

  When I looked up from the drawing again—so exact, so delicate—he was gone.

  † † †

  At last, after a wearisome fortnight of breathing practice, Lady Helaine finally allowed me to progress—but only to endless drills in sustaining tones.

  For the first time I heard her voice raised in song. Though confident, with an extensive range, it grated like rusty chains. Had the Shadowgrims destroyed that, too? Or had she always sounded that way? I wondered but decided against asking, as I didn’t think my godmother would take kindly to the question.

  Instead, I kindled notes like fire, fanning them from the faintest flame to a fiery blaze, then banking them down again, or extinguishing them altogether. Note after note after note, the whole day long. It was demanding work but satisfying, because even though I was only singing a single pitch at a time—“no phrases,” Lady Helaine warned me, “no tunes”—the song-spells did not seem far off.

  I was wrong. From sustaining tones, we went to linking notes, and then to trills and glissandos and exercises that traversed up and down the scale.

  Intent on proving myself, I attacked each challenge with outward vigor, trying not to show my impatience. But inwardly I chafed at each new hurdle. I wasn’t here so that Lady Helaine could make me into a trained musician; I was here so that I could learn magic. But of magic there was not yet the slightest hint.

  Some of the exercises were useful, I was sure. But was it really necessary to tackle them all? Especially now, when the stakes were so high?

  “It is precisely because the stakes are so high that we must take care,” Lady Helaine said crossly when I asked. “Otherwise, your newfound skills will desert you when the crisis comes. You do not want to find yourself at Lord Scargrave’s mercy, do you?”

  I did not.

  Yet although I did my best to tamp down the spirit of rebellion swirling inside me, the lessons seemed more tedious by the hour, and every day dragged. I had to remind myself constantly how fortunate I was to have a way of learning safe magic.

  The fact that I was stuck underground only added to my sense of frustration. Though I never suffered as Norrie had, I understood something of her desolation. After living so close to the open sea, being here was doubly difficult: I thirsted for light and fresh air like a netted fish thirsts for the sea. On good nights, I dreamed I was back on the island again, the western wind tugging at my hair, the ocean bright as the sun itself. On bad nights, I dreamed I was being buried alive. Either way, I would wake to the subdued, damp air of the cellars, like an indelible smudge against my face.

  Sometimes I thought I couldn’t bear to sing another note. And yet I did. Not once, but over and over and over again, as Lady Helaine prodded and harangued me, relentless as a general.

  My only respite came during my other lessons—the ones that Nat gave me.

  † † †

  After the first visit, my lessons with Nat took place under the watchful eye of Lady Helaine. Intent and purposeful, he quizzed me on the layout of the Tower, taught me how to use a lockpick, and demonstrated how to move quietly around a room—all within the confines of our crowded quarters. But as Christmastide approached, he told Lady Helaine that to fully instruct me in the art of concealment, it was necessary to go farther afield.

  “At first, we’ll stay here in the cellars,” he said. “Later, we’ll move around the rest of Gadding House.”

  To leave these rooms again, to see the sun—it sounded heavenly to me. Of course, there would be danger, too; I understood that. But the reward seemed worth the risk.

  Lady Helaine narrowed her eyes at Nat. “You are sure this is necessary?”

  “We can’t be forever creeping around here, pretending we’re on turret stairs,” Nat said. “If she enters the Tower without any real practice at lying low, she’ll fail. And this is the best way for her to practice.”

  After some heated discussion, Lady Helaine conceded the point, but only on the condition that she accompany us as chaperone. Together the three of us explored the passageways in the cellars, then made sorties to the dark pantries behind the kitchens. But as I became more and more adept at skirting around staircases and ducking into hiding places, Lady Helaine had trouble keeping up with us. Even so, she would not yield her privileges.

  To m
e, privately, she said over supper one night, “That young man needs watching. I don’t like the way he looks at you.”

  I nearly choked on my pork pie. “Looks at me?”

  “It’s to be expected, I suppose. You’re not exactly a beauty, are you? But you are a Chantress. And he is at a susceptible age.”

  “No.” My face was hot. “You’ve made a mistake. Nat has never looked at me that way.”

  “I know what I saw.”

  “No,” I said again. “It couldn’t be. He only talks to me about the business at hand. And he hates my magic so much he won’t come within a yard of me.”

  This wasn’t quite true, I thought, as I set down the pie. What was true was that Nat seemed preoccupied when I was with him, as though his mind were on other matters. But he was not quite as careful about keeping away from me as he once had been. Once or twice, while we were studying the maps, our fingertips had almost touched. But Nat had not appeared to notice, so that didn’t count.

  “Let us hope I am mistaken,” Lady Helaine said. “But that is rare.”

  “You haven’t said anything to him, have you?” My cheeks grew hot again at the thought.

  Lady Helaine sniffed. “What do you take me for?”

  Well, that was one thing to be thankful for, I thought as I contemplated my plate. I would have died of mortification if she’d confronted Nat with her suspicions. Which, needless to say, were absolutely, positively wrong.

  Fortunately, the more time Lady Helaine spent with us, the more apparent this became to her. So I guessed, at any rate, since she eventually reconsidered her position on the necessity of a chaperone.