Silence—but this time an encouraging one.
Taking that as my cue, I stepped away from Wrexham and waved them all back. “Give me space and quiet.”
When they all obeyed, even Wrexham, I felt a small glow of satisfaction.
Now, however, came the hard part. I must sing.
I did not want to close my eyes. Indeed, with Wrexham standing so close, hand on hilt, I could hardly bear to. But I knew I must, to have any hope of hearing whatever real music was in the room—for I was still hoping, desperately, that a miracle would occur, and my magic would come back in time to save me.
I listened long and hard. Every time I was about to open my eyes, I heard faint fragments of discord, so ghostly I feared they might be coming from my own imagination. I pursued them anyway, to no avail.
Eyes still closed, I heard sighs and the shuffling of feet. The audience was growing restive.
My heart thudded. I must sing something—if not real magic, then something that sounded like it. Yet where was I to begin? Always before it was the song that had told me where to start. Now I had only the evasive notes in the air around me, and I did not dare to use even those. My experience with the mist song had reminded me that Wild Magic was as wild as its name; it had a violent energy that could destroy everything in its path—including me.
Instead, I drew on my memory of the drills and exercises my godmother had forced me to learn last year as part of my training. They were not themselves magic; they were meant simply to build my strength and teach me technique. I had loathed them at the time. Now I patched bits and pieces of them together and concocted something I hoped would pass as a Chantress song.
The melody I improvised had nothing of the strength of a true song-spell, or its beauty, or its complexity, and as I sang it, my fears began to grow. Would Wrexham see through me? Would the Council know me for a fraud? Did I have any hope of fooling them?
The notes wobbled in my throat. I cut the song off and opened my eyes.
They were all watching me, fear and awe in every face. Even Sybil watched me with wide eyes.
“The room holds tight to its secrets,” I said. “But I have charmed something from it.” I walked to the wall, my cloak sweeping behind me, and pressed my hand to a place I had spied earlier, where the joinery was slightly out of line. To my relief, the panel gave way, revealing a small cupboard in the wall. “It happened here.”
A few in the crowd looked impressed, but not Wrexham and his closest allies.
“This is your magic?” Lord Roxburgh sneered. “You tell us nothing but what is already known.”
“Ah, but did you know this?” I took a deep breath. “The attacker was the thief who stole the crucible.” I was only guessing, but it seemed a reasonable deduction. “And he—or she—was acting on someone else’s behalf.”
“Someone else?” My words caught Wrexham by surprise. “Who?”
“I cannot say for certain; the magic is not so exact. I can only tell you this: there is a queen involved, a queen who wants to do the King harm.”
It was the best I could do with the picture I had seen in the scrying water. Was it enough?
“Which queen?” someone cried.
“That I do not know . . . ,” I began.
The room dissolved into bedlam.
“The Queen of France!” someone shouted. “She’s intriguing with the Scots again, and she’s sent her spy into our court.”
“What about the Queen of Spain?” another argued. “Those Spaniards have always had it in for us.”
“Depend upon it, it’s Queen Mariana,” someone else agreed. “She wants the Philosopher’s Stone for herself, to cure her sickly son.”
“What about Christina of Sweden?” Lord Roxburgh suggested. “She’s a devotee of alchemy, we all know that. And the Swedish treasury is almost as depleted as ours is.”
“Queen Christina?” Gabriel shook his head. “Never. She’s always been the King’s friend.”
Lord Roxburgh’s beady eyes flickered over him. “You are quick to defend her, Lord Gabriel. But then you spent a great deal of time at her court. Four years, was it?”
“And what of it?” Gabriel sounded flustered. As others turned to stare at him, all with the same considering look in their eyes, he added heatedly, “I trained with the alchemists in Queen Christina’s court, it’s true. But that doesn’t make me her spy. I’m the King’s man, I swear.”
Gabriel, a traitor working for the Swedish queen? Was that the truth that lay behind the picture I’d seen?
Others evidently thought so. Wrexham wheeled on Gabriel, as if ready to wrestle him to the ground.
“Is this the traitor, Chantress?” he asked.
“I do not know.” For all my suspicions about Gabriel, I wasn’t prepared to condemn him on such flimsy evidence. “The magic could not give me a name.”
Next to Lord Roxburgh, a bewigged man spoke up: my dinner companion, Lord Ffoulkes. “It could be the girl.”
At first I thought he meant me, but he pointed to Sybil. “She was brought up in France, wasn’t she? She could be working for the French queen.”
Sybil gasped. “I’m not. I swear I’m not. I’ve never even met the queen.”
“Miss Dashwood was sleepwalking when the King was attacked,” Lord Roxburgh pointed out. “Or so the Chantress says.” He looked at me.
“Yes.” I couldn’t back away from that lie now; I was in too deep. But Ffoulkes’s suspicions chimed with my own doubts about Sybil. It seemed all too possible that she might be a French spy.
The others, however, had gone back to watching Gabriel.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he snapped, all trace of his lazy grin gone. “I’m not the man you want.”
“Then who is?” Lord Roxburgh demanded.
“It could be anyone.” His eyes almost black in the torchlight, Gabriel pointed at his accusers. “One of you standing here, perhaps. Or perhaps none of us at all. It could be a servant—”
“A foreign queen choosing an English servant as her agent?” Lord Roxburgh inquired. “That seems most unlikely.”
“They could be masquerading,” Gabriel argued. He stopped short, as if a new thought had struck him. “Or perhaps what the Chantress saw wasn’t a foreign queen at all. Perhaps it was Boudicca. I’ve heard that’s what some of her followers call her: the Queen of the People.”
Boudicca? From the expressions on the faces around me, I wasn’t the only one surprised by the suggestion.
“Is that possible, Chantress?” Wrexham demanded.
I thought back to the picture I had seen. Neither figure had looked like anyone I knew, so what had made me so certain the woman was a queen? The gold circlet on her head, no doubt—but that did not mean she was a queen by blood. She might be merely a self-proclaimed queen, like Boudicca. “I suppose it is possible, yes.”
A tense quiet settled over the room.
Wrexham eyed Gabriel, then scowled at me. “It is not enough, Chantress. We need to know more.”
My stomach tightened. I had no more to offer. “That is all I saw, my lord.”
“Then sing again.”
“My lord, I don’t think—”
“I’m not asking you to think!” he shouted. “You will sing for us, do you understand? You will sing your throat raw, if that’s what it takes to find the traitor.”
Panic robbed me of breath. He wanted the impossible, and he was willing to break me to get it. And this time I truly could see no way out. Having forced me to work “magic” once, he would ask for it again and again, until at last the truth would become plain. I would be revealed as a lying Chantress, a Chantress who had worked false magic, a Chantress who had no true power.
What would Wrexham do to me then?
“My lord Earl!” A guard shot into the room.
“Not now,” Wrexham snarled, barely sparing him a glance.
He didn’t fall back. “Begging your pardon, my lord, but you asked us to find Nathaniel Walbrook
.”
I’d been relieved by the interruption, but now I tensed in apprehension. Wrexham had sent guards after Nat?
The pale Viking eyes swung away from me. The guard had Wrexham’s attention now.
“You mean you’ve found him?” Wrexham asked.
“No . . . that is, not quite, my lord. We have one witness—a footman—who saw him headed in this direction. That was some time ago, but it’s all we have to go on. I’ve given my men orders to search the rooms here. Including this one, with your permission.”
“What is there to search?” Wrexham demanded irritably. “We’d have seen Walbrook if he were here.”
The guard looked abashed.
“Unless—” Wrexham’s eyes narrowed as he looked again at the cupboard where the King had seen the crucible. “Unless there are other hidden compartments in this part of the palace, ones big enough to conceal a person. Yes, that is a possibility we must consider. Order your men to knock on all the walls!”
“We’ll help you,” Gabriel cried. Within moments half the Council was tapping at the walls. Less than a minute later, at the guard’s command, the pounding began next door. It was as if a regiment of carpenters had descended on us.
Nat’s secret room, I thought in a panic. They’ll find it. What if he’s in it?
Of course, he could be anywhere. But if he had been seen running this way. . . .
“My lord, we’ve found something!” a guard called from the next room.
When we rushed in, several guards were clustered around the place where Nat’s secret room was hidden.
“It’s hollow here,” one of them said. “And if you look in the chamber next door, the walls don’t join up quite right.”
“Then what are you waiting for?” Wrexham roared. “Bash the wall in.”
The guards were more than willing to follow his order. Two pikes smashed into the wall. The panel splintered, revealing Nat’s dark hideaway.
“Light!” Wrexham shouted. “Bring the torches!”
Please don’t let Nat be there, I prayed.
But as the flames came close, I saw him. He was crouched against the farthest reaches of the wall, and his eyes, wild and hunted, searched out mine.
Beside him, glowing red-gold in the torch light, was the crucible.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
RED-HANDED
The guards pushed forward, blocking Nat’s way out—and blocking my view of him. “I didn’t steal it!” I heard him protest. “It was already here when I came in.”
“Arrest him!” Wrexham ordered.
The room erupted into a shouting mass of men.
“No!” I cried out. “He didn’t do it.”
No one heard me. Guards, lords, gentlemen—they were all shoving forward and crying out for Nat’s blood.
“Get the traitor!”
“Hang him!”
“Hie there, you—bring us some rope!”
Rope? Dear heaven, were they planning to hang him right here? Surely they only meant to take him prisoner. . . .
I had to save him somehow. But what could I do without magic?
In a frenzy of frustration, I pushed at the backs of the men who stood in my way. The men did not budge. I can’t even see him, I thought. They’ll kill him for a traitor, and I can’t even see what’s happening.
“They’ve got him!” someone shouted.
The men in front of me shuffled forward, and through a gap I glimpsed Nat. Two guards had him pinioned and were marching him toward the door. Just before they reached the threshold, he stumbled. Blood on his cheek glistened in the torchlight.
“Nat!” I cried out. What had they done to him?
He didn’t rise. The guards leaned over him.
Quick as a hare, he jerked up and knocked the guards off balance. Dodging their flailing arms, he ran free.
“Stop him!” Wrexham cried. But the two guards were still getting their footing. When the others rushed forward, they tripped over them, blocking the doorway for everyone else. By the time the tangle was undone, Nat was out of sight.
“Find him!” Wrexham shouted.
As the guards fanned out, Wrexham wheeled toward me, the crucible in his massive grasp. His free hand came down on my shoulder. “You. Come with me.” He turned to one of the guards. “Alert the soldiers outside. They must keep watch for the traitor on the walls, in the park, on the river—”
“Yes, my lord.”
“And summon the full Council to the Crimson Chamber. Bring the man Penebrygg there under guard. I don’t want him slipping away.” His hand tightened on my shoulder. “The Chantress and I will meet you there.”
† † †
Whatever the guards said to the Council members, it made them act quickly. Within a quarter hour, almost everyone was assembled in the Crimson Chamber, including Penebrygg. Spectacles askew, cap missing, he had been marched into the room by two guards who now stood behind his chair. I was too far away to say anything to him. Indeed, I hardly dared meet his eyes, for Wrexham was watching every move I made.
It was Sir Isaac’s entrance, however, that caused the most stir. White-faced, he tottered through the door.
Sir Samuel rushed up to steady him. “You oughtn’t to have come here, old friend. Not in your condition.”
Sir Isaac grabbed Sir Samuel’s arm for support. “Bother my condition. Wrexham, is it true? Have you found the crucible?”
“We have,” Wrexham said. “And I swear to you, it will be ringed with guards from this night onward, until your work is done.”
“But where is it?”
Wrexham beckoned forth a cohort of men who had been standing in the corner. “Show the crucible to Sir Isaac.”
The men trotted around the table, carrying a chest. When they opened this before Sir Isaac, he looked as if he were about to faint.
“It is the crucible. It truly is. God be thanked.” As he touched its smooth side, his voice shook. “Where did you find it?”
Wrexham recounted what had happened. Those who had not witnessed the turn of events for themselves—Sir Isaac, Sir Samuel, and Penebrygg—looked shocked.
“I can hardly believe it,” Sir Isaac said. “I know Nat was no fan of alchemy, but to stoop to such infamy . . .”
“He wouldn’t.” Penebrygg shook his head vehemently. “I raised the lad; I know him through and through. He’s not a murderer. And he wouldn’t steal the crucible.”
Sir Samuel looked torn. “But what about the evidence? He was caught red-handed—”
“He didn’t do it!” I had to speak, even though I was half-afraid Wrexham would muzzle me. “Dr. Penebrygg is right. We know him, none better, and he wouldn’t do this.”
“Nonsense,” Lord Roxburgh said. “He was found with the crucible. We all saw it. And everyone knows he was against the alchemy work.”
“But he told you he was,” I said. “The real thief would never dare be so open. Nat is innocent. He must be.”
“He’s guilty as Judas, Chantress.” Wrexham pounded the table as he delivered his verdict. “You saw him there with the crucible.”
“It could have been planted on him,” Penebrygg said.
Wrexham dismissed this. “How, when no one else knew the room existed?”
“What about the queen?” I said, scrambling for any point in Nat’s favor. “The magic told me there was a queen involved.”
“And who’s to say there isn’t?” Lord Roxburgh put in. “Perhaps the boy is working for a foreign queen—or for Boudicca. Of the two, I’d say Boudicca is more likely. We all know he comes from base blood himself.”
“His blood has nothing to do with it!” I rose from my chair in anger. “I tell you he isn’t working for any queen. If he were, I would know it—”
“Would you, Chantress? And how exactly would you know?” Wrexham leaned in close, and I saw rage in his eyes. “Have you been seeing him in secret?”
I opened my mouth, but no words came out.
“God’s bloody bones
!” Wrexham’s rage spread, reddening his cheeks, twisting his mouth. “Understand this, Chantress: you will not be seeing him again. Not until you see him put to death like the traitor he is. For we will hunt him down, have no doubt about that. We will hunt him and capture him; he will be drawn and quartered. And you will be there to see his head tarred and spiked and set high on London Bridge.”
“No.” I would not listen. I would not let myself picture it. “No.”
“You will be there because I tell you to be.” Wrexham’s fist slammed into the table again. “The women of my house do not disobey me.”
My mouth went dry. Surely I had not heard him right. Surely I had misunderstood. “The women . . . of your house?” I repeated.
“Has no one told you yet?” Wrexham leaned close, his breath hot on my cheek, his eyes burning with malice. “The Council has come to an agreement about your marriage: you are to become my wife.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
CONJURINGS
I stared back at Wrexham in disbelief.
“I recall no such decision by the Council,” Penebrygg protested from far down the table.
“The Inner Council settled the matter this very night,” Wrexham said without taking his eyes off me. “We are agreed: in these dangerous times, the Chantress requires the protection and steadiness that a man of my years and position can offer.”
The room was quiet.
So it was true. They were marrying me off to Wrexham. The horror of it nearly swallowed me whole.
“You don’t even like me,” I whispered, looking into his perfect, hateful face.
“Liking has nothing to do with it,” he said coldly. “I had thought to save you for my son, but we need a more immediate solution. The kingdom has a pressing need for Chantresses who respect authority—as I assure you our daughters will do.”
Our daughters? I wanted to retch.
“You can’t do this,” I said.
“I can, and I will. And I will not suffer you to disobey me.” Wrexham’s fists tightened as he motioned to the men standing at the door. “Guards, I fear the Chantress is unwell. Escort her to her rooms—and watch over her.”
Chantress Alchemy Page 17