Chantress Alchemy (13 page)

Sybil caught me looking at them. “So many flowers!” She bent down to smell some violets, then glanced at me, eyes laughing. “Though not half as many as you received yourself, I hear.”

I was still taking in all her own tributes—a comforting sight, especially since many were an exact match of mine. Perhaps I had not been singled out after all. Or at least not as much as I’d feared.

“It seems you had plenty of visitors too,” I said. “And what’s more, yours were clever enough to bring vases.”

“Oh,
they
didn’t think of vases. My maid Joan did.” Sybil’s rich voice rang out like a bell. “Joan?”

Wizened as a dried crabapple, a head popped out from behind a small connecting door.

“Ah, there you are.” Sybil threw her arm around the tiny woman. “Come and meet the Lady Chantress, if you please. Do you remember when she came to visit us, years ago? Or no—you were with Aunt Goring that summer, weren’t you?”

So Joan couldn’t prove or disprove Sybil’s story. How frustrating. I wished yet again that Norrie were here; she would have known the truth of the matter. After all, Sybil had claimed she had come on the visit too.

Which, come to think of it, was a great point in Sybil’s favor. Why make such a claim if Norrie could disprove it once she arrived? I felt myself relax a little.

“A pleasure to meet you, my lady.” Wrinkles deepening as she drew closer, Joan bobbed a curtsy.

I flushed. I’d had people curtsy to me at Court last year, after Scargrave’s defeat, but I still wasn’t used to it. I turned to Sybil, feeling clumsy and out of my element—and badly dressed as well. In bright midday light, it was all too obvious that I had outgrown my mulberry silk. Sybil, in her billowing curves of satin, looked far more elegant.

Sybil gave no sign that she noticed any difference between us. “Come and have something to eat,” she urged me. “I’ve biscuits here and currant buns, and a basket of fruit. Do you like grapes? Peaches?”

Her side table, overflowing with delicious tidbits, would have tempted even someone far less hungry than I.

“Is that a pineapple?” The fruit was so rare that I’d only tasted it once before, when I’d been King Henry’s guest last year.

“Yes.” Sybil’s cheeks turned rosy as she laughed. “King Henry sent it—I think as a way of making amends for our prolonged stay here. I haven’t a knife big enough to cut it, though. Not here. Perhaps you’d prefer an apple instead?” She held one out to me, bloodred and perfect.

It looked almost too good to be real—and despite Sybil’s warmth, I couldn’t entirely forget Nat’s warning. I needed to be on my guard.

“I’ll have this orange instead.” Still in its peel, plucked from the bowl at random, it seemed a safer bet than a hand-picked apple.

But it seemed my fears had been overblown, for Sybil accepted my choice with cheerful good grace. “Please, take whatever you like.” She handed me a plate and turned to Joan. “I’m so sorry, but I’m afraid Aunt Goring’s run out of red silk for her embroidery. She wants you to run some more down to her.”

Joan rummaged through a sewing basket. “I told her she’d need more.” With another small bob to me, she left.

I took a bun from the basket—Sybil had already eaten several, to judge from the crumbs—and added it to my plate. Seating myself in an embroidered chair, I smiled at Sybil. While I was here, I might as well try and learn as much about her as possible.

“I don’t think I’ve met your aunt,” I said.

“She has the adjoining room to mine. But she’s out now. Working on her everlasting embroidery and drumming up
a match for me while she’s at it, no doubt.” For the first time, Sybil’s laugh sounded strained.

“You don’t care for the prospects she has in mind?”

“It’s not that I don’t care for them, exactly. It’s just that it’s hard to have her hawking me about like a prize cow.” Sybil deepened her voice to an auctioneer’s patter:
“Finest cow in three counties, of excellent breeding and fortune, comes with her own golden bridle . . .”

She caught my eye and grinned. “Well, I suspect Aunt Goring doesn’t put it quite like that. . . . Still, it’s a humiliation to know that she’s flogging my charms to anyone who will listen.” She shook her head. “But what am I doing, complaining to you? At least I don’t have the entire Council talking about me as if I were a brood mare.”

My hands stilled on the half-peeled orange.

Sybil touched her hand to her lips. “Oh dear. That came out all wrong. And now I’ve offended you.”

“I’m not offended.” I started peeling the orange again. After all, what she’d said was no more than the truth. “I’m just . . . surprised. I didn’t know the Council’s plans for me were common knowledge.”

“I’m afraid it’s the talk of the Court.” Brightly, she added, “But I don’t believe it’s reached most of London yet. Or so Aunt Goring says. And she should know, as she’s the worst gossip of them all.”

I winced. It had not even occurred to me that the affair would be discussed in London.

“Don’t take it to heart,” Sybil said. “In the end, it’s just talk, you know.”

“
Just
talk?”

Sybil nodded. “We’re lucky, you know. Most girls have their husbands chosen for them. But you’re like me—you don’t have to marry if you don’t want to.”

It wasn’t as simple as that, I thought, but all I said was, “You don’t?”

“No. I’ve some money from Mama, you see, and a larger inheritance that comes to me when I turn twenty-one, according to Father’s will. I needn’t rush to marry anyone.”

So Sybil was rich. I ought to have guessed that from her beautiful clothes and her confident manner. “And yet your aunt is trying to find you a husband?”

“Oh, Aunt Goring is a born meddler. She and Uncle want me to marry well and give luster to the family name.” Sybil rolled her eyes. “It drives me mad, the way she goes on about it. But what can I do? I’m only seventeen. If I went about on my own, it would be a scandal. And when you come down to it, Aunt Goring’s bark is worse than her bite. She fancies herself a matchmaker, it’s true, but she’s not actually tried to make me marry anybody. And she doesn’t watch me closely; she’s too much of a gadabout for that. If I ever wanted to, I expect I could elope without too much trouble.”

I stopped eating my orange. “And do you? Want to elope, I mean?”

“Heavens, no! I’m not attached to anyone that way.” Sybil blushed. “The men who flock around me are mostly fortune-hunters. I’d rather have my independence.” She cast me an inquiring glance. “Though I hear it’s different with you?”

I carefully freed another section of orange. “Is that part of the gossip too?”

“There’s something between you and Nat Walbrook, isn’t there? Is he as dangerous as he looks?”

“Dangerous?”

“So still and watchful, and yet so sure when he moves. And then there are those eyes, and those shoulders.” She gave a playful shiver. “I noticed him right away—and I’m not the only one, I can assure you. But he’s not one to flirt. I learned that quite quickly. And then I heard about the two of you, and how you were in love, and everything became clear.” She sighed. “It’s
so
romantic.”

I shook my head. “The Council doesn’t think so.”

“Well,” said Sybil, “from their point of view, it’s an unconventional match, you have to admit.”

“Unconventional?”

“Well, he hasn’t much money, has he? And no one knows where he comes from. And he’s not exactly made a name for himself at Court. Last I heard, they nearly kicked him off the Council.”

I bristled.

Sybil saw. “I’m not speaking for myself, my dear. I’m just explaining how the Council sees it. And then, of course, there’s the question of children and magic. That matters very much to the Council too.” She looked at me questioningly. “It doesn’t matter to you?”

“I—I’ve never thought much about it.”

“No?” Sybil dimpled. “Lucky you. I’ve spent half my life listening to talk about children and magic and bloodlines. Mama went on about it endlessly.”

Did she, indeed? I leaned forward. Maybe it was unwise to expose my own ignorance, but how was I to learn anything if I didn’t take some chances? Besides, it was time I turned the tables: I wanted to be the one asking the questions, not answering them.

“Sybil, is it true what they say?” I asked. “Can a Chantress only pass on her magic if she marries a man with Chantress blood?”

Sybil shot me a puzzled look. “You don’t know? No one ever explained it to you?”

“No.” My mother’s brief letter had not mentioned Chantress marriage. Nor had my godmother said anything about it. Though come to think of it, Lady Helaine had taken a great interest in ancestors and bloodlines. Perhaps this was why.

I lowered my voice. “Tell me everything you can, please. I need to understand how it works.”

Sybil was happy to explain matters to me. “A great deal depends on the Chantress’s magic, you know. If she has a tremendous amount—as they used to, in the old days—then her daughters will have magic too, even if the father is of ordinary lineage. It won’t be as strong in them, however, and that’s the trouble. Eventually the blood gets so weak that the magic is lost altogether.”

“Is that what happened in your family?”

“Yes. My grandmother had magic, but only a little, and when she married out, that was the end of it. Her daughters—my mother and her sister—had none.”

“You mean the magic is gone from your family forever?”

She nodded. “I must say, it ate away at Mama. She married my father in part because he had Chantress lineage—quite a few old families do—and when I was born, she was convinced I would be a Chantress. But our family’s ability to work magic is truly gone, even if it took Mama a long time to accept that.” She took a biscuit and asked curiously, “What about you? Did your mother marry in?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if
she
knew. My father died before I was born.” Was it all right to tell her this? I wasn’t sure. But it wasn’t as if it revealed very much.

“Who was he?”

“His name was John.” I only knew that because of what my mother had written in her letter. “He was a music teacher, my mother said.”

Sybil’s eyes widened. “A music teacher? And your mother was being raised by Lady Helaine Audelin? That
was
daring.”

“She was a daring sort of woman, I think.” Once again, I wished—oh, how I wished!—that I had known her better.

“She loved him?”

“Yes.” That had come through in every brief word she’d written about him.

“That must have helped, then. And a musician, too: that’s good. They’re more likely to have Chantress blood, you know.” She looked at me appraisingly. “Maybe that’s why you’re so powerful.”

“Maybe.” I had always thought of my magic as coming from
my mother. It was disconcerting to think it might have come through my father’s line too.

“Anyway, you can see why the Council is so worked up about finding you the right husband. Marry the wrong man, and your daughters might have half the power you do—or possibly no power at all. It’s an awful gamble, from their perspective.”

“But what if I only have sons? Has the Council thought about that?”

“I suppose they would expect you to keep trying for a daughter—just as they expect a queen to keep trying for a son. But yes, sometimes a Chantress has only sons, or no children at all. And it certainly would be a disappointment to the Council if that happened.” Thoughtfully she added, “It used to be, of course, that a Chantress with no daughters could choose to give her power instead to a male with Chantress blood. Mama told me that Chantresses sometimes passed on their magic to sons that way. But that doesn’t happen anymore. I suppose it’s another part of Chantress lore that’s been lost.”

“Male Chantresses?” I shook my head, not sure how much of this to believe. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“That’s because they don’t exist,” Sybil said. “In men, the power comes out differently; they’re not spell-singers, but wizards. Very powerful wizards. Or so Mama told me, anyway.” She sighed. “Not that you could believe everything Mama had to say about magic. Half of it was hearsay, and the rest . . . well, she had some rather odd friends, if I do say so myself.”

“Oh? Who were they?” I tried to sound as if I didn’t care much about the answer, but Nat’s voice was a whisper in my mind:
She and her mother lived on the Continent. . . . Nobody knows much about her. . . .

“You mean
what
were they.” Sybil grimaced. “Fortune-tellers, card-readers, conjurers, prophets, even a few alchemists. If they said they had magic, Mama made time for them. Though, of course, when it came to Chantresses, it was Mama herself who was the expert. Not just because of the family connection, you understand, but because she had made such a study of them.”

As Sybil pushed the last of the biscuits my way, I went back to the word that had caught my ears. “What were the alchemists like?”

She grinned. “A rather tiresome lot, to be honest. Always going on about their metals and transitions and distillations and whatnot. And endlessly wheedling whatever money they could get from Mama for their experiments. They would have killed to get hold of Sir Isaac’s crucible. I can’t tell you how happy I was to leave them behind.”

“And now you’re surrounded by alchemists again.”

She gave a wry laugh. “So I am. It seems they’re my fate. Though I will say the alchemists here are a much more impressive bunch than the ones who followed Mama about. A pity they’ve lost their crucible, though.” She touched my sleeve. “Is it true you’re going to find it for them? That’s what Aunt Goring says.”

“That’s what they’d like me to do, yes.” I picked my words with care, determined not to reveal any weakness. “They were hoping I could find it instantly, but my songs . . . well, that’s not the way they work.”

Sybil nodded sympathetically. “I remember Grandmama telling me that all the best finding songs had been lost. People think Chantresses can do anything, though. They don’t understand that our magic has limits.” She stopped herself. “I mean Chantress magic, of course.”

“The Council certainly doesn’t,” I said.

“You’ve only tried songs, then?” Sybil asked. “Nothing else?”