Chantress Alchemy (26 page)

“The woman is a traitor, Your Majesty. She deserves to die!”

There was no time to think, no chance to run. The doors to the Great Hall stood open. Propelled by the guards, I flew straight through them. Torches blazed everywhere. The guards halted and fanned out.

I stood alone before the dais where Wrexham and the King awaited me. They stood shoulder to shoulder, like comrades in battle, although only Wrexham was dressed in armor. Margery was nowhere to be seen.

The King motioned me forward. Willing myself to be strong, I stepped onto the dais.

“My lady Chantress,” the King said hoarsely, “we have been waiting for you.”

Whatever Margery and Wrexham had said about me, I was determined to stand up for myself. “I have done nothing wrong, Your Majesty. I swear it.”

I saw surprise in the King’s face. “No one suggested you had.”

Next to him, Wrexham narrowed his eyes, but spoke no words of accusation.

Was my secret safe, then? Was this about something else entirely? “Then why have I been brought here?”

“Because we have an enemy at our throats.” Wrexham spat the name out: “Boudicca.”

Not me
. That was all I could think at first, with relief so powerful it overwhelmed everything. Margery must have kept her own counsel after all. Or perhaps she hadn’t overheard anything in the first place.

The King was speaking to me.

“Lord Wrexham’s scouts report that she has been using black magic against us,” he was saying. “They say also that she aims at the throne.”

“Black magic?” I was startled. “Are you sure?”

“Do you doubt my scouts?” Wrexham growled. “They say whole villages empty out and follow her as she passes—as if she were the Devil, and they were dancing to her tune. And she’s used her magic to creep up on us too. There was much fog along the river today, perfect cover for their crossing. An hour ago, our scouts spied her only two miles from here—with over three thousand men.”

Proof of magic? Not to me. Hunger and desperation might account for the followers, and fog was hardly unknown on these reaches of the Thames.

The King looked a little doubtful too.

“Do you have any other evidence of magic?” I asked Wrexham. I was wary of setting off his temper, but I hoped he would keep himself in check in front of the King.

“What more do you need?” Wrexham’s armored fist clenched. “We ought to have crushed her right at the start.” He turned to
the King. “But better late than never, Your Majesty. Now that you’ve given me leave, I’ll give her the beating she deserves. Her magic will be no match for my strength.”

“You must not be the first to attack, Wrexham,” the King rasped out. “I don’t doubt your courage or your skill, but I meant what I said. Perhaps there is still a possibility of parley.”

“Parley? At this stage, when she has us nearly surrounded?” Wrexham could barely restrain his temper. “Your Majesty, this is a war—”

“We cannot be sure of that,” the King said, his words ragged but emphatic. “Lady Chantress, is there anything you can do to bring Boudicca to the table?”

As he and Wrexham looked to me for an answer, Sir Isaac mounted the dais and joined us.

“Not at such a distance,” I temporized.

“If you were closer, perhaps,” the King suggested.

“There is no time for that, Your Majesty.” Sir Isaac still looked rather white and drawn, but his hands had a firm grip on the metal box that held Flamel’s papers. “It is almost time to begin the Great Work. We cannot spare her.”

The King nodded reluctantly. “No, I suppose we cannot.”

Wrexham pressed his case. “Your Majesty, trust me: Boudicca means to kill you. My agents are not mistaken on that point. If we cannot dispatch her, we look like fools indeed.”

“If we shoot her in cold blood, we look like tyrants,” the King said. Dark welts and bruises ringed his throat like shadows. “Do not fire first. If it’s food she’s after and not the throne, then all will
be well. When the Great Work succeeds, we should have more than enough to make all parties happy.”

“Very well,” Wrexham conceded. “Instead of killing her, I’ll capture her.”

The King eyed him with concern. “Perhaps I should ride with you.”

Both Wrexham and Sir Isaac looked alarmed.

“Your Majesty, your life is far too valuable to be risked this way,” Sir Isaac said. “And you will only inflate Boudicca’s pretensions if you yourself battle her.”

“And they are already too great as it is,” Wrexham said. “We’ll soon show the old woman who’s master. She may have the advantage of numbers, but we are trained warriors. Truly, Your Majesty, the battle will be over before it’s begun. There is no need for you to be there.”

“Whereas we could indeed use your talents in the laboratory,” Sir Isaac said. “I must bring the Chantress there now. Will you not accompany us?”

The King inclined his head; the circle of bruises darkened. “If you need me, I will come.”

Sir Isaac bowed. “We should be grateful, Your Majesty.”

“Wrexham.” The King put his hand to the man’s plated shoulder. “I wish you Godspeed. Is there anything more you need from me?”

“One thing only,” Wrexham said. “I want a word with the Chantress.”

“Ah.” The king seemed disconcerted as he looked from Wrexham to me, but then he stepped back, all politeness. “Of course.”

He and Sir Isaac walked to the edge of the dais to confer with
Gabriel, who had just arrived. I was left alone with Wrexham, who closed the gap between us and took my hand, pressing it so hard the bones hurt.

“We shall make our betrothal vows this very day, after my victory,” he said. “And we shall be wed within the week.”

I shuddered. “So soon?”

Wrexham’s cold eyes traced my face. “I am not a patient man, Chantress.” To my astonishment, he jerked my hand up and rammed a thick metal band onto my finger, bruising the tender flesh at the base. “This will do for a ring.”

It was the ring from his own little finger, set with a dead Chantress’s cracked, green stone.

Unable to hide my revulsion, I wrenched my hand away, but I couldn’t claw the ring off. It jammed against my knuckle and sliced into my skin. With a wolfish half smile, Wrexham watched me struggle.

I yanked at the ring again, and this time it twisted off my finger. As I handed it back to him, I saw that he knew exactly how much I hated him, and that the knowledge gave him a strange sort of pleasure.

“Next time you’ll wear it for good,” he said. “The Council approves of my plan, and I know a bishop who will issue the licenses.”

Everyone with power was on his side, I thought in despair. But then I realized there was one person he’d omitted to mention. “And what of His Majesty? Does he approve?”

“He will, once he knows,” Wrexham said robustly. “We’ve had
more pressing matters to discuss. But once I return in triumph, he will deny me nothing.”

He sounded very sure of himself—and why not? Once he’d defeated Boudicca, how could the King turn him down?

But I had a plan too, I reminded myself. If we could make the Stone and it restored my magic, I would have the power to end this dreadful match and to protect Nat, too.

If, if, if . . .

Wrexham turned away from me and saluted the King. Striding out of the hall, he called his men to his side. The entire palace was awake now, a hive of activity despite the darkness. Through the windows came the high whinny of horses being prepared for battle, and then a great shout from Wrexham himself.

“For God!” he bellowed. “For King! For Country!”

His men roared their approval, a sound that shook the palace. They knew, better than anyone, that victory was almost theirs.

“I don’t understand it,” Gabriel said.

I started. I hadn’t realized he was close behind me. “Understand what?”

He gave me a bitter look. “How you could agree to marry Wrexham.”

He thinks I have a choice. And I mustn’t tell him I don’t, or he’ll work out that I have no magic.
“Let’s not waste our time discussing it,” I said. “Aren’t we supposed to be starting the Great Work?”

“Yes.” At the mention of alchemy, Gabriel’s bitterness ebbed slightly. “That’s why I came up here—to fetch you and Sir Isaac. Time’s growing short.”

Evidently Sir Isaac had reached the same conclusion, because he broke away from the King’s side. “Chantress, I must bring you to the laboratory now. We cannot waste another minute.”

He was in too much of a hurry to allow the King to lead the way, but instead ushered me toward the laboratory himself. The King did not seem to mind not taking precedence. Lagging behind, he spoke of alchemical matters with Gabriel, their boots tapping against the clay-tiled floors.

Looking up as we came through a door, I glimpsed Margery in a gallery above me. At the same instant she saw me and turned tail. I stifled an exclamation.

“Are you all right, Chantress?” Sir Isaac asked me.

“I . . . I almost tripped.”

Sir Isaac offered me his arm, but we were approaching the stairs to the laboratory, and my only thought was to get there quickly. Leaving Sir Isaac behind, I raced down the steps.

I was not going to let Margery—or anyone else—stop me.

When the guard saw us coming, he opened the laboratory door. Sir Isaac breezed past him and escorted me into the room.

It was like walking into the Devil’s own dominion. The place reeked worse than ever, and in the vast darkness the great central furnace burned bright as infernal flame. Sweating in a leather smock, Sir Samuel manned the enormous bellows. They wheezed like a mythical beast, as if the fiery furnace were a dragon that might at any moment consume us all.

Sir Isaac set down the box of Flamel’s papers. “Is Dr. Penebrygg here?”

“Up there,” Sir Samuel gasped, pumping hard at the bellows.

At the top of a ladder, Penebrygg was shutting the high windows. Even before they closed, I could hear nothing from the Thames. Had I lost what little hearing I had left? Would my dwindling power put the Great Work in jeopardy?

Please let Sybil be right
, I prayed.
Please let what power I have be enough.

Here and there, the panes of glass caught the red light of the fire, and when Penebrygg waved at us in greeting, his spectacles glowed strangely.

“I have made the necessary observations,” he called out to Sir Isaac. “The conjunction of the planets is almost upon us.”

“Just as I predicted.” Sir Isaac consulted his pocket watch. “We must lose no more time. Lord Gabriel, will you take Sir Samuel’s place at the bellows?”

After Gabriel stripped off his doublet and rolled back his shirtsleeves, Sir Samuel yielded his position with evident relief. Under Gabriel’s steady hands, the bellows rasped faster and faster, and the fire leaped up in response.

Sir Isaac held a candle to the flames with a shaking hand. “We must be able to see the work perfectly.”

He set the lighted candle on a table, and in the bright circle of its light I saw the Golden Crucible. Beside it were other, plainer crucibles, as well as an assemblage of bottles and vials containing mysterious substances.

Sir Isaac saw me looking. “The first part of the Great Work will be done in the ordinary crucibles,” he explained. “It is only the last part—the fourth stage—that requires the Golden Crucible.”

“And that’s when you’ll need me?”

“Precisely. I will require your assistance at a few other points too. Attend closely, and be ready to act as I direct.” He ran a discerning eye over the substances on the table, then called on Sir Samuel to assist him with decanting one bottle into another.

Penebrygg came down from his ladder and joined me as I watched,
his spectacles still glowing in the firelight. “My dear,” he said under his breath, “I am so sorry about what has happened. You and Nat—”

“They haven’t found him?” I whispered in alarm.

“No, no,” Penebrygg said. “There’s a report that he was sighted in London, but he’s not been discovered yet.”

I’d expected him to head to Holland, not London. But perhaps the report was wrong.
Wherever he is, please let him stay safe. Let him stay safe until I can protect him.

“All is in readiness,” Sir Isaac announced. “Your Majesty, will you prepare the copper?”

The King bent to the task, using pincers to place strips of copper in a crucible with Sir Samuel’s help.

“Lord Gabriel, you may leave off pumping,” Sir Isaac said. “The fire is hot enough, and we need you here. Of all of us, you have the steadiest hands.” His own, I saw, were shaking worse than ever. “It is the first stage,” he said as Gabriel came up to us. “You know what to do.”

Gabriel picked up a bottle containing a liquid that looked like water, but that probably wasn’t. With deft hands, he poured a small amount into a marked beaker, then brought the beaker to the copper-filled crucible.

“Wait.” Sir Isaac stopped him. “The Chantress must pour it in. That is what Flamel says: all the female elements must be added by the woman.”

So the watery substance was supposed to be female? It made no sense to me. There was an acrid smell in the air, however, that I thought I remembered.

“Is it aqua fortis?” I asked.

Looking a bit surprised, Sir Isaac nodded. “It is indeed. Lord Gabriel, hand her the beaker.”

Gabriel surrendered it, but only reluctantly. Was he still angry about my supposed arrangement with Wrexham? Or did he simply fear I would ruin the experiment?

Well, I might ruin it, at that. And it could well be my hands that failed me first, and not my lack of magic. The beaker was slippery. What if I dropped it?

“Pour it into the crucible,” Sir Isaac commanded.

This work was second nature to him, but it wasn’t to me. “All at once,” I asked, “or little by little?”

“All at once,” Sir Isaac said, a trifle impatiently. “Take care, however, that you don’t pour so fast that it splashes. It must all stay inside the crucible.”

“If it dribbles over the edge of the beaker,” Sir Samuel added, “it will burn your skin. And once you are done, be sure to step away, for a devilish smoke will rise up from the crucible.”