Chantress Alchemy (6 page)

“What are you saying?” Wrexham snarled.

“Enough.” The King cut through the exchange. “I have need of both warriors and philosophers at my table. And I would prefer that they not attack each other.”

The argument ceased, but the tension at the table did not.

“I don’t yet understand where the crucible comes in,” I said.

“It’s simple,” Sir Isaac said. “We need money. That’s why we’ve turned to alchemy.”

I sat back in my chair. Alchemy? Could this be the madness that Nat meant?

I stole a quick look at him, but his face seemed calm enough—so calm, in fact, that I wondered if perhaps he was thinking of something else. In any case, it seemed unlikely that alchemy would bother him, now that I thought about it. Last year, he’d mentioned lightheartedly enough that Sir Barnaby had once dabbled in the art.

There was nothing lighthearted, however, about Sir Isaac’s remarks now. He sounded as serious as I’d ever heard him—which was very serious indeed. “Are you at all acquainted with the principles of alchemy?” he asked me.

“I know almost nothing.” Alchemy was said to be an arcane discipline, difficult for a novice to understand. I knew better than to pretend to knowledge I didn’t have.

“Let us begin with the fundamentals, then,” Sir Isaac said. “Our intent is to create the Philosopher’s Stone—”

“Which isn’t actually a stone,” King Henry interrupted. “It’s a red powder. Or sometimes a liquid.”

Already I was feeling confused. A stone that was a liquid? “I thought alchemists wanted to make gold.”

“And that’s exactly what the Stone does,” Sir Isaac said. “It transmutes base metals into pure and dazzling gold, the king of the elements.”

“Some say the Stone can also heal the sick,” the King added. “A few believe it may even confer immortality.”

Sir Isaac shook his head. “With all due respect, Your Majesty, we need not concern ourselves with immortality. As I have said, Flamel’s papers are quite explicit on that point. A long, healthy life, yes. Immortality, no. Such dreams are the stuff of fairy tales, not science. And it is science we are concerned with here.”

“You have papers to guide you?” I asked.

“Yes,” Sir Isaac said. “From Nicholas Flamel—a French alchemist who discovered how to create the Stone three centuries ago. He kept his secrets well hidden, however.” His eyes gleamed above his beaky nose. “Until I came along.”

“You found them?”

“I did indeed. When I was in France last autumn on the King’s business, I took the chance to follow up on a reference in Paracelsus—”

“Another alchemist chap,” Sir Samuel whispered to me. “Wrote books.”

“—and after many twists and turns, it led me to Flamel’s papers about the Stone.” A touch of the old restless energy came
back into Sir Isaac’s eyes as he talked. “A mere seven pages, but they contained the critical information from which the remaining mysteries could be elucidated.”

“Took him a month to work it out,” Sir Samuel murmured in my ear. “He didn’t eat or sleep.”

“So you truly think you can do it?” I asked Sir Isaac. “You can make the Philosopher’s Stone? You can make gold?”

“Under the right conditions, yes. Without question.”

From some, the statement would have been an empty boast, but Sir Isaac was the most gifted member of the Invisible College. Indeed, some said he had the greatest mind in the history of England. He accepted nothing without proof.

“But this is wonderful!” I thought of those hungry children I had seen on the road. If brass could be turned into gold, we would be able to feed them all—and thousands upon thousands more. We could save England from starvation and ruin.

“Wonderful, indeed,” Sir Isaac agreed. “But we cannot succeed without the right equipment. And the most crucial piece has been stolen.”

I was piecing things together. “The Golden Crucible?”

“The very same. It was the instrument Flamel himself used for the work—a rare vessel said to have been created in Egypt over four thousand years ago by the great Hermes Trismegistus, the founder of our alchemical art. Flamel’s missing papers allowed me to locate it, and I brought it back to England. And now it has disappeared, just as our efforts were about to come to fruition.”

“You mean you were about to make the Stone?” I asked.

“In a manner of speaking,” Sir Isaac said. “All was in readiness, but we cannot commence the Great Work—that is, the actual creation of the Stone—until the heavenly bodies are correctly aligned.”

“And when will that be?”

Sir Isaac took out his pocket watch. “Sixty-two hours and thirty-five minutes from now, at dawn on the sixteenth of February. Judging from Flamel’s papers and my own calculations, that is the only time in which the Stone can be made. Another chance will not come again this century. So it is vital that we find the Golden Crucible before then.”

“So soon?” I was taken aback. That was less than three days from now. “And you have no idea who stole it?”

“None.” King Henry took up the tale. “Since our arrival in Greenwich in December, the crucible was kept in the palace Treasury. It has an armed guard and walls six feet thick, so we thought it the safest place. And every night Sir Isaac and I went to check on it.”

“When was it taken?”

“In the small hours of the twenty-ninth of January, sometime between two and a quarter to three. Just before two, one of the Treasury guards saw smoke coming down the corridor. Fearing a fire, he went to investigate. The smoke thickened, but he saw no flames—and then someone grabbed him from behind and smothered him with a foul-smelling cloth. When he revived, the Golden Crucible was gone, and his fellow guard was lying dead in a pool of blood outside the Treasury door.”

Dead? “So there was murder done as well as theft?” I said.

“Yes,” said the King. “We hunted for the villain straightaway, of course. The guards in the outer ward swore that no one had passed through the gates or climbed over the walls, so it seemed certain we would corner him.”

“I called out the hounds.” Wrexham’s fists tightened at the memory. “Together we searched every inch of the place. And every being and beast.”

The thrill of the chase lingered in his voice. I tried not to flinch. After all, he hadn’t been hunting Chantresses this time, but a murderer. . . .

“Fortunately, I had the able help of Lord Roxburgh.” Wrexham acknowledged the man immediately to his right, a weasel-faced aristocrat in willow-green brocade.

Roxburgh trained his beady eyes on me. “We dragged them from their beds, every last man of them.”

“Lord Ffoulkes was of great assistance as well,” Wrexham said, nodding at a beefy nobleman with florid cheeks sitting farther down the table.

“Rather a lot of us were offended at first,” Sir Samuel confessed. “It was most distressing to be rousted out from one’s bed and questioned like that. But of course it was a most desperate matter. And alas, few of us had alibis.”

“Which is why we have called upon you,” the King said to me. “Our own efforts to locate the crucible have failed. But we hope that with your magic, you will succeed—and find the culprit as well.”

If he’d demanded that I call up a mist, I could have done it.
But find the crucible? He was asking for something beyond my powers. I hated to say so, however, when Wrexham was sitting right across from me.

I chose my words with care. “Your Majesty, I’m not sure this is a case where my magic is terribly useful. If I could have some time, perhaps, to consider matters?”

“My lady Chantress,” the King said with a trace of impatience, “you are too modest. I have discussed matters with my most trusted councillors, and it has been brought to my attention that you have just the magic we need.”

The King stopped short, as if he were reluctant to say more. I remembered what Nat had said about danger, and my fears began to grow. What did the Council know about my magic? Very little, I would have said. But more to the point, what had they promised Henry I would do?

I broke the silence. “What is it you expect from me, Your Majesty?”

The King regarded me with a wary look in his wide, blue eyes. “I am told that you can read minds.”

I stared at the King in dismay. Here was madness indeed.

“We have some moonbriar seeds here,” the King said to me. “You hear a song inside them, do you not? And once you sing it, you can read minds. So I am told.”

“Yes, that’s how it worked when she did it for the Invisible College,” Sir Samuel said with enthusiasm. “I was there, and I’ll never forget it. Amazing trick, what?”

“Amazing indeed,” the King said. “And rather disturbing as well, when it is your own mind she enters—without permission.”

So he’d heard how I’d gone into his thoughts, back in the days of Scargrave’s rule. That explained the wariness in his eyes. Had Sir Isaac mentioned the incident, or had Sir Samuel? Truly, it could have been anyone from the Invisible College. They all knew.

“It was a long while ago, Your Majesty,” I began, “and it happened by accident—”

“We will overlook it,” he said, “as long as you use your skill at my command now.”

“
No
.”

At first I thought it was I who had spoken, for heaven knew it was what I wanted to say. But it was Nat who was rising from his chair, Nat who was refusing the King, Nat who stood before us all, eyes blazing. “You cannot ask her to do this.”

The words were hardly out before Wrexham was shouting him down. “You don’t say
cannot
to a king, boy. The Chantress will do the King’s bidding, and that’s that.”

Ignoring him, Nat focused only on King Henry. “Your Majesty, mind-reading is a danger to her. Perhaps they didn’t tell you that, but it’s true.”

The King looked at me. “Is it?”

I hated admitting to any weakness at Court, and especially in front of Wrexham. But Nat, with the best possible intentions, had made it difficult for me to do anything else. “Yes, Your Majesty. It is.”

“I can attest to that.” Penebrygg’s manner was much calmer than Nat’s, but he was just as firm. He touched Nat’s sleeve and murmured something, and Nat sat back down in his chair.

“Can you explain in more detail?” the King asked me.

I fumbled for words. Since I did not wish to reveal the workings of my magic in too much detail before men like Wrexham, I found it hard to argue my case. But a case I most certainly had, and a strong one. Yet did I dare tell them how easy it was for me to get lost inside another person? Or how dire the consequences
could be, if that person were an enemy? Of those assembled here, only Nat and Penebrygg had witnessed firsthand how close I’d come to dying that way.

As if sensing my fears and doubts, the King took a gentler tack. “My lady Chantress, I see that we unknowingly have placed you in an awkward position. You must, of course, make your own decision.”

I looked at him with relief, then tensed again as he added, “I do find it troubling, however, that you will not even tell me what these purported dangers are.”

“You don’t understand what you’re asking,” Nat said stubbornly.

Penebrygg touched Nat’s arm again, as if to caution him. Wrexham wasn’t the only one glaring at Nat now. Whispers went up and down the table.

“That lad’s a troublemaker,” Lord Roxburgh said audibly, beady eyes bright.

“And what about
her
?” Ffoulkes muttered, looking straight at me.

Any response would be better than nothing, I realized, provided it showed good intentions. I turned to the King. “It is quite true that mind-reading is dangerous, Your Majesty, in more ways than I can easily describe to you here. But I should also warn you that the dangers are not all on my side.”

The King looked disconcerted. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that perhaps not everyone at Court would wish me to know their true thoughts.
All
their thoughts . . . for that is how the magic works sometimes.”

That hit home, to judge from some of the faces around me. Perhaps I could win this argument after all.

Wrexham banged his fist on the table. “Don’t muddy the waters, Chantress! There should be no secrets from the Council or the King. If a man is true, he will have nothing to fear, but let traitors beware. All those without alibis will be tested. You may ransack every last corner of their heads, as long as you find the thief.”

“I’m not sure it’s that simple—” I began.

“Chantress, it
is
that simple.” Wrexham leaned across the table toward me, his face ominous. “I lead men in battle who brave terrible dangers for their country’s sake. With your power, why should you be different?”

I stared at him, my cheeks flaming. Was the man saying I was a coward?

“My lady Chantress, we all know you have the heart of a lion.” The King spoke with exquisite politeness, but he did not rebuke Wrexham, and there was frustration in his gaze now as well as respect. “That is why we find your refusal so hard to accept. Can you truly see no way to help us? By
us
, of course, I do not mean merely me or the Council. I speak as well for all those in this kingdom who will go hungry today, for the children starving in the streets, for every soul in this kingdom who needs what the crucible can bestow, if only it can be found.”

His words made me feel ashamed. It was true: I had been thinking only of myself. And it was possible I had an exaggerated sense of the perils involved. After all, I had read many minds before I had gotten lost in one—and since then I had learned
much more about magic and about myself. If I sensed danger, surely I’d have a good chance of turning back before harm could befall me. In any case, who was I to exempt myself from danger when so many were suffering?

“I ask one last time,” the King said. “Will you use the moonbriar song for us?”

I hesitated. Was there any other way forward? Any other magic I could use? None that I could see. “I will do as you ask, Your Majesty.”

Nat flinched. “You can’t!” This time he spoke directly to me.

Much as I appreciated his instinct to protect me, I could not yield to it. Not for his sake, and not for mine. This was my battle to fight, my risk to take. “I can,” I said. “And I must.”