Chantress Alchemy (3 page)

“I did say that, yes,” Norrie admitted. “I think we both wanted a life more like the one we’d been used to, back on the island.”

I nodded. We would never see the island again—it was an enchanted place, lost to us now—but we’d lived there in peace and safety for seven years. At the time, I’d longed for a way to leave it, but now I often dreamed about its grassy bluffs and golden shores.

“Trouble is, I forgot what a lonely life we had there,” Norrie said. “And this place is almost as bad.”

I looked at her, dismayed. “You don’t like it here?”

“I like having a house of my own, and a garden. But a garden’s not much use in winter, is it? And the cottage—well, it’s darker than I expected, and quieter, especially with you always out practicing your magic.” She gave me a crooked smile. “I suppose I got used to seeing people last year. It was nice having someone to talk to of an afternoon.”

My heart smote me. “I’m sorry, Norrie. I didn’t know. I thought you were happy here.”

“I was at first, child. It’s the winter that’s been hard. But never mind. Everything’s about to change now.”

Norrie turned back to the packing. “Now, let me see . . . what else do we need to bring?” She dived into the trunk and came up with two stacks of linen shifts. A bundle of papers fell out of them. Face flaming, I snatched it from the floor.

Norrie smiled. “Nat’s letters?”

I couldn’t lie, though part of me wanted to. “Yes.”

I should have burned them
.

Burning, however, had been more than I’d been ready for. That’s why I’d buried Nat’s letters in the trunk instead. Putting them out of sight had helped, but now that I held them in my hands again, the wrenching pain came roaring back.

Nat and I had never had an easy relationship, but there was a spark between us that I’d never felt with anyone else. And last summer, once we’d won the battle against Scargrave, we’d
become closer than ever. We’d laughed together, and spent lazy days in the sun together, and shared kisses that made my heart sing. But now . . .

“Such a shame he couldn’t come to us for Christmas,” Norrie said, refolding the shirts. Nat was a favorite with her. “Still, I can’t blame him. It’s like that boy to put his country before himself. ‘The kingdom has to come first.’ Wasn’t that what he said in his letter?” Her lips quirked. “Well, the bit you read out to me, anyway.”

I winced. I hadn’t had the heart to show the full letter to Norrie. It had been disappointment enough to her that he wasn’t coming, and I . . . well, I’d been too humiliated to tell her the truth.

Even now, I could remember all too clearly the rainy November afternoon when I’d returned to the cottage, wet and weary, to find the letter waiting. Merely seeing Nat’s strong handwriting had filled me with joy—until I’d read what he’d had to say.

Such a thin excuse for a letter, it had been. Stilted and halfhearted, with none of his usual affection. It had taken me only a minute to read the brief lines saying that he couldn’t come as expected, that the King needed him at Court. He’d finished with a formal phrase or two. And he’d signed the letter with his full name.

Since then I’d not heard one word from him.

I thrust the letters back into the trunk.

“You don’t want to take them?” Norrie said.

I stuffed my shifts into a bag. “There’s no need.”

“I suppose not,” Norrie agreed. “Letters can’t hold a candle to seeing somebody in the flesh. And once we’re at Court, you’ll be seeing Nat all the time.”

I kept quiet, but Norrie wouldn’t let the subject drop.

“Like as not, he’ll be there to greet us. And I must admit it will be a comfort to have him at our side.” Her eyes crinkled with sudden merriment. “Indeed, if it’s anything like last summer, we’ll have a job prying him away from you.”

My cheeks burned. “It won’t be like that.”

The words shot out of me. I couldn’t call them back.

Scenting trouble, Norrie stopped packing. “Won’t be like what?”

Maybe it was time to tell her. After all, there would be no hiding the truth once we reached Court.

“He hasn’t visited, Norrie. And he’s stopped writing. You must have noticed: I haven’t had a letter in three months.” It was an effort to keep my voice even. “I don’t think he wants to see me.”

Norrie blinked. “Why, of course he does, child. He’s been busy, that’s all.”

“Too busy to write?” I said.

“It happens.”

“Maybe. Or maybe he’s met someone else.” I tried to hide how the idea ate away at me. “That happens too.”

“Someone else? Oh, child.” Norrie set down the slippers she was trying to cram into the bag. “Letters or no letters, Nat’s a young man who knows his own mind. He won’t have changed toward you, you mark my words.”

She sounded so sure that she half convinced me—and goodness knows, I wanted to believe her. Yet how could I, after that awful letter in November, and the silence ever since?

Boots thumped below.

“What do you want done with your chickens?” a deep voice called out.

“Oh, goodness.” Norrie hastened for the stairs. “I completely forgot. Maybe we can put them in baskets and bring them to Letheringham? I expect the cook there will be glad of the extra eggs. You finish up with the packing, Lucy, and I’ll go down and see to it.”

Left to myself, I filled the bags and tied them shut. More boots tramped downstairs.
Be quick
, I told myself.

When I went to close the trunk, however, I glimpsed Nat’s letters again and paused. For a moment, I was tempted to bring them after all.

But no. Whatever Norrie might say, I wasn’t going to do that to myself. I flipped the lid down.

A quarter hour later, we set off for Greenwich.

By the time we reached the hunting lodge, it was twilight, and I was hungry. But food had to wait. After hours of riding pillion behind one of the King’s men, Norrie’s back pained her so much that she could neither sit nor stand. Waving away her supper, she collapsed onto the pallets that had been laid out for us.

I wished that I knew a song-spell for soothing pain, but that was not where my gifts lay; my magic was more elemental. Instead, I prevailed upon the lodge cooks to brew some willow bark tea, and I made Norrie drink it all.

“And you ought to eat something too,” I said.

“I’ve no appetite, child.” Her face contorted as she shifted on the bed.

“Oh, Norrie.” I knelt by her side in distress. “What can I do?”

“Nothing, child. It’s just that dratted pillion. Thanks be I shan’t have to ride it again on this trip.”

I nodded. Knollys had already told us that from this point
onward, Norrie and I would travel by carriage. I hadn’t been best pleased by the choice—carriages, in my experience, were a stuffy and bone-rattling way to travel—but Knollys had said that we would need to travel all day and most of the night, and that we would find it impossible to keep up with his hand-picked riders on horseback. Despite my protests, he’d insisted on the point, and now I was glad. Norrie could never have ridden all the way to Greenwich.

“A sound night’s sleep, that’s what I need,” Norrie said, grimacing as I tucked the blankets around her. “I’ll be right as rain tomorrow.”

“Let’s hope so.” I hated having to go to Greenwich at all, but seeing Norrie in such terrible pain made it harder.

†    †    †

That night, just as I was about to slip into bed, I heard the strange droning again. This time it was difficult to locate the source: perhaps the river nearby? It was so faint that I could make no sense of it at all, but I feared it still meant danger. I checked on Norrie, but she was sleeping peacefully. When I crept out to the hall, I saw only Rowan Knollys and his men standing guard.

There was nothing more I could do.

When I finally did fall asleep, however, I was restless. Toward morning I dreamed I was in the Tower of London, running through its maze of rooms in panic. I heard a scream behind me.
Lady Helaine
 . . .

I woke, my heart hammering at my ribs. Above me was the low-beamed ceiling of the hunting lodge.

It was just a dream
, I told myself. But then I heard the yelp again.

It was Norrie.

“I can’t move,” she groaned, still flat in bed. “I’m so sorry, child, but I can’t get up.”

An hour later, after the application of salves and plasters and heat, she still had not managed to stand. The only medicine that helped was poppy syrup, and it merely took the edge off the pain while making her very sleepy. Any attempt to lift her made the pain come roaring back.

“She’s in no condition to travel,” I told Knollys, who was watching from the door. “We’ll have to wait.”

“We can’t wait,” Knollys said. “My orders are to bring you to Greenwich without delay. The King requires your presence immediately.”

“But a carriage ride would be torture to her right now,” I said.

“To her, perhaps, but not to you. And you’re the one the King needs to see.” He went over to Norrie and leaned down to her, speaking loudly and clearly. “Miss Northam, I need to take the Lady Chantress to Greenwich. When you’re better, there will be another carriage at your disposal, and you can follow her in easy stages, if you like. Unless, that is, she has already returned to you, which is what we all hope for.”

I resented the way he was making all the decisions. But the suggestion that I might be back so soon was a welcome one. If
that were the case, better I should go right away, and spare Norrie the rigors of the trip entirely.

“Lucy?” Norrie searched me out with sleep-fogged eyes. “You can’t . . . go alone. I will . . .”

I took her hand. “I’ll be fine, Norrie. It’s you I’m worried about. You must stay here and get well. I wish I could stay—”

“No, no. Must go. King needs . . .” Her eyes were closing. Succumbing to the poppy syrup, she fell fast asleep.

“Come,” Knollys said. “We can’t delay any longer.”

I bent and kissed Norrie’s cheek, soft as worn chamois. “Will she be safe here?” I asked Knollys.

“With the King’s household to look after her and the King’s gamekeepers to guard her? Absolutely.” As he guided me out of the room, he added, “There will be more peril on the road, truth be told.”

I stopped in the doorway. “What kind of peril are you expecting?”

“Nothing you need worry about, my lady.” Knollys looked uncomfortable. “It’s time we were off.”

And although I pressed him again, that was all he would say.

†    †    †

Two weary days later, I was still in the dark about the perils Knollys had hinted at. But I had ceased to care. Instead, I sat hunched in the King’s carriage, bracing myself against its interminable bounce and jiggle. My one comfort was that I couldn’t hear the strange drone anymore—though that might have been because I was too
sick to my stomach to hear anything. Listening for Wild Magic required patience and concentration, and right now I had neither.

We were lucky, Knollys told me, that the weather had remained so cold, and the ground was frozen. Otherwise, we’d have been mired in mud, for the roads from Norfolk to London were a mess of ruts and holes.

As we jounced along, however, I did not feel in the least lucky. Nor could I take any pleasure in the luxurious trappings of velvet and gilt in the carriage itself. Every mile seemed endless. My only comfort was that Norrie was not having to suffer the journey along with me.

This particular stretch of road was one of the worst yet. Trying not to retch, I clenched the padded arm of my seat. My head jerked this way and that. Not for the first time, I wished I knew a song-spell that would allow me to fly.

I’m opening a window
, I decided at last.
I don’t care what Knollys says. I need some fresh air.

It was Knollys who had ordered the windows shut and the curtains drawn. When I’d protested that the weather wasn’t as bad as all that, he had shaken his head. “It’s for your own safety that we do this. No need for all and sundry to know that the Lady Chantress is passing by.” Only when we were rumbling through lonely countryside did he allow me to open the windows, and only for the briefest of intervals.

We were not in the countryside now. Above the jostle of the carriage, I could hear the clatter of cobbles, the cries of children, and the barking of dogs. When I pushed back the curtain, my
eyes confirmed it: We were in a town. Not a very considerable one, but a town nonetheless, with its own pump and market cross.

“My lady!” The carriage slowed, and Knollys cantered his horse to the window. “You must not be seen.”

“I have to have air,” I said, “or I’ll be sick—” I broke off as I caught sight of the people pressing forward to line our path. “Dear heaven, look at them. So thin you can almost see their bones.”

“Never mind, my lady,” Knollys said. “It is your safety that concerns me.”

The carriage juddered to a halt. I leaned out the window and saw why: a rabble of scrawny children had darted out in front. They ran toward me, hands outstretched. “Please, mistress. Please, my lady.”

“Away with you!” Knollys drew his sword.

“No!” I cried out. “Let them come.”

Knollys gave me a furious look, but he stayed his sword. “My lady, you must leave this to me.”

“What is it they want?”

“Food, of course. Like everyone else.”

“Everyone else?”

Knollys’s voice hardened. “England’s a hungry place these days. But hungry or not, this rabble can’t be allowed to block our way, not with so much at stake.” He called out to his men. “Prepare to advance.”

“No,” I said again. “Not yet. Surely we can give them something.”

“We have only our own rations. And yours.”

The men’s rations were not mine to give. But the King’s servants at the hunting lodge had laden me down with rich provisions—far more than I could eat by myself, even if my appetite hadn’t deserted me.

“Give them my food,” I told Knollys.

“You cannot be serious.”

“I am.”

In the end, he did as I asked—in part, I suspected, because it was the quickest way to get the children out of the way of the carriage. As two of our men hauled the provision baskets over to the market cross, Knollys ordered the company forward.