He was right. The breeze picked up, clearing away all but a last few threads of mist. Soon the brick turrets of Greenwich Palace, lit up by smoldering torches, came into sight. It took me a few seconds longer to notice the ship that was anchored just beyond the palace landing.
“What’s that?” Sir Barnaby demanded, coming up behind me and pointing at the vessel. Only a few glimmers of light punctuated its long, dark lines.
As Penebrygg fumbled with his spectacles, Gabriel said with assurance, “A frigate, by the looks of it. Twenty guns, I’d say—and one of ours. But odd that it’s anchored here, right by the palace.”
As our pinnace came up to the landing, a detachment of guards emerged from the palace to meet us. Instead of allowing us to disembark, their leader asked who we were, then gestured toward the shadowy ship. “The King is waiting for you on the Dorset.”
“What’s all this about, then?” Sir Barnaby barked at him.
“Couldn’t say,” the guard replied. “The Dorset’s just come over from Holland. That’s all I know. But whatever it is, His Majesty wants to see you right away.”
As we came alongside the Dorset, the glimmers of light were revealed as lanterns, with more being lit as we approached. Beneath one of them we saw men huddled on the deck. The crew, I supposed. But when Gabriel hailed them, the first man to break away from the circle turned out to be the King himself.
He came striding over to the rail. “You’re here at last!”
We greeted him in turn, but my voice almost failed me. The other men in the circle were now coming over to us—and one of them was Nat.
For more than a year, I’d pretended that he meant nothing to me. Now, in the half dark of this moonlit night, I stopped acting a part. I was simply myself, hungry for the sight of him.
The King’s right-hand man, Sybil had called him, and he looked it. He’d always had a quiet strength about him, but now that strength was in the open. Tall and sure and capable, he came toward me, and what I saw in his face made my heart hammer like a drum . . .
But then I caught sight of what had been at the center of the men’s circle, and my heart nearly stopped altogether. It was an enormous barrel, stood on its end. Just visible inside it was a woman, and she was gagged.
Seeing her, I felt sick. Gags and muzzles and scold’s bridles—until the King had come to the throne, these had all been common ways of stopping a woman’s tongue. Especially a Chantress’s tongue. My own godmother had been gagged before she’d been killed, and the memory filled me with horror.
“What’s going on here?” My voice was shaking with anger. “You’re gagging women and putting them in barrels?”
I could’ve asked the question of any of them. But it was Nat I was looking at.
Even in the dim light I saw his face change. When he answered, his voice was guarded, almost steely. “She isn’t a woman, Chantress. She’s a mermaid. And she’s gagged because she tried to kill us.”
CHAPTER SIX
ONDINE
I stared at Nat, my anger spent, but the pinnace shifted, and we were forced apart. By the time we came alongside the Dorset again, there was no going back to that hopeful moment when he and I had first laid eyes on each other. Nat was no longer near the rail but stood some distance away, speaking with a member of the crew. He didn’t look in my direction at all.
A wave of sorrow, almost of grief, went through me. You really must speak to him, Sybil had said. And now we’d met, and it had all gone horribly wrong.
Giving in to my emotions would accomplish nothing, however. Instead I concentrated on getting us all over onto the Dorset—especially Sir Barnaby, whose gouty leg proved troublesome.
Once everyone was on board, the King made introductions. I was already acquainted with the Lord High Admiral, a bluff man of forty or so, with skin like leather. Standing next to him was my old friend Sir Samuel Deeps—King’s councilor, dandy-about-town, and current Secretary of the Navy. This was the first time, however, that I’d met bull-necked Captain Ellis and frail Dr. Verney, both of the Dorset.
Once courtesies had been exchanged, we gathered around the barrel, which was sloshing with seawater.
Seeing herself surrounded, the creature submerged, retreating in the only