Chantress skills to hide the truth from everyone, even the man who became her husband. She was loved and respected, renowned not only as a mother and wife but as a builder of castles and walls and towers. But one Saturday her husband surprised her in her bath. When he saw her slick, green coils, he shouted out in horror, and Melusine turned on him in a rage, becoming a sea serpent from head to toe.
It was a tale that had given me nightmares when Lady Helaine first told it, for Melusine had ended her life as a monster, unable to claw her way back to human form. But of course there was no proof that Melusine had ever really existed. I’d heard other versions of her story elsewhere, and they were all different—and the very relish with which Lady Helaine had told her variation made me suspect she had embellished it mightily.
“I can’t see what that story has to do with the monster you saw,” Norrie said doubtfully.
I couldn’t either. The story was probably no more than a legend. And there was nothing to connect it with what I’d seen on the river.
“It was just a shot in the dark,” I said.
Norrie frowned. “But why are you asking about sea monsters and Chantress magic in the first place?”
I was saved from having to answer by a knock at the outer door. Norrie went to see who it was.
“The King’s calling the Council together,” she reported when she returned. “They won’t meet for another hour, but the King sent a page to ask if you will see him in the meantime.”
“Tell him I’m coming,” I said, and reached for the towel.
A quarter of an hour later, nestled in a warm blue gown of soft wool, I was on my way to the King. My body was still warm from the bath, but I could feel the chill in the air as I hurried toward the State Rooms.
I’d gone only a short way when the King himself appeared around a corner, an anxious look in his eye. “Chantress! Well met.”
“Your Majesty.” I was surprised to see him so far from the State Rooms. Usually he was so busy that I was the one who had to find him. His reasons for seeing me must have been urgent indeed. “You wanted to speak before the meeting?”
“Yes. Now that you’re dry, perhaps we could have a private word? I want to understand exactly what happened out there on the river.”
“Of course,” I said. “I can’t vouch as to how it started, but by the time I came out onto the riverfront—”
“Why don’t we go out to the river itself?” the King interrupted. “That way you can show me where you were standing.”
Before I could answer, he was already hurrying forward and motioning for me to follow.
“As quickly as you can, Chantress,” he said over his shoulder as I raced to keep up with him. “I know this isn’t the ordinary route, but that’s all to the good if we don’t want everyone at Court tagging at our heels.”
It was indeed an unusual route—Byzantine, even by Whitehall standards. Instead of emerging at the King’s landing, we came out by the workaday wharf at the far end of the palace, where foodstuffs and coal and other supplies for the Court were unloaded. Not much work was going on now, however. Whether because of the continuing rain or because of the fright the sea monster had caused, there were very few people to be seen.
“There.” The King seemed pleased. “Now we can talk in peace.”
I nodded, still catching my breath.
He gestured for me to join him at the wharf’s edge. “Tell me everything.”
As I stepped toward the river, I heard a faint flicker of anger buried deep in its usual songs. I stopped midstride. “Your Majesty, be careful!”
“Why?”
“There’s something wrong here.” I listened again. “No, it’s gone now.” Gone—or buried still deeper, where I couldn’t find it?
I sniffed the air. Was that a faint trace of magic?
With a worried face, the King turned again toward the water. “Could it be another sea monster? Come, tell me if you see anything!”
As I rushed over, I smelled magic again. Behind me, I heard a distant shout.
“Don’t look,” the King commanded me.
But I couldn’t help it. I glanced back. Two people were coming out of the gate by the landing—Nat . . . and the King.
Two Kings? I froze. They couldn’t both be real.
“Ignore them,” the King beside me