were sad. “Of course, what you would have thought of them, I can’t say. You know how my mother was . . .”
She didn’t have to finish the thought. We both knew better than to accept Sybil’s mother as a reliable source. Sybil’s grandmother had been a Chantress, but the power hadn’t passed to her mother. She had spent much of her life seeking out the advice of charlatans, willing to listen to anyone, however disreputable, who had promised to give her magic.
Still, I wanted to know more about the water worshippers. “Where did she find these wise women?”
“Mostly in London, I think. She used to slip down to the Thames to meet them. There were all kinds of strange rituals involved, though Mama wouldn’t tell me much about them.”
“She thought their singing truly had power?”
“Oh, yes. Though whether it really did is anyone’s guess. Mama was always ready to see magic in anything.” Sybil looked out at the great sundial in the center of the garden, its concave bowl awash with rainwater. “That said, Mama once brought their leader to the house to pray over me when I was ill, and I must say she was quite uncanny. Tall, with the kind of voice that goes right through you, and the oddest sea-green eyes. And I did get well again.”
“Do you know if she survived Scargrave?” I asked. “If any of them did?”
“It’s possible,” Sybil said slowly. “He did go after all kinds of magic-workers, but what he wanted most were Chantresses. He didn’t pursue the others with quite the same vengeance. So I suppose the wise women might have escaped him, if they were lucky. Though more likely they were killed along with all the rest.”
A distant clock chimed the three-quarters hour.
“Oh dear.” Sybil put her hand on my arm. “I’m sorry, Lucy, but I have to get back. Otherwise my ladies are bound to come looking for me.”
“I understand.” I hurried away from the loggia with her. “I ought to be going too.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t more help.”
“You were a help.” It was disconcerting to think my senses might have misled me about the nature of my enemy, but I was pleased to think that the culprit might not be a Chantress after all.
Sybil gave me a quick hug and pattered away. I stood for a moment in the rain, watching her go, her shoulders stiffening under her cloak as she took up the burden of being Queen again.
It pained me to see the change in her. But then I had my burdens too—and they wouldn’t be lessened by my standing there in the rain. I strode off, determined to see what else I could discover about Sybil’s wise women.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
WISE WOMEN
“Wise women?” Gabriel’s well-arched eyebrows shot up, and his skeptical voice echoed loudly in the anteroom of the Great Library. “You want me to research wise women?”
“Yes,” I said crisply.
After one too many clashes with Nat and Sir Barnaby over the best way to proceed with the riverside defense efforts, Gabriel had offered his services to me. I’d gladly accepted, but I was beginning to think that I’d made a mistake. Captain Knollys and my men hadn’t given me this kind of reaction when I’d raised the matter of wise women with them.
“You mean cunning women?” Gabriel said, eyebrows still raised. “The ones who sell charms and fake love-potions?”
“How do you know they’re fake?” I countered.
“They must be. Most of those women can’t even read. It’s all superstition.”
“I wouldn’t be so quick to judge,” I said. “Just because they’re poor and unlettered doesn’t mean they have no power. And anyway, I’m not looking for love-potions. I’m looking for wise women who claim to have a special influence over water.”
Gabriel’s face told me what he thought of that.
I looked up at the coffered ceiling of the anteroom and told myself to be patient. “You’re the one who wanted to help,” I reminded Gabriel. “And right now this is what I need—someone to search the Great Library for any references that might be useful. Someone with a knowledge of old languages and arcane texts. I think you could do it. Will you?”
With a small sigh, Gabriel bowed. “Very well. Anything for you, Chantress.”
Was I right to put so much weight on what Sybil had told me? I wasn’t sure. Perhaps I was headed down the wrong path—and perhaps listening to the water would put me on the right one. That night, while Gabriel researched wise women, and Knollys