over and shouting that she’s seen Jenny Greenteeth. What twaddle!”
Twaddle was what it sounded like, but why hadn’t Sybil simply laughed at it? There must have been more going on, to upset her so.
“What exactly did she see?” I asked.
“A greenish face, and hands wriggling under the water,” Sybil said dismissively. “Over by the landing, if you can believe her.”
I hadn’t seen any such thing when I’d been down there, but then, I’d been preoccupied. “Perhaps I’d better check, just to be sure there’s no mischief afoot.” It was possible, I supposed, that Lady Gillian really had seen something—a drowning, or a swimmer under the water. And the landing was where the King would come in later that night. “I’ll ask my men to help me. And if need be, I can send word to the King—”
“To Henry? Absolutely not!” Sybil looked like an avenging angel again. “You’re not to tell anyone, do you hear me? Not one word.”
Her vehemence startled me. “Why ever not?”
“Because I won’t have Henry thinking I can’t control my own court,” Sybil said. “And I won’t have the broadsides saying it either. This is just the sort of gossip they’d love. And the next thing you know, some horrible ditty about the Mad Queen and her hysterical court will be all over London. It will embarrass Henry, and it will embarrass me. My reputation will be in ruins again. I won’t have it.”
I stood, speechless. I hadn’t seen much of Sybil in the past twenty months, but I knew she’d been unhappy before the wedding. Small wonder, since so many powerful people had opposed and delayed the match between her and the King. Some had insisted he must marry a foreign princess; others had wanted him to marry their own highborn daughters. Almost no one had wanted him to marry a girl who’d spent years wandering around on the Continent with her eccentric mother.
Nor had the broadsides been kind. Ever since the King had lifted the censorship imposed by Lord Scargrave, chapmen had sold the sheets by the thousands—copies of popular ballads sung in the taverns and on the streets, complete with illustrations. I’d seen some about me, most of them rousing songs celebrating my defense of England, my defeat of the hated Shadowgrims, and my general fearsomeness. The ones about Sybil were different. While they noted her good looks, they claimed she was as crazy as her mother. In the weeks leading up to the wedding, her every gaffe had sparked another broadside declaring her flighty and stupid and common—an unworthy Queen of England.
I’d assumed that the situation was better now that they were married. She and Henry loved each other; I had no doubts about that.
Yet there was no mistaking the tension I saw in her now.
“Promise me you won’t say anything.” No longer giving orders, Sybil was pleading with me. “There’s no reason to. Lady Gillian is always seeing things, isn’t she, Norrie?”
“Loves a fuss, she does,” Norrie agreed.
“Last week it was ghosts in the music room,” Sybil said. “And before that it was a falling star portending doom for us all. So this latest scare means nothing.”
“Lady Clemence took it seriously,” I pointed out. “She wanted to report it to Nat. I heard her say so.”
Sybil rolled her eyes. “That’s only because Clemence wants to tell everything to Nat. She’s a good-hearted girl, one of my favorites, but she’s been besotted with him for months. Hadn’t you heard?”
I hadn’t.
“It’s very tiresome,” Sybil went on. “Her father—the Earl of Tunbridge, you know—hasn’t done anything to discourage the infatuation, which just adds fuel to the fire. Clemence talks about Nat all day long. I wish she would stop.” She gave me a crooked smile. “Not that I would mind if you talked about Nat. But you never do.”
I shrugged. “There’s nothing to say. We just had a parting of ways.”
“That’s what you keep telling me,” Sybil said skeptically, “but I don’t believe it. You’ve warned me off every time I’ve dared to ask any questions—”
“And me,” Norrie put in.
“—But I have eyes,” Sybil continued, “and this doesn’t look like an amicable parting to me. You come to Court only when Nat’s gone, and you leave before he returns, every single time. And it’s been more than a year. You can’t even look him in the face, can you?”
I wanted to deny it, but I couldn’t, not when Sybil was right there in front of me.
Tiny earrings bobbing, Sybil took my arm. “Lucy, whatever