Chantress Fury CHAPTER ONE SHE-DEVIL I heard the mist before I saw it, a shimmering tune that crept in with the dawn. Rising, I wrapped my mud-stained cloak around me and went to the cracked window. Sure enough, the mid-September sunrise was veiled by wreaths of fog. From the sound of it, it would burn off within the hour-which was just as well, given what we needed to do today. I turned back to the room. Though it was tiny and dilapidated, its roof hadn''t leaked in last night''s hard rain, and its mattress had been softer than most. I''d slept well-perhaps too well, for I''d been dreaming when the mist song had woken me, dreaming of Nat. Awake now in this shabby room, I suffered the loss of him all over again.
A gruff call came from the other side of the door. "Chantress?" I was always called Chantress these days, never Lucy. But if the greeting was formal, the grizzled voice was nevertheless one I knew well. It belonged to Rowan Knollys, former leader of the King''s guard, now the trustworthy captain of my own men. I shook my head free of troublesome dreams and lifted the latch. As always, Knollys''s ruddy face gave little away. Only his voice betrayed any sign of strain. "Time we were off.
" "I''ll meet you outside." I shoved my belongings into my bag, swallowed a quick breakfast of cheese and day-old bread, then made my way down the rickety inn staircase to the stable yard outside. Most of my men were already there, checking their muskets and saddling their mounts. After more than a year in their company, I knew their moods almost as well as my own. As I strode over to my horse, I could feel tension in the air, as real and thick as the mist. Everyone was all too aware of what lay before us. Our newest recruit, Barrington, waved at the mist, wide-eyed. "Did you sing that up, Chantress?" "No," I said.
"It came on its own." Barrington nodded, but I could tell he was disappointed. This was his first journey with us. Unwilling to miss anything, he kept hopeful eyes on me always, even if I was only eating my dinner. Evidently he''d been expecting more magic than he''d gotten so far. Knollys clapped him on the back. "Never mind, boy. If Lord Charlton doesn''t surrender, I warrant you''ll hear plenty of Chantress singing before the day''s out.
Now get on your horse." That morning''s ride pushed me to my limits. Constant practice had made me a skilled horsewoman, but today we were driving ourselves hard. As the mist rose and the footing became clearer, we raced through fields and woods alike. I had just begun to worry that perhaps we''d lost our way, when Knollys swerved right, going uphill through the woods. Moments later we saw what had brought us here: the wall. Higher than a man''s head, it ran as far as the eye could see, a line of tight-packed gray stone imprisoning a forest of ash and oak. It had been built to intimidate, and even viewed from horseback it was a daunting sight.
I sidled my mare next to it, listening for what I could get, which wasn''t much. Stones never wanted to sing to me. But there had been heavy rains this week, so the wall was damp, and water was something I understood. I could hear it humming in the gaps and on the wet surface of the stones themselves. "So this is Charlton''s new park," one of the soldiers said behind me. "Part of it, anyway," Knollys said. "He''s taken the best pasture and meadowlands, too, and a long stretch of the river. The village is in a dire state.
" It was an old story, repeated time and again in England: Powerful lords fenced in common lands and called them their own, depriving villagers of their time-honored rights. No longer able to graze a cow or catch eels or cull deadwood for fires, poor villagers starved and froze. Determined to put an end to these landgrabs, King Henry had outlawed the practice of enclosure a year and a half ago. But Lord Charlton was a great power in this county. He''d continued to build his wall regardless-partly in stone, partly in timber-and he''d repeatedly refused to take it down. Our assignment was to demolish the wall, by whatever means necessary. First, however, we were supposed to give Charlton one last chance to take it down himself. The King had no desire to appear a tyrant.
He had impressed upon us that Charlton must be given every possible opportunity to set matters right. In most cases, my arrival would have ensured compliance; usually the mere sight of me made rebellious lords crumble. Yet my men and I had doubts about Charlton. Hot-tempered and arrogant, he was reputed to have scoffed at my magic, saying the stories about me were exaggerated. He''d threatened to shoot the next royal messenger on sight. "Let''s approach the castle and see what kind of reception we get," Knollys said. "If you''re ready, Chantress?" I nodded, and we moved off. Soon we reached the half-abandoned village of Upper Charlton, which lay within sight of the new wall.
Nervous faces appeared at the windows as we marched, and a subdued cheer went up when they saw the royal colors, and again when they saw me at the center of a score of soldiers in tight formation. The cheers grew louder as we passed through the village and started up the hill that led to Charlton Castle. I''d seen the maps and read the reports. Charlton was a redoubtable castle, well-positioned and well-fortified, with a particularly massive gatehouse. The walls of the enclosure led right up to this gatehouse, so that the gate controlled access not only to the castle but to all the land that Charlton had claimed. The front of the gatehouse was further guarded by a half-moat, fed by the local river. Inside, the castle was blessed again by water. A deep well in its keep had allowed it to withstand many a siege.
Listening hard as we approached, I could hear both the moat''s vigilant melody and the faint, sulky song of the well water. "Halt!" Knollys cried out. We were only halfway up the hill, still out of musket range, but the gray walls of the gatehouse seemed to tower over us. The gates remained shut, the drawbridge up. There was no sign of welcome. Knollys picked one of the men to serve as emissary-young Barrington, eager for action-and sent him toward the castle on foot, bearing a white flag to show he was there to parley, not attack. As soon as Barrington came into range, Lord Charlton''s men fired from the gatehouse. A bullet caught the boy just below his helmet; he fell to the ground.
Even back where we were, we could see the blood. "Chantress?" Knollys said, but there was no need. Still in the saddle, I was already singing, honing my anger to a fine edge that worked for me and not against me. Unrestrained emotion could make a song-spell veer in danger-ous ways, yet I needed to maintain a certain flexibility. I didn''t command the elements so much as charm and persuade them, and I had to work with the melodies I could hear in the world around me. These changed with the day and the season and the weather and a hundred other factors, so my magic was always a matter of improvisation. I never sang the same song twice. What suited my purposes now was the sulky tune I''d heard coming from the bottom of the castle well.
There was restlessness there, and resentment. I had only to play on these for a few moments before the water shot up, splintering the well cover and spouting into the sky. As it jetted upward, I felt a fierce pleasure-partly an echo of the water''s own relief at being set free, and partly the intoxication of the singing itself, and the power in it. Yet pleasure too could be a distraction. I needed to focus on the job at hand. Working quickly, I sang some of the fine spray into the castle weaponry and gunpowder, wetting them so they could not fire. If Charlton''s men had put up a flag of truce, that would have been the end of it. But when I finished my song, arrows flew from the windows, landing within a foot of Barrington and the men who had gone to his rescue.
"Get back," I shouted to them. "All of you, get as far back as you can!" Clamping down on my anger, I turned my attention to the water in the moat. Vigilant it might be, but it was frustrated as well-always on the edge of things, forever locked out. I harped on those notes in my own music, until the moat water rose up as vapor, drenching the walls of the gatehouse. Feeling again a fierce thrill in the singing, I worked the vapor deep into the mortar. Within moments, the mortar softened, and the gatehouse suddenly took on the appearance of a sandcastle in the rain. The foundations bulged. Walls sagged.
The parapet collapsed. I held on just long enough to give Charlton''s men a decent chance to flee. Then, with another burst of song, I turned the mortar to liquid. The entire gatehouse peeled away from the castle and rumbled down the hill, a roaring landslide of slick stones and mud. When it stopped, all you could smell was earth, and all you could hear was silence. And then, in the silence, moaning. Was that Barrington? Or had my landslide taken some of Charlton''s men with it? My throat tightened, and the brief pleasure I''d found in the singing disappeared. Even after more than a year of this work, I found some of its consequences hard to handle.
They wanted to kill you, I reminded myself. And your men. With the gatehouse fallen, the castle was wide open to the world. Moving closer to it, Knollys bellowed, "Surrender now, or the Chantress will sing again." Men appeared at the w.