Strange Devices of the Sun and Moon

by Lisa Goldstein

  “They wouldn’t believe us. Poley had agents of his swear that they were there in Deptford, swear that Kit was killed in self-defense. They’ve already been pardoned, all of them.”

  “Then—we’re helpless, aren’t we? Who can we go to? I don’t have the friends at court I once had—I’ve been away—”

  “It has something to do with those men Kit saw at the palace, those misshapen men. And with the land I went to, and with Arthur. We don’t need to go to court—if we find these people, these goblins or whatever they are—”

  He took off his hat and looked at the unfading flower he had pinned to it. “They gave me this,” he said slowly. “What if this is a way to summon them? What if I had it these three years and more and never knew?”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. Shall we try to summon them up, like Faustus calling up Mephostophilis?”

  “Nay, don’t—”

  “Don’t worry—they’re not demons. I know that much about them.” He unpinned the flower and held it in his hand. “Maybe if—if I think about them—”

  He fell silent a moment. Nothing happened. “Well, it was worth trying,” he said. He moved to pin the flower to his hat again.

  “Nay, wait a minute. Who gave you the flower?”

  “A woman—a beautiful woman—”

  “Think about her. Call her to you. Summon her up in your mind—remember everything you know about her. What did she look like? How did she move? What color were her eyes?”

  “Blue,” Tom said. He closed his eyes. “Blue as berries.”

  “Good. And her hair?”

  “Brown. Brown and tied up in a garland of flowers.”

  “And what did she—Tom. Tom, look.”

  He opened his eyes quickly. There in the dim light of the tavern stood the woman he had carried in his mind for three years. “You wear my favor,” she said. He had never heard her voice before; it was clear as a running stream. “I’d forgotten that.”

  “Aye,” Tom said. He could not seem to speak above a whisper.

  “Then are you prepared to fight for us?”

  “To—to fight?”

  “Aye. We are not ready yet, and we try never to fight in the light of the sun, but you have called us to you. We cannot resist a summons by a mortal who wears our favor—the battle must begin now.”

  “Battle?”

  “Come.” She turned and began to leave the tavern.

  “Wait!” he said, calling after her. The few men in the tavern looked up at him in surprise; no one but he and Will seemed to have seen her. “Wait—at least tell me—”

  But she had opened the door and was gone.

  20

  A week after Art had come to live with her Alice saw Walter making his way toward her station. “Shall we close our stalls?” he asked, smiling. “I haven’t sold a book all day.”

  “What do you want to do?” she said. As always her voice trembled a little when she spoke to him, though she tried to control it. What would he think if he knew her true feelings about him? She thought that she would not be able to face it if he did.

  “See a play, I thought.”

  “We’ve seen all the companies that stayed in London,” she said, more sharply than she intended. “I should know—I publish the playbills.”

  “What, then? We can’t stay in this dismal place.”

  As if to underscore his words a bell rang out, tolling for another death. She looked up at the tower of Paul’s, remembering that she had seen a young man—had it been Tom Nashe’s friend?—climb to the top. In all her years in the city she had never seen the view, though it seemed that every visitor to London went there. “We could go to the top of the tower.”

  He said nothing, and for a moment she feared she had been too forward. Until now they had only gone to playhouses and cookshops together, and perhaps he would not want to disrupt that routine, to change the nature of their friendship. Then he said, “That’s an excellent idea. I’ve always wondered what the city looks like from there.”

  She closed her stall and led the way into the church. They walked through the huge wooden nave, their footsteps echoing off the high arched ceiling. It seemed strange to hear the church so quiet; usually the halls rang with the sounds of men preaching sermons, lawyers calling for clients, employers looking for folks to hire. Then they went up the stairway to the top.

  She was a little winded from the climb, but even so the view took her breath away. London spread out before them like an engraving, small and vital. They could see the stairs leading down to the Thames, and beyond that the sun striking the sails of the boats on the river. To their left was London Bridge, and across the river she could just make out the round building that was the Bear Gardens.

  “I should have come here a long time ago,” Alice said.

  “You’ve never seen this?”

  “Nay.”

  “And you’ve lived here—how long?”

  “Over twenty years.” She laughed. The river below them sparkled and dimmed as the sun moved in and out of the clouds. “But you’ve been here three years and have never seen it either.”

  “Aye.” They fell silent, watching the ever-changing scene beneath them. He began to speak of his life before coming to London, the inn he had owned, the problems of being an innkeeper. “My wife couldn’t stand it,” he said. “I would have come to London long ago, probably, if she had lived.”

  “Your—wife?” she asked, startled.

  “Aye. She died in the last great plague, nearly thirty years ago.”

  “And you never remarried?”

  “Nay. And you—what was it like for you when your husband died?”

  She had never spoken of John’s death to anyone, not even Margery; she had not wanted to trouble folks with her sorrow. Now it seemed to her that if she started she would not be able to stop, that she would burden Walter with the accumulated weight of four years’ unhappiness. But he had probably asked out of politeness, and not because he really wanted an answer. She said, carefully, “It was hard, especially at first.”

  He turned away from the view in front of him and looked directly at her. “Alice, you are the most vexing person I know.”

  “What?” she said, surprised. “I—”

  “In all the years I’ve known you you have told me nothing about yourself. Your son has gone missing, but I know that from the other stationers and not from you. Now your sister has died, and you have a new son to care for, but you have said not one word about your sister or your son. I have never heard how it was your husband became a stationer, or what it was like for you to take over his trade, or how you feel about George’s accusations against you. If I didn’t listen to the other stationers I would almost think you had no life outside of the churchyard.”

  She had listened to him talk with growing amazement. At the end of it she found she could not speak, did not know where to begin. It had grown hot in the tower, and stuffy from lack of air. “I—”

  “Am I prying?”

  She shook her head.

  “Is it because of George? Because you trusted George, and he betrayed that trust?”

  How well he knew her, after all. She nodded, glad for the moment that she did not have to speak.

  “Alice, listen. I am not like George. I care about you, more than you know. I think you are brave, very brave, to have done as much as you have on your own, but it is not good for anyone, man or woman, to be too much alone.”

  She nodded again, thinking that she must be dreaming. For how many years had she imagined he might say something like this? For how many nights had she lain awake, hoping that perhaps the next day, or the next, would bring a declaration of his feelings? She turned to him, intending, finally, to tell him the truth. Then she saw something move outside the tower, and she gasped.

  They were in one of the highest places in London, she knew. Nothing human could walk outside the tower. The thing scuttled along from buttress to buttress,
using its feet and hands equally. Then it stopped and looked directly at her, opening its pointed snout to show her its teeth. She shuddered and turned away from it, toward the churchyard, and saw a few more of the creatures scurrying among the booksellers. The battle they all had waited for had finally begun.

  “What is it?” Walter asked.

  He hadn’t seen it. She looked out beyond the churchyard walls, and what she saw there made her gasp a second time in alarm. A few of the creatures were headed toward her house, toward Art and Brownie. What did they want with her son? Did they imagine she still had the Prince of Faerie? She could not think. She knew only that she had to stop them before they found Art.

  “I—I’m sorry, but I have to go home,” she said. “Something—something pressing—”

  “What is it? Can I help?”

  Of course. He could come with her. All at once her feelings of dread left her, and she began to breathe easier. She turned to ask for his help, and then she remembered the promise she had made to Brownie. She had said she would never bring this man into her house. Walter had spoken of trust, and she could not betray Brownie’s trust a second time.

  “I—Nay. I wish you could. But this is something I have to do alone.”

  He nodded slowly. She could see that he did not understand, that he still hoped to do something for her. “I wish you trusted me more, Alice.”

  “It’s not that!” she said, feeling that she could bear any words but those. “I have to do this alone.” And she turned and ran down the stairs before he could say anything more.

  Tom Nashe hastily pinned the flower to his hat and hurried outside after the brown woman. She had joined a group of women, the ones he had seen by the stream in Arthur’s land. They moved quickly down Bishopsgate Street and he ran after them, trying to keep her in sight. Ahead of them he could barely make out a crowd of outlandish figures, horned men and animals, tiny flying creatures, all of them calling to one another excitedly.

  The procession continued down Cheapside, toward Paul’s. As they turned in at the gate Tom saw Alice Wood run from the tower and pass him on her way out. Did she have dealings with these folk? Her son certainly did. It irked him that someone might know something about London that he didn’t.

  Then the brown woman motioned toward him again, and he forgot everything but her face, her hands, her hair.

  When Alice reached her house she found Margery and Agnes at the door. “Where’s Art?” she asked. “Is he in danger?”

  “Nay,” Margery said. “Brownie’s hidden him.”

  “Brownie? Where?”

  “I don’t know. Come—they’re moving toward Paul’s.”

  “What do they want with Art?”

  “The red king wants him. He doesn’t know which child is Oriana’s true son. And even if Art is not her son he hopes to gain information about her from him.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Never mind that. We must hurry.”

  Alice nearly followed her, moved by the urgency in Margery’s voice. But something made her stop and face the other woman squarely. “Why? What do I care about Oriana’s wars?”

  “You can do nothing here. And Brownie may be in danger.”

  Alice sighed. Her life seemed to be bound up with these people whatever she did. She followed Margery back to Paul’s.

  They were in time to see the red king’s creatures pass into the churchyard. The huge horses came first, then the sea-creatures, and after them a group of small misshapen figures who laughed and pointed as they walked. Finally they saw a long line of folks covered by shadow. Alice shivered a little in the afternoon sunlight, remembering what that shadow had hidden in Finsbury Field. The red king was nowhere in sight.

  Some of the stationers looked directly at creatures and seemed to see nothing. Others rubbed their eyes, as if their vision troubled them. Though the weather was fine, a sun too bright for June shining on the yard, a few of the booksellers began to pack up their wares and close their stalls.

  Oriana’s soldiers, some of them mounted on the horned animals, some standing, faced the creatures with their lances ready. Their silver mail seemed light as gossamer. Behind them were the standard-bearers, and then the circle of horned men surrounding the queen. Alice thought she saw Arthur next to Oriana, but in the next moment the guard moved together and hid him from her. Was he ready to fight a battle of this magnitude? She did not believe that he could be.

  There must have been some signal she missed, because in the next moment the two sides began to grapple with each other. The sea-creatures climbed over the stationers’ stalls, scattering books and papers as they went for Oriana’s men. Some scurried up the strong wooden buttresses of the church, or broke windows and ran through the aisles, calling shrilly to each other. As Alice watched one jumped from the roof to land on a horned man, who cried out and fell to the ground. The creature’s strong, supple limbs kept him from reaching for his sword.

  The booksellers had completely abandoned the churchyard now. Some watched from beneath the pillars, their faces filled with amazement and terror, but most had packed up and gone home. Two of the red king’s men rocked a stall back and forth and finally succeeded in toppling it to the ground. They sent up a wild high cry of triumph.

  Alice could not see George anywhere. But Walter had come down from the tower and was looking out at the disorder spread before him, standing too far away for her to make out his expression. What on earth would he make of it? Would he think it her doing? She remembered their conversation in the tower and thought that even he would not be anxious to keep company with her after this. Oriana had blighted her life, had taken away two of the people Alice had held dear, Arthur and Walter.

  She glanced at the queen, standing surrounded by her guard, and hoped bitterly that she would lose the war. Look at her, she thought, watching it all from the safety of her protected circle as others go out to die for her. How is she better than the red king? Arthur stood next to her, an abstracted look on his face. Oriana pointed to something, and Arthur nodded.

  A brown figure darted out into the midst of the fighting, and Alice held her breath as she watched. She had never known Brownie to hold a sword before, but she saw with a sense of loss that it seemed to suit him, that he fought as well as any of the men alongside him. If the red king defeated Oriana she prayed that Brownie would come through safely. It was only then, her hands clenched hard in supplication and hope, that she remembered that Brownie had hidden Art, that he might be the only one to know where her son was. What if he dies? she thought. How do I get my son back? It seemed impossible to her that Art could have been given to her for so short a time, another of Oriana’s cruel tricks.

  The fighting closed in around Brownie. Margery was saying something at her side but Alice barely heard her. A sea-creature cut down one of the guards and moved up behind Brownie, and as Alice watched he turned at the last moment and parried its sword. Then he plunged his own sword into the thing’s heart. “Look,” Margery said again, pointing.

  Alice turned away with difficulty. Paul Hogg stood by the churchyard gate, along with George and another man and his assistant, one of the water-people. How long had they been there? Hogg said something to the water spirit and it moved out into the battle. To Alice’s horror she saw it going directly for Brownie. Then several of the twig-people, running through the yard, cut them both off from sight.

  Perhaps the battle turned then, or perhaps Alice only noticed it at that moment. All over the yard Oriana’s people were falling. The sky darkened, casting a kind of twilight over the churchyard. A huge creature carrying a club in one hand and a chain in the other grappled with one of the horned soldiers. The twig-people ran from the field, crying out to one another, and small leathery shapes scuttled after them. The winged creatures fluttered around the tower, not daring to come closer. As Alice watched she saw the light die from Robin Goodfellow’s staff.

  “Something went wrong—somehow the battle started too soon,” Margery
said, as if speaking to herself. “They were not made to fight in sunlight.”

  “But the sun’s fading,” Alice said. “Won’t that help them?”

  “Nay, that’s the red king’s doing. Darkness covering light, that’s his weapon. Just as Oriana’s weapon is light shining through the darkness.”

  Who were the creatures of darkness then? Alice thought. George had been wrong; the division between the two was not as sharp as he had thought.

  “When will Oriana send Arthur?” Margery asked. “They will follow her son whatever happens.”

  “Arthur?” Alice said. “Look at him. He’s not here to fight. He’s here to be admired, to be made much of. After twenty-three years he’s found a mother who will let him do as he pleases. Do you think he’d give that up?”

  They saw Oriana speak to Arthur. “He might, if you talk to him,” Margery said.

  “If I—” Alice said, astonished. “Even when he thought he was my child he never listened to me. He’s Oriana’s son now—let her convince him.”

  “But she can’t. Look at her.”

  “That’s nothing to me. It’s not my war.”

  “Then they will almost certainly lose.”

  Alice turned toward her friend, away from the field. What did Margery care who won? But before she could ask she saw something that stopped the words in her mouth. Margery held her hands out over the battlefield. Light streamed out from her, and the force of it seemed to raise a wind that blew her thick hair back from her head. The fighting stopped momentarily as both sides turned to see where the radiance came from, and then Oriana’s folks raised their voices in a cheer.

  When the battle started Tom lost the brown woman in the confusion. He moved anxiously around the edges of the churchyard, hoping that she had not decided to join the fighting. After a few minutes he caught sight of her, standing near the guard of horned men. She turned to him and then looked back at the churchyard.

  He remembered what she had asked of him, back at the tavern. She wanted him to fight for her. And it was true that he wore her favor, though he hadn’t realized when he had pinned it to his hat what she would require of him. But nay, he thought, shaking his head. What am I thinking? I’m no soldier.