The Battle of the Sun

by Jeanette Winterson

  ‘Yes,’ said Anselm. ‘He made them and they were one, like we are one, but they tried to disobey him and as a punishment he tore them in two. Now they are full of fear of him and hate of everyone.’

  ‘They will never show you any mercy or any kindness, none,’ said Robert.

  ‘When he made them, were they at once a male and a female?’ asked Jack, finishing his bread.

  ‘Yes, it was a great wonder,’ said Peter.

  ‘What is their purpose?’

  ‘To spy on us, and to keep us here. They know everything,’ said Robert.

  ‘What of the other servants? The ones in grey?’

  ‘All too afraid. They do not speak to us.’

  ‘We will escape,’ said Jack. ‘I promise you I will find a way.’

  Robert shook his head sadly. ‘Before you came, we were seven, and the seventh tried to escape.’

  ‘What became of him?’

  Robert stood up from the barrel and gestured at Jack to follow. He went towards the back of the laboratory and opened a door. The room beyond was very dark, except for a row of candles which seemed to be burning in front of some statues.

  ‘Are these statues from the Catholic churches or the monasteries?’ asked Jack, who knew that King Henry the Eighth, the king before Elizabeth had become queen, had made England a Protestant country and had all the statues taken out of all the Catholic churches. Some people had taken the statues and hidden them in their houses, some because they continued in secret to be Catholics, and some because they were sorry to see the old and colourful ways disappear, with their statues of saints and virgins. They were, after all, someone to talk to, and many an ordinary wife missed her quiet talks with a statue that she would swear seemed to speak.

  Robert shook his head. ‘They are the ones who Disobeyed.’

  ‘Hear what he says?’ said William. ‘DISOBEYED!’

  Jack ignored his stare, and went closer to look at the statues.

  They were life-size, and life-like. Only a master carver could have made anything so like a human being.

  ‘They were human beings,’ said Robert.

  And Jack noticed the sad expressions on their faces – very sad and very surprised. Two had their mouths a little open, as though they had been about to speak.

  A boy, very like Jack in height and build, stood silent and upright at the end of the row. Jack put out his hand and touched the boy’s face. Yes, the boy was stone. Stone-hard and stone-cold. No sun could warm him now.

  ‘We light the candles here,’ said Peter, ‘so that they are not always in the dark.’

  ‘Are they alive inside the stone?’ said Jack. ‘Or are they all stone?’

  ‘No one can tell,’ said Robert. ‘And their lips are stone, so they cannot tell.’

  Jack ran his finger over the boy’s lips, and felt something like infinite sadness, but whether it was his own sadness, or that of the stone boy, he could not tell.

  Back inside the laboratory, the boys finished sawing and stacking the wood. They built up the furnace and drained and filled the liquids. They seemed cheerful at their work, for, as Robert explained, the laboratory was the only place in the Dark House that was warm, and it was the only place that was not grey. Here in the colour and warmth, and the light flowing down from the windows set in the roof, the boys were as free and as happy as they could be. There was water too, so they were not thirsty, and they were fed bread and cheese at noon and bread and broth at four o’clock, and they ate it sitting by the furnace, talking and joking and playing games. They hated the dark dormitory, and the silent fearful seven o’clock breakfasts, after the long tramp down and down the stairs, Wedge in front, Mistress Split behind. At seven every evening they were summoned for supper, the Magus sweeping through the refectory like a dark wind.

  It was evening, and growing dark outside. Wedge came hopping in to the laboratory and herded the boys to their stations in the long refectory. There was a large round loaf on the table, and a cooked leg of mutton. Mistress Split pulled her sword from her skirt and brought it down, SLICE!

  WHOOSH! SLICE! WHOOSH! Mutton and bread flew in the air and landed about the table, while the boys fetched their pieces and ate it, all the while listening to the mad rhymes and manic laughter of the Creature(s).

  ‘What rhymes with Loaf?’

  ‘Oaf!’

  ‘What rhymes with Mutton?’

  ‘Glutton!’

  The two sat at the head of the table, so close together that they were nearly one. Each ate noisily, snatching food from the other, and cramming it into their half-mouths. Jack had once seen a snake with two heads that could only feed and not starve if one head was distracted by a twig or a nail while the other head ate. If not both heads spat and snarled so much that neither could swallow.

  And Jack thought that perhaps the way to defeat these two that were one that were two, was to turn them against each other.

  As he thought this the Magus entered the room, and Jack forced himself not to think at all.

  At the end of the meal the boys were marched upstairs and locked into the stone room with the stone beds. The moon herself, usually so soft and kind, seemed made of stone that night, her light hard and held.

  One by one the boys fell asleep, but Jack did not fall asleep. He lay awake, thinking of his mother and his little black dog, and he thought he heard, far off, his dog barking.

  Somehow he would get away.

  MOTHER MIDNIGHT

  It was five minutes to the hour. Jack’s mother rose from her chair by the window and, taking the little leather bag, wrapped her cloak around her shoulders and quietly slipped out of the house and down on to the river.

  The night was misty and cool. A swan white as a ghost glided by, silent as a ghost, and like a ghost, without visible means of movement.

  Jack’s mother shivered in the air and hurried on. She knew where she was going.

  As she made her way to London Bridge, it seemed as though the whole city was whispering to her. The wooden and plaster houses echoed and reverberated any noise, and the noise of the Thames and its water-wheels and conduits was like a giant whisper that jumped from house to house.

  TSHSH, TSHSH, TSHSH. Jack’s mother listened, and behind the whispering she heard a horse’s hooves, far off, and the sound of a pail being emptied from an upper room.

  At the bridge her old friend the Keeper of the Tides was leaning out of his poop-window that overlooked the river.

  It was late, and he had to open the bridge gate to let her cross.

  ‘What news,’ he called to her, ‘that you are out so late?’

  ‘My Jack is missing!’ she said.

  ‘This is a strange time!’ he answered. ‘The river rises too high, the moon sinks too low. Something is going to happen!’

  ‘So I fear,’ said Anne, ‘but I must hurry on.’

  She crossed London Bridge, and disappeared into a maze of narrow alleys around Southwark. There, all noise ended. She was in a silence as thick as cloth.

  She walked, hearing nothing but her own footsteps, until she came to a small door with the sign of a pentangle above it on the lintel. She knocked three times.

  After a few moments the door opened, and there in the shadows of the doorway stood an old woman with eyes like diamonds. There was a black cat draped across her shoulders, and the cat had eyes like red rubies.

  What a figure the woman was – so small she could have lived in a box. So thin that she could have escaped from a hole in a box. Her mouth was as empty as an empty box, and her eyes were as full of secrets as a box that says DO NOT OPEN. She was not a human, not a fish, not a cat, not a dog, not a monster, not a devil, not a born thing, not anything. She was all manner of things. She was Mother Midnight.

  Mother Midnight’s house was not like a house – it was like a den round the foot of a tree. Past the door there was a narrow passage that led to a room whose ceiling was so low that Jack’s mother had to stoop until she could sit down.

&nbs
p; There were no windows, and the walls were hung with sacking to keep the wind out. A fire roared in the chimney – a fire of such a size that it lit the room without any further light, and heated the room like an oven. And yet there was not a stick of wood to be seen, and the fire had a red look to it, like the eyes of the cat. A kettle and a cauldron hung to the side of the fire.

  In the centre of the room was an oak tree of vast girth, whose lower branches seemed to form the roof or ceiling of Mother Midnight’s den. The roots of the tree were in the ground and the tree was alive. Planks of wood had been fitted round the tree to form a table, and there were several chairs carved from fallen oak around this table. On the table was a shallow copper bowl filled with green water.

  There was nothing else in the room but a straw mattress and a broom.

  Jack’s mother wasted no time. She told of what had happened that day, and how Jack had not come home these twelve hours gone, and of her fears that Jack had been kidnapped.

  Mother Midnight sat down, and passed her hands over the copper bowl. She seemed to fall into a kind of trance as the green water clouded over and swirled and steamed with strange colours and mists.

  Then, like a vision in the water, was Jack’s face. His mother cried out, putting her hand to her mouth. She could see the stone bed and the stone window and the moon like a pale stone outside. And there was her beloved boy.

  ‘He is not harmed,’ said Mother Midnight.

  ‘Who has taken him?’

  ‘That I cannot tell you, for I am forbidden by a power stronger than mine own.’

  ‘Then the danger is great!’

  ‘His spirit is strong and clear,’ said Mother Midnight. ‘I can feel him strong and clear.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘You must search for him and find him yourself.’

  ‘I have the magnet.’

  Jack’s mother took the magnet out of its leather bag, and she had a glove belonging to Jack. She passed them over to Mother Midnight, who sat muttering over them and turning them in her old scarred hands.

  ‘Now it is charged,’ she said. ‘Now the magnet will be drawn to the boy as if to metal.’

  ‘Is it witchcraft that has him?’ asked Jack’s mother.

  ‘It is a dark power,’ said Mother Midnight, ‘and more you shall not know until more you shall know.’

  The fire hissed and spat like a cat. The water in the bowl settled and became still and green once more.

  Jack’s mother stood up, stooping under the ceiling of mud and branches, and leaving money on the table, she left without speaking. The magnet had a heat to it now, and she felt it pulling her towards Lambeth.

  She didn’t notice a very small black dog following her.

  THE SUNKEN KING

  In the dead of night Jack woke up. The light of the moon was shining directly on his face and across the floor towards the door. Jack swung out of bed and pulled on his jacket and shoes.

  He tried the door. It was locked, but Jack knew what to do. His own father had been a master blacksmith, and before he died he had given Jack an iron tool with blades and picks and pokes and prongs that were all folded together, as many as you could count. The bit of iron didn’t look like much unless you opened it out – it looked like something for picking stones out of horses’ hooves, or paring your nails, or gouging a hole in a block of wood, but that was a good thing because it meant that no one wanted to steal it.

  Very quietly Jack jigged the iron tool in the lock. There was a sharp click and the door opened. In a second Jack was out of the room and down the stone stairs.

  At the third turn of the stairs, Jack saw a door half open, and the low light of a lantern burning. There was a noise. Jack hesitated, poised as a cat, and crept along the wall. He could see no shadow moving on the floor of the room, so he guessed that someone was sleeping in there. Jack took a deep breath, held his breath, and crossed the opening of the door.

  He could not help glancing inside, and what he saw stopped him in astonishment.

  It was the room of the Creature(s).

  A bed was sawn in two, and each lay snoring in his and her own half. Each had half a pillow, with the straw stuffing falling out, and half a blanket with the threads unravelling. By each half a bed was half a table and on each half a table burned half a tallow candle.

  By the window was a chair split down the middle, and over the back of one half of the chair were his clothes, and over the back of the other half of the chair were her clothes. On the wall was a painting of a green lion, but the painting had been roughly broken in two, and the jagged edges of the canvas pointed at each other. Jack looked down at the floorboards underneath the painting. It was a strange thing – it was as if the painting had just been painted and the halved lion was leaking gold. There were little gold spatters, like candle wax, all over the floor.

  Jack was hypnotised by the room. The breathing of the Creature(s) was like a spell. He felt himself being drawn in, closer and closer to the bed, to the half-body, to the half-face. He put out his hand.

  Suddenly he seemed to hear a little dog bark, and he came to his senses, and shook himself, like a dog that has fallen into the water and jumps out.

  Boldly, he snatched up the candle from the table nearest to the door, and made his way again down the dark stairs towards the hall, where he was sure he could unlock the front door and find his way home.

  But as he reached the hallway, he heard an unmistakable sound of groaning and a voice, wavering and thin, that cried, ‘Help me! Help me!’

  Jack hesitated. The door to the courtyard was right in front of him. He had his iron tool. He could escape. Now, now, now. And the voice came again, ‘Help me! Help me!’

  Jack turned. He moved quickly towards the back of the hallway, and saw steps going down, down. It was pitch black, so black that his candle only lit the tiny square around his feet. Cautiously he took the steps one by one, as they became damper, danker, and he wondered if this was the way into the well.

  There was no sound. ‘Who’s there?’ called Jack.

  The groaning began again. It was behind him. Jack turned and saw a tiny opening in the wall, very low, so that he had to stoop to get in. As he bent under the mossy lintel, and straightened himself up again, he saw an unlit torch on the wall, and he lit it with his candle. The torch flared up, making Jack blink with the sudden light, and cough with the acrid smell of resin and turpentine.

  ‘Help me,’ said the voice.

  Now in the light of the flare Jack saw the keeper of the voice.

  In front of him was a big glass tank, made of thick wavy glass filled with an amber-coloured water, and inside the tank, on a throne covered in barnacles, sat a sunken king.

  The King’s crown was sunk deep on to his head, and his head was sunk low on to his chest, and his chest was drooped towards his stomach and his stomach was low on his legs and his legs were deep in the water, and his feet were mired in weed.

  His eyes, so set back in his head that they might have looked rearwards, regarded Jack. Such blue eyes, each like a grotto. Underwater caves of eyes that held in them deep secrets, of treasures and gold and lost ships.

  The King raised his hand. The fingers were long, like stems of coral, and covered in small scales like a fish. Jack suddenly remembered how his skin had been scaly when he was reeled out of the well. He shuddered. Would he become like this sunken king?

  ‘Come near,’ said the King.

  Trembling, Jack approached, determined to show no fear even though, at this moment, he was made of fear.

  ‘You are Adam Kadmon,’ said the King.

  ‘I am Jack Snap,’ said Jack.

  ‘It hardly matters what you call yourself,’ said the King. ‘If you were not Adam Kadmon, you would not be here.’

  ‘I don’t want to be here,’ replied Jack. ‘I have been kidnapped by the Magus.’

  ‘And it is the Magus who has imprisoned me in this tank,’ said the King. ‘I was his master once, and I have tri
ed to prevent him working his evil, but I have failed. Where I have failed, you must succeed.’

  ‘He wants to turn lead into gold,’ said Jack. ‘That is what the alchemists strive to do, is it not?’

  ‘He would turn all things into gold – do you understand me, Adam, all things into gold.’

  ‘All things into gold . . .’ repeated Jack. ‘He hasn’t managed any of it yet – the other boys told me so.’

  The King nodded. ‘Once upon a time, I had power over him, and he could do nothing without my command. But he studied in secret, and chose a way that was not the Way of Light. He overcame me, and here you see me now, usurped and in prison. He cannot kill me, for there is an ancient law that prevents a servant from killing his master – even such a servant as he, dark as he. Instead he waits for me to die.’

  ‘I could shatter the glass,’ said Jack. ‘You could escape with me now.’

  The Sunken King shook his head, and his hair was like seaweed that flows under water. ‘That will change nothing. My power must first be renewed.’

  ‘How can that be?’ said Jack.

  ‘You must find the Dragon and bid him prepare a Bath. In those strange waters, I can be renewed. But there is not much time left for me. I am already beginning to dissolve.’

  And it was true. As Jack looked at the Sunken King he saw how blurred and watery were his outlines. The amber colour of the water is his lifeblood, thought Jack. He is becoming the water he sits in.

  ‘If the Magus is free to follow his own path,’ said the King, ‘ruin will follow him. There will be nothing left of life, do you hear me, Adam Kadmon? Nothing left of life.’

  ‘My name is Jack Snap,’ said Jack, and he felt it was important to keep saying his own name, lest he too should begin to dissolve in this formless place, or grow dark in the Dark House. His name was his outline, and his own quiet light. He would be his own name.

  ‘When you say Dragon, what is it that you mean?’ said Jack.