The Battle of the Sun

by Jeanette Winterson

  ‘I mean Dragon,’ said the King.

  ‘There are no dragons,’ said Jack. ‘The very last dragon that ever lived was killed by St George, here in England.’

  ‘We are in the cellars of the Dark House,’ observed the Sunken King, ‘yet the Dragon is lower down yet. You must dive deeper, deeper dive.’

  As Jack was about to argue more about this matter of a dragon he heard a noise above him in the hall. He clapped his hands over the flare, burning himself a bit but not crying out, then moved as fast as he could back up the stairs, holding his jacket around the candle so that he could see his way but not be seen. As he got to the hall, he saw that the door to the courtyard was wide open. His heart leapt. Without thinking he dropped his candle and ran. He would be free, he would go home, he would escape. There was no more need of darkness and dissolution. No more to do with kings and creatures and boys and stone beds. He was his own Jack and he was in the courtyard under the stars, and there was the outer door to the street, and that was open too, and he had crossed the cobbles, and reached it, and he was out, and straight into the arms of . . .

  The Magus.

  ‘How now, little fish? What are you doing swimming here, eh?’

  Jack struggled and he kicked and he fought, but it was useless. The Magus was strong as twenty Jacks, and soon had him bundled back through the doors into the hall and into the library where a fire was burning and the room lit.

  A grey servant stood waiting for orders.

  ‘Fetch Wedge,’ ordered the Magus, and to Jack, ‘So you thought you would leave me so soon? Oh no, that cannot be.’

  Wedge came hopping into the room. He was dressed in half a nightshirt and wore half a bedcap on his half-head.

  ‘Not my fault, Master, no, nothing of me, nothing of me!’

  ‘How did this boy leave the dormitory?’

  ‘Witchcraft, it must have been!’

  ‘He didn’t lock the door,’ said Jack suddenly.

  The Magus went towards Wedge. Wedge hopped backwards, and they did this all around the room, Wedge hopping backwards and the Magus going forwards, Wedge swearing on all the saints in heaven and all the devils in hell that he had locked the door as he always did.

  ‘Took the keys off her and locked the door.’

  ‘She gave you the wrong key, then,’ said Jack, suddenly thinking that was a way to start them squabbling with each other, as well as to save himself from further search and investigation.

  ‘Spells, it was!’ cried Wedge. ‘Spells, magic! Don’t beat me!’

  ‘The boy has not learnt to use his powers,’ said the Magus. ‘That I know to be true. If he left the dormitory, and manifestly, he did leave the dormitory, then he left not by magic, but by the door! You left it unlocked, Wedge, and for your stupidity you shall starve for three days and three nights.’

  ‘Starve her, then!’ cried Wedge. ‘For She is the Keeper of the Keys, as well you know, and She gives me the key of a night to lock the door, as well you know, and I lock it according to the key . . .’ He tapered off, mumbling, ‘as well you know’.

  ‘You shall both be starved,’ said the Magus. ‘Now get out of my sight.’

  Wedge hopped towards the door and, as he passed Jack, he said under his breath in a low snarl, ‘Now you have made an enemy of me, my fine lad, my Jackster. An enemy have you made!’

  The Magus sat down at the round stone table and gestured for Jack to sit near him. Unwillingly Jack did so.

  ‘I have something to show you,’ said the Magus, ‘that no soul here but myself has ever seen. Behold!’

  The Magus opened a stone jar that sat on the stone table, and took out a handful of dust. He threw this on the fire, and the fire immediately raged up, and then changed colour, first to green, then to red, then, as the flames turned back to gold, there appeared in the flames in the fireplace, a golden city.

  ‘London!’ cried Jack.

  There was St Paul’s, there was London Bridge with its houses and shops and golden horses going to and fro. There was Cheapside, crammed with stalls selling flowers and root vegetables, and there was Billingsgate, sizeable as a whale, selling every fish of every kind, some in tanks, some in casks, some still gasping golden on golden slabs.

  There was the Strand and its printing shops, where Jack was going to be an apprentice. There were the Inns of Court.

  There was the Queen’s palace at the Tower of London, and the bear gardens at Vauxhall. There was the river itself, the Thames, turning through the city like a bow, but in the flames it was like a golden bow, that bent past the banks and wharves of the city.

  ‘Imagine a city made of gold, and each thing in it made of gold, and every person as golden as a precious statue, and the Thames itself a flowing golden god, where a dropped line would hook a golden fish, and where a dipped bucket would pour pure gold. Imagine it, Jack. Such a city would be the wonder of the world and the wealth of the world. A man who was king of that city would be a king indeed.’

  ‘It is real?’ asked Jack, kneeling and looking in wonder into the flames.

  ‘It is a vision,’ said the Magus. ‘A vision of what shall be.’

  The flames began to die back, and as they did so the golden city shrank and disappeared into the burning wood.

  ‘So you must stay with us, Jack,’ said the Magus, ‘and if you are what I believe you to be, riches and power will be yours.’

  ‘What do you believe me to be?’ asked Jack.

  ‘You are the Radiant Boy,’ answered the Magus, ‘the boy that is written in the ancient books of life, and when your power is added to my power, there is nothing that we shall not accomplish.’

  It was almost day. Through the window Jack saw the night disappearing.

  The Magus told him to go into the laboratory and stoke the furnace. ‘I shall not punish you on this occasion,’ he said. ‘But I shall watch you closely, and I shall know what you say, what you think, what you do, and where you are. If you become a fly, I shall become a spider. If you become a mouse, you shall feel my whiskers at your tail. If you become a horse, I shall be your rider. And if you are a fish, I shall soon be your net. Run where you will, Jack, I shall not let you go.’

  The Magus left the room. Downhearted, Jack went to begin his work. Then his mind went over the night’s events, and the Sunken King, and what was that about the Dragon?

  What dragon? He would find a way of asking Robert.

  He thought of his mother at home, and how unhappy she must be. But his mother was not at home. She was in the kitchen of the Dark House with Mistress Split.

  DOG DOES IT

  Iwon’t cut it in half, whatever he says!’

  Mistress Split had the little black spaniel on her knee ‘ and she was bending over it like half a mother. ‘What do you call this little love, this little dove? A dog, you say? Never seen one in all my born days, not that I have born days, being made like I am and not born in the way common to all.’

  Jack’s mother didn’t know what to say.

  After she had left the house of Mother Midnight, she had felt the strong pull of the magnet and followed it as it guided her through the empty, eerie late and misty London alleys.

  She could not shake off the feeling that she was being followed. Now and again she looked around, and fearfully behind her, thinking that a footpad with a pistol, or a fiend with a red face must be close behind. But she saw nothing.

  At length, the heat and the vibration of the magnet intensifying, she wound her way through the twists and turns of deformed streets that were more like a labyrinth than a passage. She was tired, lost, losing heart, and so she sat down for a moment on a rough stone mounting-block and with the little leather magnet bag in her lap she put her head in her hands.

  Something wet licked her. Something warm snuggled its face against her face. Something made of love sent its love straight into her heart.

  She opened her eyes, her hands, her heart, and there was Jack’s spaniel looking up at her with his deep brown
eyes.

  Max!

  Max jumped on to her knee, and they sat awhile, quiet and together, and the woman took the courage of the little dog, that feared nothing but only wanted to find . . .

  Jack.

  ‘We’ll go together,’ she said, and together they went, and came to the high forbidding walls of the Dark House, just as dawn was breaking, and just as the strangest creature on earth came hopping out of the back door with a pail of slops for the pigs.

  Woof!

  The Creature had dropped her pail in fright, and then, Max being just a dog and a very young dog at that, he had grabbed a bone from the pail and jumped in the air with it like a pirate with the crown jewels.

  ‘What is before me?’ said the Creature, amazed.

  ‘A spaniel,’ answered Jack’s mother, now cautious and alert because the magnet was throbbing. This must be the house, this must be the place.

  ‘Lived in this house all my born days – not that I have any born days, for I never was born, but never seen a Thing so black and beautiful and shiny and like thick bubbling tar.’

  Jack’s mother sensed that she must show no fear and win over this odd creature, but it was Max who bounded forward, straight through the back door, woofing with merriment, and the Creature hopping after him with her pail.

  And that is how they had ended up in the kitchen.

  ‘Lived in this house all my . . . all my what? Not my born days, no . . . what then . . . yes, my bottle days!’ said the Creature, chuckling with pleasure at her own wit, ‘for I was made here, in a bottle, and what I see here is all I see, and what I know here is all I know. All my bottle days, tra la!’

  Jack’s mother was about to say that dogs in London were as often seen as rats, but the Creature had gone back to her first thought, ‘And I won’t cut him in two!’

  ‘Why would you wish to kill the poor dog?’ asked Jack’s mother, but the Creature was shaking her head.

  ‘All in half, all in half, all in half.’

  The door flew open and in hopped Wedge.

  THE EYEBAT

  Jack was pouring powder of sulphur into the top of the alembic. Robert and Crispis were stuffing pieces of lead into the bottom of the alembic. Poor Crispis was so small that he could hardly lift the lead from the bucket. His curly hair was damp with sweat.

  ‘I wish I was a rabbit,’ he said, ‘then I could live in a field and eat grass.’

  Jack was up on the ladder. He came down. ‘Crispis, go and give all the boys some water. Robert and I will manage the lead.’

  ‘Every boy must perform his allotted task,’ shouted William.

  ‘Not if a friend will do it for him,’ said Jack. ‘Go on, Crispis.’

  The tiny boy smiled with happiness. William scowled.

  ‘Do not provoke William,’ said Robert. ‘I do not trust him.’

  ‘There’s no one watching us,’ said Jack.

  ‘The Eyebat is always watching us,’ said Peter, coming across with a pile of wood for the furnace.

  From across the room the Eyebat was gleaming evilly from its jar. Crispis came trotting back with two brimming wooden cups of water. He looked at Jack the way a sunflower looks at the sun.

  ‘Thank you, Crispis,’ said Jack, and gently turned the little boy round and sent him off. ‘Don’t forget the others.’

  Robert splashed some of his water on his face and neck.

  ‘Have you always been an orphan, Robert?’ asked Jack.

  ‘I must have had a mother once, for I wasn’t made in a bottle like the Creature,’ said Robert. ‘But I came here from a ship where I was a cabin boy.’

  ‘A ship!’ said Jack. ‘Did you fight any pirates?’

  ‘Yes, and we did,’ replied Robert. ‘Sailing off Cadiz the Spaniards attacked us, but we fought them off, and when our guns and our ammunition and our men were exhausted, a pirate ship came and plundered us. Pirates are clever. I’d rather be a pirate than anything.’

  ‘When we escape, let’s be pirates,’ said Jack.

  ‘And get a ship and go to sea!’

  ‘And find the treasure . . .’

  ‘And I’ll have a parrot and a pair of pistols.’

  ‘And we won’t have to turn lead into gold because we’ll find all the gold in the world . . . when we escape.’

  Jack was laughing, but now Robert had stopped laughing, and his face was serious and sad. ‘Not anything can escape, Jack. There is no escape, that’s what you don’t understand. This place, the Dark House, it’s not just a house like other houses are houses. It’s as if . . . it’s like living inside a person – the Magus is this house, Jack, we are living inside him.’

  Jack was silent. He thought back to when he had woken up in the well and wondered if he were inside a whale.

  ‘How are we living inside him, Robert?’

  Robert looked around, nervous, but the other boys were all busy at their work, except for Peter, who came closer. Robert said, ‘I am the eldest here, nearly thirteen, and I have been here the longest. When I came, I was brought off the ship because my master had sold me, and I didn’t think much of it, but when the cart brought me to this house, the man driving the cart, all fearful and watchful, said to me, “Boy, they have sold you to the Devil. I tell you true, this house does not exist! Look for it and it does not exist.” ’

  ‘But it does exist,’ protested Jack, ‘we are in it, and we have both been outside it, and there is a courtyard, and last night the Magus came and went. How could he come and go if there was nothing here but a phantom?’

  ‘It exists in his mind,’ said Robert, ‘and so do we.’

  ‘I am Jack!’ said Jack out loud, and William looked round.

  ‘You are Robert! There’s Peter.’

  ‘But he is the Magus,’ said Robert. ‘I can think of a house, but not so that you can go inside it. He can think of a house, and we are inside it – all of us.’

  ‘Even if that is true,’ said Jack, ‘and I don’t believe it is true, we have a life that is not his life.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ said Robert. ‘What life do we have that is not his life?’

  Jack shook Robert by the shoulders. ‘Stop it! Whatever this house is, we will escape. Now tell me something I want to know.

  Is there such a thing as, well, something like a dragon in here?’

  Robert’s face went white with fear. ‘Who told you there was a dragon?’

  ‘I know there aren’t any dragons,’ said Jack, ‘but I am looking for one.’

  ‘That’s easy!’ said Crispis. ‘Whatever doesn’t exist is nearby.’

  Robert sighed and Peter cuffed the child on the head, but gently, and in play.

  ‘As it happens,’ said Robert, ‘yes, we do have a dragon.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Sometimes you can see it in the dry moat that lies lower than the house, as though the house rose out of the moat and will one day fall back there. It is all wrapped around the house.’

  The boys were crowding round now.

  ‘Tell me where the dry moat is!’ said Jack. ‘Can we see it from here? What if we climb up to the skylight and look down?’

  ‘It is forbidden to climb up to the skylight,’ said William.

  ‘Everything is forbidden!’ said Jack. ‘I don’t care. Come on! Who’s going to help me? I need help with the ladder!’

  ‘We’ll be punished!’ said Peter.

  ‘This is being punished!’ said Jack. ‘This is the worst punishment I ever had, worse than being locked in the cellar for stealing apples, worse than being beaten with a stick for breaking a window, worse than being made to row up and down the Thames all day because I stole a boat – I didn’t steal it really, I just borrowed it.’

  ‘I’m too frightened,’ said Roderick.

  ‘That’s because you’ve all been here a long time. He’s broken your spirit. You have to fight back – we can beat him.’

  ‘You’ll kill us all!’ shouted William, and he rushed at Jack, but the other boys p
ulled him off.

  ‘Peter! Anselm! Hold William,’ said Robert. ‘All right, Jack, we’ll help you. Roderick, get the ladder with me!’

  Reluctantly Roderick helped Robert to steady the ladder for Jack and soon Jack had shinned up and was high as the skylight.

  ‘Robert,’ he called down, ‘if the house doesn’t really exist, then the Dragon can’t really be wrapped around it, so we’re safe aren’t we?’

  Jack pushed open the skylight and eased his body half out on the roof. He looked out. His heart lifted; there was St Paul’s cathedral spire on the skyline. He was not so far away from home.

  He looked down. There was the courtyard, and beyond the courtyard, yes, there was a moat, and the moat had no water in it. There was nothing in it at all; it was a deep dug ditch.

  ‘Get down!’ shouted William, struggling to break free, his face twisted with anger and upset. ‘Who do you think you are? You have no right! Get down!’

  Suddenly Robert heard a noise. ‘Jack! Someone’s coming!’

  Jack began to slide himself back through the skylight, and as he did so, he dislodged a piece of lead on the roof. There it went, bouncing and skimming down the steep pitch of the roof, off the edge, and down into the moat.

  And Jack saw something very strange. As the sharp heavy bit of lead hit the moat, the moat moved – that is it rippled, the way the skin of an animal ripples, and Jack suddenly realised that he had been looking for a moat with a dragon in it, but the Dragon and the moat were the same thing . . . the Dragon was the moat and the moat was the Dragon. Whatever was wrapped around the house was alive.

  But it was too late for all that now.

  The metal door of the laboratory shot open like someone had fired it out of a gun. Wedge and Mistress Split were roaring on the threshold.

  ‘Eat! Eat! Eat! Meat! Meat! Meat!’

  Then Wedge saw the ladder, and Jack at the top of it. He hopped straight over, kicked the ladder away, and Jack fell straight down with a crash.

  And as he fell his arm knocked the Eyebat’s jar from the shelf.

  There was a silence. A horrified silence. Jack lay on the floor, a bit dazed, seeing the faces above him, like in a dream.