The Battle of the Sun

by Jeanette Winterson

  ‘I will not interfere with your own work,’ said the Magus. ‘That is yours. Yet I need an assistant. What is your price?’

  ‘Riches,’ said Abel Darkwater, ‘enough that I may flee to France and live without thought of money. There is a clock I must obtain, and when I have obtained it, I must repair it. A great deal of money will be necessary.’

  ‘The Timekeeper?’ laughed the Magus. ‘You are a fool, Darkwater, if you believe that timepiece has any power. It is a toy, the story is a rumour. There is nothing there.’

  ‘Then let my folly be my own,’ replied Darkwater evenly. ‘And my price is something more than gold . . .’

  The Magus looked at him steadily.

  ‘I want the Captive.’

  ‘She is disappeared,’ said the Magus.

  ‘But she is with the boy, of that I am sure. He called her.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ said the Magus sharply.

  ‘She is the Golden Maiden,’ said Abel Darkwater.

  ‘That cannot be!’ said the Magus.

  ‘Perhaps you do not know all that you think you know.

  Perhaps you do not control all that you think you control,’ said Abel Darkwater quietly.

  The Magus was silent. He was so angry that a part of the table began to smoulder. Abel Darkwater put his hand over the smoking smouldering wood, and the smoke rose up between his thick fingers. He was smiling. It was unpleasant.

  ‘The boy is your rival, do not underestimate him. Be aware too that the Maiden has power of her own.’

  ‘I shall destroy the boy,’ said the Magus. ‘As to this Maiden . . .’

  ‘If you want my help, do not bargain with me. When you take the boy, give me the girl. The money is the money, but the girl is the price. No more and no less.’

  The Magus nodded. ‘You shall have the money, and you shall have the Maiden.’

  ‘I shall join you in the morning, before dawn,’ said Abel Darkwater. ‘I have things to do until then. Where shall I find you?’

  ‘At the old Priory,’ said the Magus, and Abel Darkwater laughed his short unpleasant laugh.

  ‘And the Abbess? Will she be there too?’

  ‘She has some interest in the Work,’ said the Magus. ‘The old Priory, then . . .’

  The Magus rose. Silver took the opportunity to slip away under cover of an oaf the size of an elephant. This oaf, carrying six empty flagons of ale to be replenished, was so fat and vast that neither the Magus nor Abel Darkwater noticed Silver at all. In a flash she was back to where she had left Jack, sitting on a barrel. But Jack had gone outside, and was crouching behind a mooring stone, listening to Wedge and Mistress Split, waiting at oars in the sullen golden boat.

  ‘Thing won’t hatch!’ said Wedge. ‘If I could hatch it, I could take all his power, all his money, all his golden city, but the thing won’t hatch. Had every hen in London sit on it, but hatch it will not.’

  ‘I don’t care one tittle!’ snarled Mistress Split. ‘What wouldn’t I give of gold and jewels to see my beautiful Boojie again. Mine mine mine! Gone gone gone!’

  ‘Shut up!’ shouted Wedge. ‘I hated that dog, all four legs and fur and two eyes and whole. We doesn’t do wholes, we does halves, as well you know!’

  ‘Mine mine mine,’ moaned Mistress Split, ‘and the Magus forcing us to work all day and all night, and all hollow it is to me now, even when this city is paved with gold and we gets a golden house with a golden front door.’

  ‘There will be no golden house or golden front door,’ said Wedge. ‘He’ll shove us back in a bottle and drown us. If you won’t help me with the hatching of the Egg, and join me in halves by rights, then I’ll save myself and let you drown.’

  ‘Give me the Egg!’ cried Mistress Split. ‘I’ll take it to Mother Midnight – she won’t speak to you, as she speaks only to women and children and never to men.’

  ‘She’s a stupid old woman,’ said Wedge.

  ‘She has power,’ said Mistress Split, ‘and well may she have the hen that can hatch the Egg.’

  And privately Mistress Split was thinking that if she could only get away from Wedge for an hour, she could find her beloved Boojie dog.

  Jack heard – and thought that if he needed to find the Magus, all he had to do was follow Mistress Split when she left Mother Midnight.

  Then he shrank back, for the Magus himself was coming towards the boat.

  MORE VISITORS

  At the house on the Strand called The Level, Roger Rover was perplexed. No sooner had Abel Darkwater left the house by the water-gate, than with a great clattering and racket, a coach had pulled into the outer courtyard, and a distinguished gentleman had come flying through the inner courtyard, holding on to his hat as he ran, and demanding to see Sir Roger. It was John Dee himself, alchemist to Queen Elizabeth.

  ‘Darkwater!’ panted Dee. ‘He has been here, I know! Did he get it?’

  ‘If you are referring to the pieces of the clock, no, he did not. Indeed I bid him ask you to attend on me yourself over this matter, though I confess I did not expect you so soon.’

  ‘It was not I who sent him!’ said John Dee. ‘He is no longer my apprentice – I turned him out a month ago when I discovered his true motives and meddlings. He has put himself in the service of the dark powers.’

  ‘And the Magus?’ asked Roger Rover.

  ‘The man who calls himself the Magus is an impostor. He is no true alchemist. My spies tell me he is about to leave for France.’

  ‘Then mayhap he has taken Darkwater with him – there was some talk, some gossip, some rumour, of the city of London turned to gold.’

  ‘That cannot happen,’ said John Dee flatly. ‘Impossible. Gossip. Superstitious talk of foolish folk of the kind the Magus so easily deceived. That man is nothing to our purpose or interest, I do assure you. Yet, I believe it would be wise for you to entrust that timepiece to me.’

  ‘Why should I?’ said Roger Rover.

  ‘So that it is not stolen from you! It has a power, I admit, or it may have a power – I do not know. It has a history, and I must study it.’

  ‘It is not for sale,’ said Roger Rover. ‘I got it in Rome, you know. Very recently.’

  John Dee laughed and sat down, fanning himself with his hat. ‘You were spying for the Queen, as well I know, and I know that this clock was given to you as a bribe!’

  ‘It seems that the Queen has spies to spy on her spies . . .’ said Roger Rover drily.

  ‘But of course,’ said John Dee. ‘She cannot be too careful . . .’ John Dee paused. ‘I know well,’ he said, ‘that the clock is in pieces because the Pope himself smashed it to the floor in front of the sorceress who tried to trade it for her life. You were in the room at the time.’

  ‘Yes, she was a woman of considerable authority – no doubt now burned to death.’

  ‘For witchcraft no doubt,’ said John Dee, ‘and yet I would like to see the pieces of the clock – may I?’

  There was a pause, a long pause. Roger Rover took out the sea-stained bag once more, and John Dee examined the pieces, and in particular the strange pictures that decorated the twin faces of the clock.

  ‘The Timekeeper . . .’ said John Dee, more to himself than Roger Rover. ‘If it had the power that is claimed for it – then any man would prefer it to a thousand cities made of gold . . .’

  ‘But it is just a broken clock,’ said Roger Rover, returning the parts to the bag, ‘and it is my broken clock . . .’

  John Dee left the house, Roger Rover taking him through the hall himself, carrying a candlestick. As he made his way back, he stopped to look at the statue of Jack’s mother. As he looked, he saw something very strange and very unlikely begin to happen before his eyes. The bleak stone chisels of her hair were turning to gold.

  THE BOOK OF THE PHOENIX

  Down at the river by Le Swan on Le Hope, Silver and Jack were arguing.

  ‘The old Priory, Jack, and the Magus and Abel Darkwater are in it together for certain,
but we’ve got until tomorrow. If we go back to Sir Roger Rover’s, we can look at the Book of the Phoenix. There may be clues.’

  But Jack wanted to go straight after the Magus.

  ‘Jack,’ said Silver, ‘there is more to this than the City of Gold. There is a story of mine underneath this story of yours.’

  ‘The clock?’ asked Jack, and Silver nodded.

  ‘Yes, the Timekeeper.’

  ‘But,’ said Jack, ‘if all that be true and so, your story is four hundred years away, and mine is now, and will be finished tomorrow, unless I defeat the Magus.’

  ‘Our stories are together. Yours is mine and mine is yours. But we need to read the Book, Jack. I know there’s something in there that will help us both. I can’t do it without you, though, because it is written in Latin.’

  ‘I know but a little Latin,’ said Jack, hesitating.

  ‘Well, I know none,’ said Silver.

  ‘That is because girls do not go to school,’ said Jack.

  ‘We do in the future,’ said Silver, ‘but we don’t do Latin any more.’

  Jack looked at Silver and smiled his gentle shy smile. ‘I don’t want you to be killed,’ he said. ‘Let’s go back and find the Book.’

  The house on the Strand was quiet and dark as the two of them crept back in. The Book was upstairs in Jack’s mother’s little room, and Silver used the tinderbox to light a small fire and to flare the candles. She got down the Book and began turning the pages.

  Jack was deep in thought, and moving sadly amongst his mother’s things – her brush and comb, her spare dress, her ink pen, her little easel and oils where she liked to paint pictures. He wondered what it was like to be made of stone, and if she knew she was made of stone, and if her living soul was sitting inside her stone body, or if she knew nothing at all, no more than does a stone.

  At least Sir Boris was guarding her from further harm, and if he, Jack, could only defeat the Magus, he knew he could set his mother free . . .

  Sighing, he took the Dragon’s sunflower seeds out of his pocket – there were three left – and put them carefully in a little silver egg cup of his mother’s, on top of the mantelpiece.

  ‘I’m sure we will need them for something soon,’ he said to Silver, ‘and I don’t want them to be lost or stolen.’

  Silver nodded absently; she was trying to read the Book.

  The house was very still. Then . . .

  ‘There’s someone outside,’ said Jack. ‘Listen!’

  Sure enough, from behind the door, on the corridor, came footsteps, light and pattering, but footsteps nonetheless. The footsteps stopped outside the door.

  ‘Spy through the keyhole,’ whispered Silver.

  Jack bent down and put his eye to the keyhole. He jumped back in horror – there was a gleaming eye on the other side.

  ‘Who goes there?’ said Jack. ‘Who goes there, I say?’

  ‘Me,’ piped a tiny voice.

  Jack opened the door. There was Crispis, and beside him was Max the dog. The dog was the dog, as doggy as you would expect, and black and gleaming, and looking like a fine dog should, but Crispis was still bright yellow, his arms, his legs, his clothes, his body, his curly hair; but his face was coal-black, as quite coal-black as Max’s. He looked exactly like a sunflower.

  ‘It wouldn’t wash off,’ he said, by way of explanation, ‘and then this afternoon, my face turned black like my hair! I wish I was in a garden, growing, and not here at all.’

  The little child went and sat by the fire, sunk in his own thoughts.

  ‘Is he all right?’ asked Silver.

  ‘He’s Crispis,’ said Jack. ‘That’s how he is, even when he isn’t yellow and black.’

  Silver and Jack turned back to the Book of the Phoenix.

  In hoc lapide sunt quatuor elementa et assimulatur mundo et mundi compositioni . . .

  ‘What’s this all about?’ asked Silver. Jack was puzzling over the words – four elements, the lapis . . . He read on, the red lily and the white lily, elixir of honey, dog’s mercury, sea-dew, the wine of Tartarus . . .

  ‘Keep going,’ said Silver. ‘Where’s that drawing of you?’

  Jack found the page of the Radiant Boy. There was a long text beneath. ‘I can’t read this,’ he said. ‘It’s very hard Latin.’

  ‘Give it to me,’ said Crispis. ‘I learned Latin as soon as I was born, to serve the Magus.’

  The leather-bound book was so heavy that Crispis couldn’t hold it, so Jack stood him on a stool with the book on a table so that he could read the paragraphs.

  ‘The Adept will take the power freely given from the Radiant Boy and join that power to his own to complete the Work. Only when the planets are aligned as described, and only when the moon covers the sun, and only when the power is given, and only when the tidal waters rise, can the substance that is not gold become gold. And before this the Adept will have made all manner of preparations as described. And he who seeks the dark power must make a sacrifice, and that sacrifice must be blood most dear.’

  Crispis stopped reading. ‘Horrible,’ he said. ‘Blood most dear!’

  Jack stood up. ‘Silver, if there is an eclipse of the sun by the moon tomorrow, and the Thames rises, then the Magus will turn the city to gold.’

  ‘How can we find out about the tides?’ asked Silver.

  ‘We will ask the Keeper of the Tides,’ said Jack. ‘We must go to London Bridge.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Silver, and she turned the pages of the Book once more, and there she was, looking like herself, and underneath, in Latin, was written The Golden Maiden, and in her hands, the Timekeeper.

  ‘She is Time,’ said Crispis. ‘It says no more.’

  ‘What have I to do with the Radiant Boy?’ she said. ‘We are holding hands.’

  ‘He is your Brother in Time,’ said Crispis.

  ‘Look,’ said Crispis, and there on another page was the Dragon, and there was the Knight Summoned.

  ‘What does this mean, Crispis?’ asked Silver, and the child read faithfully. ‘There is a battle,’ he said, ‘a battle for the sun. No, that’s not right, it says, The Battle of the Sun.’

  ‘Who wins it?’ asked Silver, but Crispis shook his head.

  ‘That is where the Book ends.’

  And the rest of the pages were blank and empty.

  ‘We must go right away to London Bridge!’ cried Jack, agitated.

  ‘Jack,’ said Silver, ‘it’s the middle of the night. I think we should try and sleep until just before dawn. We might be awake for days and days after this.’

  ‘I’d like to go to sleep,’ said Crispis, curling up on a cushion like a cat; a yellow and black cat.

  Jack looked uneasy, but then Max already had his nose in his paws by the fire, and Silver was preparing blankets. Jack realised he was very tired indeed, and soon all of them were breathing deeply in the dark and quiet of the chamber, by the low-glowing fire.

  Jack was dreaming.

  He dreamed he was in a cave and that two bright uncanny eyes were staring at him, just an inch from his face. Without moving, he opened his own eyes, and let out a terrible scream; two bright uncanny eyes were so close to his own that they were like his own eyes in a mirror.

  At his scream, the Eyebat flew to the curtain rail and hung there. Silver, Crispis and Max woke up all together to find Jack on his feet with his mother’s hairnet in his hands.

  ‘Catch it!’ he commanded. ‘This is our chance!’

  And for the next ten minutes the room was in uproar as children and dogs and Eyebats chased each other round and round so that it was hard to say how many there were of each.

  Silver had the fire bellows, and she used pumps of air to drive the Eyebat off any perch, while Max refused to let it touch the ground and shuffle behind a cupboard. Crispis stood on a stool in the middle of the room like a ringmaster, shouting, ‘Horrible Eyebat,’ and perhaps it was this unflattering description, or perhaps the jets of dusty air, or the dog’s long jaws, o
r something determined about Jack, but suddenly the Eyebat stopped its flapping, and fell uselessly into the hairnet.

  ‘Box!’ shouted Jack. ‘Sewing box!’

  Silver grabbed Jack’s mother’s sewing box, opened the lid, took out the top tray of needles and pins, and Jack slammed the netted Eyebat in among the coloured threads, and shut and locked the lid.

  ‘One less thing to worry about,’ he said. ‘Now, we must begin the day – all of you, let us go.’

  But while Jack and Silver were making ready, Crispis, not really knowing why he did it, stole one of the remaining three sunflower seeds that the Dragon had given to Jack, and, opening the lid of the sewing box, fed it to the Eyebat.

  ‘Horrible Eyebat,’ he said to himself, ‘but even so, you should not be starved to death.’

  Jack did not notice. The two remaining seeds were on the mantelpiece where he had left them.

  And the three of them left the house on the Strand called The Level, and set off, Max trotting beside them, into the just-whitening day towards London Bridge.

  THE KEEPER OF THE TIDES

  On London Bridge, hanging over the river like a wasp’s nest hangs from a branch over a stream, hung the perilous, precarious poop-house of the Keeper of the Tides.

  This house had one room, and looked in every respect like the stern of a galleon, where the captain would have his wide windows, and his dinner table and decanter, and where he could observe the vast sea that bore his vessel.

  In truth, the Keeper of the Tides favoured the dress of a sea captain, and wore naval breeches and stockings, both very dirty, and a studded leather coat. His hair, which was thick and white, was brushed back very neat, and tied in a pigtail.

  The poop-house was crammed every inch with maps rolled up and fastened with red ribbon, with almanacs of the moon and the tides, with rain gauges and weather gauges, and windsocks to determine the direction of the wind, and plumb lines, to measure the rising river, and nets for hauling things out, and a rope ladder slung out of the window dropping straight into the official tidal barge.