The Battle of the Sun

by Jeanette Winterson

  Then he bowed his head and stood back.

  Nothing happened.

  And Jack thought of the Dark House and the stone beds and stone walls, and how nothing in that place felt alive, shunned by the sun, and how it was a dead place, fixed, and hard and heartless, like the City of Gold, and the power of the Magus.

  And then Jack thought of the faithful heart of his little dog, and the courage of his friends, and how his mother had risked her life for him, and how a small sad child who nobody loved had loved him enough to rescue him with a sunflower, and how a girl from another time had come because, because . . .

  ‘Because love is as strong as death.’

  Jack said it out loud and he said it again, ‘Because love is as strong as death.’

  And he said it again, ‘Because love is as strong as death.’

  And the hall lit up as though the sun himself had come to lodge there, and the light was so bright that no one could see, and what no one saw in the white of the light was Anne, Jack’s mother, stepping forward on stone feet that softened to skin and bone.

  But Jack knew, and blinded by the light, he moved forward with the good instinct of an animal, and he found her, the dear lineaments of her face, the touch of her.

  That which was lost is found.

  ‘Mother,’ said Jack.

  But before anything else could happen, twenty-five courtiers came to find Jack to bring him to the Queen.

  ‘The Queen?’ said Jack’s mother. ‘Here? I haven’t cleaned the place for weeks!’

  The Queen was sitting in the middle of the courtyard watching the dancing and merriment. Her Barbary parrot sat by her in his cage, preening himself.

  As Jack entered the courtyard with his mother, Roger Rover gave the signal, and the trumpeters played a triumphal burst of honour, and every person, without exception, high and low, bowed down, and the Queen herself stretched out her hands in greeting.

  ‘The Queen herself!’ said Jack’s mother. ‘And that is my son!’

  Jack went forward and knelt, but the Queen told him to rise and look at her face to face. ‘I shall make you a Duke,’ she said, ‘and you shall have lands and honours for evermore.’ ‘Great and glorious Queen,’ replied Jack, ‘many others deserve honour for this day – many helped me. John Dee –’

  ‘Fiddlesticks!’ cried the parrot, and the Queen laughed, and John Dee was cross to be mocked at by a parrot, but it was a royal parrot, and he had to bow his head.

  Jack asked that Mother Midnight and the Keeper of the Tides be given pensions, and that Robert, Anselm, Roderick and Peter be taken into the Queen’s service.

  ‘And what else?’ asked the Queen.

  ‘Can Max have a jewelled collar?’ said Jack, and with great merriment the Queen took the jewelled collar from her own throat and bade the dog come forward.

  ‘Kneel!’ commanded the Queen, which Max could not manage, but he sat very still, and the Queen fastened the jewelled collar on him and touched his soft shoulder with her sword. ‘Rise, Sir Max!’ she said.

  Max was so astonished that he did not even bark, but wagged his tail so fast that he began to spin around in circles.

  And then, in the merriment, terrible sobs were heard, noises of inconsolable wailing, and Jack saw Mistress Split hopping away from the party on her single leg, and he called out, ‘WAIT, WAIT!’

  She turned, and Jack ran to fetch her, and she was indeed a curious sight with her half-hat on her half-head, and her single arm wiping her single eye of the many many single tears that ran down her leg to the floor and made a half-pool at her foot.

  ‘This lady was in the service of the Magus,’ he said.

  ‘Aye, bred by him in a bottle,’ sighed Mistress Split. ‘A poor start in life for a woman.’

  ‘And yet she served the great cause,’ said Jack, ‘and fished me out of the Thames too. I would that you give her a small house right on the river, and her own boat that we shall name Sir Max, and a licence to breed dogs for your own dear Majesty.’

  ‘So it shall be!’ said the Queen. ‘Mistress Split-in-Two, you shall breed me spaniels as brave and true as this Max, and he shall be the sire of many a marvellous hound!’

  ‘But he’s still my dog,’ said Jack quickly.

  Mistress Split was so happy that she started to spin around on her one leg nearly as fast as Max wagging his tail, and the two of them fell over and knocked poor John Dee into a trough of apples.

  ‘Master Dee, you shall be recompensed,’ said the Queen. ‘I shall give you a grand house with a new laboratory for your studies.’

  ‘And that is what I should wish for myself,’ said Jack, ‘that I should study with John Dee, and learn his arts.’

  ‘It is you, Jack, who is the master,’ said John Dee, struggling out of the apples. ‘Only you could win the Battle of the Sun.’

  ‘I told you that!’ said Silver, popping out of the crowd, looking dirty and dishevelled and wet, and then she said to Jack, ‘Jack, you’ve got to do something about the Dragon. He is asking for you.’

  ‘Is he not dead, then?’ said Jack, and Silver shook her head.

  ‘Who is this person?’ asked the Queen, staring at Silver.

  * * *

  Jack and Silver left the crowd and left the Queen and went back down to the river. They took a boat, and at Silver’s direction came a little upstream to where a crowd of people were trying to prise the jewels from the leather wings of the dying Dragon. But when they saw Jack they all ran away.

  ‘How so, Jack Snap? How so?’ said the Dragon, and his voice was weak and small.

  ‘Are you all that is left of the Magus?’ said Jack.

  ‘He had the Egg,’ said the Dragon, ‘and the Egg contained him, and also it contained me, and also it contained the Phoenix, and also the Knight.’

  ‘Then you are all gone,’ said Jack.

  ‘The Magus was sometime a long time ago a Knight Templar,’ said the Dragon, ‘and every knight is also the dragon he must fight, and every dragon has within him a phoenix. Good and evil are not as simple as the world wishes them to be.’

  ‘Why did you help me?’ asked Jack.

  ‘I want to vanish,’ said the Dragon, ‘and as long as the Magus held me in the Egg, I could only remain.’

  ‘I would like to help you now,’ said Jack.

  The Dragon moved a little. He was heavy and injured.

  ‘Raise me up, Jack. Raise me up and show me the setting sun.’

  And Jack lifted the Dragon as you would a cat, and turned him to face the sun, and the Dragon stood on his scaly feet, unsteady, but he stood, and he plucked a ruby from his leather wings and dropped it delicately into Jack’s hand.

  ‘Farewell, Jack.’

  The Dragon turned his head backwards so that he was looking down the length of his own body, then he opened his mouth and roared out purple fire, and the fire was so scorching that Jack and Silver had to stand back to mind their eyebrows being burned off, and the Dragon flapped his wings and heated the fire more, and the fire that he made could be seen as far away as Wales.

  And when he was all fire it seemed as though the sun himself came to lift the Dragon up, and the river burned red again for the last time, and the Dragon was gone.

  It was suddenly evening, and the air was soft and sad. The moon came out. Jack held Silver’s hand and they walked without speaking back towards Roger Rover’s house, lit gaily with torches and happiness.

  ‘I shall have to be going too,’ said Silver.

  ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  TIME

  John Dee had prepared his laboratory with great solemnity.

  While he roared the mercury in the alembics, and consulted his books, Silver changed into her ordinary clothes, and left her tattered soggy hose and jerkin on the floor. Jack folded the clothes for her, silently, solemnly, then he said, ‘Silver?’ and from his pocket brought out the two drops of gold that had been made by his tears. ‘These are for you.’

&n
bsp; Silver took them and she was sad. But John Dee was calling her to stand inside the pentangle. He sprayed magic potions into the air and raised a wind that blew the papers all around the room, but Silver stayed where she was.

  ‘You have nothing of this place with you?’ fussed John Dee. ‘Nothing – that is most important. Nothing that can hold you here or draw you back.’

  Silver shook her head, and closed her fingers around the gold that Jack had given her. It was their secret.

  The winds blew, the furnace burned.

  Outside, the party went on. Now the courtyard was blazing with lanterns and everyone was dancing. And so no one noticed the tall elegant woman who came by boat and passed through the house like a shadow.

  But Max noticed. And stood trying to guard the way to Roger Rover’s study.

  ‘The ball, Max,’ said the Abbess, quite gently, and although he did not want to do it, Max spat out the tiny ball of silver mercury he had been hiding in his mouth.

  The Abbess picked it up, and regarded it. ‘This little lost Silver may come in useful one day,’ she said to herself and, putting it away, she entered the study.

  ‘I think you need my help,’ she said.

  This time she made Jack build a fire right in the centre of the room, and it should have burned through the floorboards, but it didn’t, and it should have burned the rafters down, but it didn’t. And it should have burned everyone and everything to cinders, but . . .

  ‘Cold fire,’ said the Abbess. ‘The element that lies between worlds.’

  ‘Silver, you must not trust her!’ said Jack.

  ‘I have never lied to Silver,’ said the Abbess.

  ‘You left me to die on the Star Road!’ said Silver.

  ‘That is true,’ said the Abbess, ‘but I did not lie to you.’

  ‘Where is the Star Road?’ asked Jack.

  ‘It is when we meet again,’ said Silver, and the Abbess smiled her silent frightening smile.

  ‘When will we meet again?’ asked Jack, his throat a big lump of sadness, and Silver couldn’t answer, because she didn’t want him to see her cry. They both knelt down, the dog between them, and as they stroked him, Jack took Silver’s hand.

  ‘Are you going, truly?’ he said. And Silver said nothing, but hid her head in the soft black head of the soft black dog.

  ‘Have you any message from the future, that might benefit us?’ asked John Dee, and Silver stood up, brave as she always was, and wiped her eye before the tear fell.

  ‘John Dee!’ said Silver. ‘In 1666 London will be consumed by fire and St Paul’s will burn to the ground.’

  ‘I will be an old man by then,’ said Jack, ‘I will have children and grandchildren.’

  Silver went forward, took his hand, pulled him up, and hugged him. ‘Goodbye, Jack.’

  ‘It is time,’ said the Abbess.

  And Silver looked for the last time at the panelled walls of Roger Rover’s study, and at the great alchemist John Dee, and at Jack and his dog, but it was the Abbess who held her gaze.

  Silver walked into the cold fire.

  The flames ate her. Her body disappeared. She felt herself weightless, formless, absent. But she was still Silver. As she passed through the flaming curtain, she was still Silver – many Silvers, many lives of Silver, a piece of time and outside time. She was herself, but that was many. She was herself, but that was one.

  * * *

  In the study, the cold fire vanished as suddenly as it had come. There was no trace of flame except for the faintest scorch mark on the floor.

  ‘She is gone!’ said Jack.

  ‘She is elsewhere,’ said the Abbess.

  Jack went upstairs to his mother’s chamber. On the table he saw a little bag with his name on it. Inside was the jewelled hand of the clock called the Timekeeper, and a note from Silver telling Jack to please take this to Tanglewreck, and hide it there.

  I sleep in the room at the very top, the one with the bed in the shape of the swan. If you see a ginger cat – it’s mine.

  The door opened, and in came Anne, Jack’s mother. She was worried about Crispis. Where was he?

  ‘He was last seen in the Spital Field,’ said Jack.

  At that moment there was a terrific banging, like something trying to escape from a box – and it sounded like something trying to escape from a box because it was something trying to escape from a box; it was the Eyebat.

  The sewing box that had been simple plain wood had turned golden and black, and a strange golden light shone round it, like a halo. Jack closed the doors and windows, took the poker, and flipped open the lid of the box.

  On a rush of wings the Eyebat flew out, but it was no longer the glaring, staring Eyebat of before; it was a large golden and black butterfly, about the size of a soup plate, and with beautiful shimmering wings and gentle eyes. It fluttered impatiently at the window.

  ‘Crispis fed it the Dragon’s sunflower seed!’ said Jack, suddenly understanding what had happened. ‘If we follow it . . .’

  And Jack opened the window and the Eyebat flew out, but it didn’t fly away, it hovered.

  Jack and his mother ran out of the house, faithful Max at their heels. They ran down on to the river and followed the Eyebat all the way to Spital Field. It was dark now, and they could only manage to keep up because of the luminosity of the Eyebat’s wings.

  At length they came to the field of sunflowers where Crispis had hidden to escape the guards.

  But there were hundreds of sunflowers.

  Jack and his mother combed the rows, calling, ‘Crispis! Crispis!

  ’

  At last, the Eyebat could be seen in the very middle of the field, hovering.

  ‘There he is!’ cried Jack.

  And there he was, a very small sunflower, quite asleep.

  ‘Crispis . . .’ said Jack, shaking the boy.

  Crispis opened his eyes.

  ‘It’s me, Jack, and it’s safe, and we’ve come to take you home.’

  ‘I haven’t got a home,’ said Crispis. ‘This is my home, among the sunflowers, who don’t frighten me.’

  ‘There is nothing to be frightened of,’ said Jack’s mother.

  ‘You said that before,’ said Crispis, ‘and look what happened!’

  ‘Well, there’s nothing to be frightened of now,’ said Jack. ‘The Magus has been defeated.’

  ‘I’m going to stay here,’ said Crispis, ‘I like it here. The other sunflowers are very kind to me, and at night they bend over me to keep me warm.’

  ‘You’re a boy, not a sunflower,’ said Jack.

  ‘I’d rather be a sunflower,’ said Crispis.

  All of a sudden Max started barking, barking, barking. He had heard someone; that someone was Wedge.

  ‘Jackster!’ shouted Wedge. ‘I know you’re in there!’

  Jack pushed his way through the rows of sunflowers and there was Wedge, accusingly holding a coconut.

  ‘This ain’t the Cinnabar Egg!’ said Wedge.

  ‘Very true,’ answered Jack.

  ‘What is it then?’ asked Wedge.

  ‘It is a coconut,’ said Jack, ‘according to the Dragon.’

  ‘Hundreds of ’em!’ said Wedge. ‘This way.’

  And Jack followed Wedge back round the Priory, and there, growing in the ground, was the tallest coconut palm you ever saw and covered in coconuts.

  Jack took one and split it in half and showed Wedge how to drink the milk and eat the lovely white insides. Wedge was impressed by the splitting in half. ‘My kind of Edible,’ he said, ‘and I’m not sharing with HER. Halves all halves but mine all mine!’

  ‘If I were you,’ said Jack, ‘I’d start selling these. Very rare in London. The only ones. You could make your fortune.’

  ‘Could I?’ said Wedge, who was unpleasant but realistic, and knew that a coconut on its own would never make him Master of the Universe, but lots of them could make him rich. ‘Wedge’s Rare Coconuts . . .’

  And Jack left him th
ere, counting them.

  Jack made his way back to his mother, who was sitting quietly with Crispis. But try as they might they could not persuade him to go with them, and so every day after that for a long time, Anne walked down to the sunflower field, and sat in the middle with the Eyebat hovering, and she talked to Crispis, and told him stories, and so reminded him that he was a boy, and that sometimes, even when you wished you were a sunflower, it was good to have someone to talk to.

  And one day Crispis stretched out his hand, which had almost become a shoot of the sunflower. And the day after, he moved his legs, which had almost fused into a stem. And the day after that, he took Anne’s hand, and walked beside her out of the field of sunflowers.

  And Crispis came home.

  Silver found herself back in the library at Tanglewreck, right by the fireplace. It was night, and the front door was wide open and the night rain was sweeping in. She went to the door and looked out down the bedraggled wind-beaten rain-heavy garden.

  ‘Jack?’ she said, but no one was there.

  She looked at the long case-clock ticking in the hall, and she saw that only five minutes had passed since she had come downstairs, woken by the banging at the door, and the voice calling her.

  No time has passed, she thought to herself, because I have been outside of time.

  She closed the thick oak front door, and went back upstairs through the sleeping house. The big ginger cat was fast asleep on her bed.

  A dream, she thought, a dream, though she knew that was not true and it is what people tell themselves when anything happens that can’t be explained in the usual way.

  She started to get undressed. In her pocket were two gold teardrops.

  And Jack and his mother had a fine house on the River Thames and a little farm nearby in Bermondsey. And Jack became apprentice to John Dee, and began to learn what it is to be master of oneself.

  ‘That is the true gold,’ said John Dee, ‘and the hardest to attain. The inner gold of which we speak cannot be bought and sold or traded in the market place. It is yours and yours alone. And the sun is its emblem. And the battle is fought and lost every day. And sometimes, it is won.’