Authors: Jeanette Winterson
Battle of the Sun (9 page)
I
n the laboratory that day there were whispers that the Magus had a new captive. Wedge and Mistress Split had been overheard talking.
But who was it?
‘It must mean that you have failed, Jack, like the rest of us,’ said Robert. ‘He only brings a new one when the others have failed. He tried us all in turn and we could not complete the Work.’
‘I hope I have failed,’ said Jack.
‘Only when the Work is done can we leave,’ said Robert dismally.
‘William thinks the Magus will choose him,’ said Jack.
Robert shook his head. ‘That is because he is his son.’
Jack looked at Robert in astonishment. ‘You said that all of you were orphans.’
‘William is an orphan now. His mother is dead and the Magus disowned him when he could not complete the Work. He made him come here with the rest of us. He used to live in the house and be waited on by Wedge and Mistress Split. William loves his father but he hates him too.’
‘A boy in half,’ said Jack thoughtfully.
‘What do you mean?’ said Robert.
‘He is divided against himself, don’t you see, Robert? That’s what the Magus does. He did it to the Creature and he did it to his own son. William doesn’t know whether he loves or he hates, so he has no power. Half of him goes down one alley, and half down the other. The Magus doesn’t want anyone to have power except for himself. None of you have power because you are all split in half too.’
‘I don’t know what you are saying,’ said Robert.
‘You don’t want to be here, but you are all too frightened to leave. So you do nothing. That is what he wants. Now I think I know him a little.’
Robert was looking worried. ‘You can’t defeat him, Jack.’
But Jack didn’t answer.
In his bedchamber, Wedge was half-whistling a half-song.
‘Let HER keep the dog, and I shall keep the Egg.
She shall ask for mercy and I shall make her beg.
Once was all halves, now ’tis all wholes, Wedge shall have the power, and SHE shall have . . .’
And he laughed, ‘Nothing at all!’
Wedge went and looked at the picture of the green lion that dripped gold. ‘And we won’t need you either, there will be no animals when Wedge rules. Whoever heard of a green lion? You shall join the Magus in the cellar!’
And Wedge thought back to the time when the Magus had created them, him and her, but they weren’t a him and her, they were just the Creature, and they were happy, and they had done his bidding; and then, one day, for something and nothing – he couldn’t half remember, he only half remembered – then the Magus had taken them, and split them in two, and now, and now, and now?
‘She thinks more of the dog than She do of me,’ said Wedge bitterly, ‘and She my other half. I’ll show her. Yes I will. She’ll be sorry soon enough, when I am master here!’
And Wedge sat down on the edge of the bed, and shed one single tear from his one single eye, because, truth to tell, he was lonely.
‘Boojie Boojie Boojie!’ sang Mistress Split in the kitchen, feeding Max chicken from a plate. ‘Never been so happy, not never, not ever, never had a Whole Dog to Myself! Mine mine mine, all the time time time.’
Then she got up. ‘Time to feed the Captive.’
T
he Captive was sitting disconsolately looking out of the window into the empty courtyard below.
She had no idea where she was, though she knew she was in England, probably in London, and definitely in the past. At least, to her it was the past, because she lived in the twenty-first century. To everyone living here now, it was the present.
How had she come to be in this place? She went over it again in her mind. What exactly had happened?
She had been in her little bedroom, in her big rambling house; an old house, a house that contained many secrets. A house that had been in her family for hundreds of years. In a way, she lived in the past every day, because the house was so old.
She had been reading a book and fallen fast asleep, but then she had woken quite suddenly out of a dream where a boy she had never met, who said his name was Jack, was knocking at the front door and asking her to come and help him.
The second she woke up, she heard knocking at the front door. Without thought and without fear, she had gently shoved aside her big ginger cat that always slept on her bed, and got up and crept downstairs. The house was deathly quiet; everyone else was asleep. She had gone to the huge oak front door and opened it. A great gust of wind blew in, but there was no one outside, and the large untidy garden was night-time quiet.
A dream . . . always a dream.
As she had turned to go back upstairs, she had noticed a light coming from the library. She wasn’t scared at all – this was her house, and she loved it. Its name was Tanglewreck, and her ancestor Roger Rover had built it in 1588 on land given to him by Queen Elizabeth the First. This was where she felt she belonged, had always belonged, and there was nothing to fear.
She had gone straight into the library.
She was astonished by what she saw.
The fire in the big stone fireplace was burning bright and high, lighting the whole room. Over the fireplace the portrait of her ancestor, Sir Roger Rover, in the ruff and jewelled doublet, seemed to be watching her closely. As she walked towards the fireplace, she saw that inside the fire, or made of the fire itself, was a golden city – domes, bridges, spires.
‘What’s this?’ she said to herself, but out loud. ‘Is this another adventure?’ For truth to tell it was not the first time that the girl had found herself at the start of a strange situation . . . she was that kind of girl, and the house was that kind of house.
As she watched in wonder, a drawbridge, flaming and shining, lowered itself from the fire, into the room, and stood at her feet. The bridge seemed solid, but also molten, like something from a volcano. None of this fire burned; rather, she felt cool, like night, like rain.
As she looked into the fire, she saw the figure of the boy in her dream. He was beckoning her, and she felt hypnotised by his clear burning eyes.
She stepped forward, on to the flaming drawbridge, into the city, through the fire, and walked unscathed into another room, another fireplace, where a woman, half-stone, half-flesh, seemed to be sleeping where she stood, and where a man so dark that he seemed to be his own night, sat at a stone table reading.
‘I am the Magus,’ he said, standing to his feet as she appeared, ‘but who are you, and who called you here?’
She could not tell him because she did not know, and some instinct warned her to say nothing of the dream of the boy called Jack.
After the Magus had questioned her, and after she had explained that she lived in the twenty-first century, and had walked through the fire to come here, without knowing why, the Magus had brought her to this high upper room, and locked the door. She had tried to escape by every means possible – she had even climbed halfway up the chimney and met an angry jackdaw sheltering from the rain. But the chimney narrowed, she could see that, and she could not climb further.
And now she sat, covered in twigs and wood soot, staring into the rainy courtyard.
Where on earth am I?
she thought to herself.
The door flew open and in hopped Mistress Split with a beautiful black spaniel at her heel.
‘And who on earth is this?’ said Silver out loud.
‘Woof!’ barked the dog, running to greet her.
‘Boojie Boojie Boojie!’ sang Mistress Split, crashing the tray of food down on the table in front of Silver.
T
he day passed. Night came. In the deep of the night, Jack heard the voice of the watchman far away. ‘Twelve o’clock and all’s well.’
Jack was ready. With Crispis beside him, he went down the stairs to meet Wedge.
He did not believe that Wedge would let him escape, but he hoped that by giving Wedge the coconut, he could distract him enough to keep his half-mind and sharp eye on other things, while the Dragon prepared the Bath for the Sunken King. Jack had decided that if by any miracle Wedge did let the three of them escape, then once his mother and Crispis were safely home, he would return and hide himself in the house until he could somehow defeat the Magus, with the help of the Sunken King. Then the other boys could be free.
‘I wish I could vanish,’ said Crispis, ‘and be a cloud instead of a boy.’
‘You’ll be safe again,’ said Jack, ‘I promise.’
There was a noise. A door opened. Jack saw Wedge’s angular silhouette in the lit doorway of the dining room.
Wedge came hopping across the hall.
‘The Magus is occupied this night. He dines out with another like him, and will not return this night.’
‘Where is my mother?’ asked Jack.
‘In the cart. She is waiting for you in the courtyard, Jackster. Follow me, and be silent!’
Jack and Crispis followed Wedge to the courtyard. Sure enough, in the cool night air, under the stars, was a cart covered with sacking. A driver dressed in black sat at the reins of a dark pony.
‘How do I know my mother is in the cart?’
Wedge sneered or snarled, and flung back the sacking at the foot of the cart. Sure enough, there were two stone feet.
‘She’s drugged,’ said Wedge, ‘to stop her making any sound. Women have coward hearts and this is dangerous work that we do.’
Jack knew his mother was brave as a fighting dog, but he said nothing.
‘Right then, Jackster, hop up there, behind the carter, and away you go!’
Jack and Crispis got up on to the cart and Wedge covered them up with a horse blanket.
The driver slowly moved the pony forward and the cart left the double gates of the Dark House.
Crispis soon fell asleep to the steady sound of the hooves, and Jack, though uneasy, soon nodded off too. He had a dream. In the dream, he was standing outside a black and white timbered house of the style of grand houses that he knew. This house seemed old, although it must have been very new, and the garden was untidy. There was a sundial, and the words written round it were in Latin: TEMPUS FUGIT.
In his dream, Jack walked up to the door of the house and lifted the knocker that was in the shape of an angel. He knocked loudly, once, twice, three times . . . A girl opened the door. It was the girl in the Book of the Phoenix. It was the Golden Maiden.
Jack woke up with a start. The cart had stopped. There was no sound at all. Jack scrambled to the back of the cart – ‘Mother, Mother!’ But his mother was not there, only the broken legs of a broken statue.
In a panic Jack jumped clean out of the cart.
‘You are returned, Jack, it is well.’
It was the Magus.
The Magus took hold of Jack the way lightning strikes a tree. One minute Jack was standing there, the next, he had been struck by a great force that seemed to go right to the centre of him. It wasn’t a blow or a punch, or like being hit, it was like being caught in a storm. Jack reeled back, and fell, splintered and shaken, in the library. He had that sense that he was in a thousand pieces, and groped across the floor for his legs and arms, but in reality he was Jack, and he was the same. But he had met the power of the Magus.
‘Would you still defeat me, Jack? Would you?’
Jack said nothing. The Magus was pacing the library.
‘I had thought you cleverer than to trust Wedge,’ said the Magus.
Jack said nothing.
‘I knew that you had visited my chamber. What did you find there, Jack?’
Jack said nothing.
The Magus reached inside his cloak and pulled out the golden casket that had contained the Egg.
‘Well I know that you were searching for the Cinnabar Egg, and well I know that no man alive can open this casket unless that man is myself. Yet you betrayed me, and I warned you what would be the consequences of your betrayal.’
‘Punish Wedge,’ said Jack. ‘He was the one who allowed me to escape.’
‘He allowed nothing,’ said the Magus. ‘Do you yet imagine that anything happens in this house unless I allow it to happen? You did not escape. Now you shall be punished. Perhaps you had better embrace your mother – it will be for the last time.’
The Magus left the room and Jack ran into his mother’s arms. She held him close, and said bravely, ‘I’m not afraid, Jack. Don’t you be afraid, my best boy.’
Jack said, ‘Mother, whatever spell he casts will be broken when he is defeated, and his defeat is near at hand.’
Before Jack could speak further, Wedge came hopping into the room, dragging Crispis behind him.
‘Jackster!’ said Wedge. ‘Don’t go telling the Magus you gave me the Egg. He’ll kill me for certain, but I’ll kill this one!’
Crispis struggled to get away, but Wedge was strong.
‘You betrayed me!’ said Jack.
‘Not that I did,’ said Wedge hotly. ‘I’d be glad to see the back of you, and your mother and that dog. I said as much to Mistress Split, and SHE was the one who told tales, because of that dog! She believed that She would lose the dog! Follow you it would, She said! All lost for a dog!’
‘I’ll tell him about you and the Egg,’ said Jack.
Wedge’s face went white then green then purple. He leaned forward, his half-nose on Jack’s whole nose.
‘Say nothing about the Egg! Say nothing, I say! When I have power you and your own shall go free, yet if you say to Master that I have the Egg, all of us is lost!’
‘I am not afraid,’ said Jack.
‘This one is!’ said Wedge horribly. ‘Look at him tremble.’
And it was true. Crispis was trembling.
Now Jack knew that he would say nothing to the Magus about the coconut he had given Wedge, because there was only one place that he, Jack, could have got the coconut, and that was from the Dragon. Jack did not want anyone except himself to start thinking about the Dragon. Tomorrow was the day when the Dragon had promised to prepare the Bath for the Sunken King. Jack knew he had to be clever. He had to duck and avoid, and let the time pass until he could free the King.
The Magus came back into the room.
‘Wedge! There is no need to punish Crispis. He may go back to the other boys in the bedchamber. Leave him there and do not call him for work today. He will not be fit for the great Opus.’
Crispis didn’t look at all like he would be fit for any Opus of any size. He could hardly stop his teeth chattering in his head.
Wedge let Crispis go, and the little boy fell to the floor, then scrambled up and ran off. Jack was glad. He wanted to protect Crispis, and vowed silently in his heart that Crispis would come and live with him and his mother when all this was done.
‘Jack!’ said the Magus. ‘Did you try to bribe Wedge?’
‘Yes,’ said Jack, and Wedge’s face went the colour of a bowl of beetroot soup, but Jack knew what to say. ‘Wedge caught me searching for the Cinnabar Egg, and to avoid punishment I tried to make him help me escape.’
‘And why would he help you?’ said the Magus in a tone like lead.
‘I said I was the only one who could get rid of the dog for him. I said that if he let me go, and Crispis, and Max and my mother, he would be happy again, because Mistress Split would not have the dog.’
‘It’s true, it’s true!’ cried Wedge. ‘Didn’t She betray me to keep that dog?’
And the Magus knew that this was so, and he believed the story. It was the first time that Jack had got the better of him.
‘Wedge, you are a fool,’ said the Magus, ‘but now that this matter is clear, I shall not punish you.’
‘Yes, Master. No, Master,’ said Wedge, his eye gleaming with relief.
‘Destroy the dog yourself if that is what you want to do.’
‘No!’ shouted Jack.
The Magus laughed. ‘Jack, there are powerful reasons why you must quell your dislike of me and assist me in the Work. The dog is but a dog. You also have a mother. Behold!’
The Magus turned to Anne, Jack’s mother.
‘Anne,’ said the Magus, ‘did you dream one night that you were alive yet could not move at all, yet could not lift your arms nor feel your heart beating?’
‘I have dreamed that dream, sir,’ said Anne.
‘Then dream it now,’ said the Magus, and before Jack’s eyes his mother’s warm soft body began to harden. It had been the folds of her skirts – now it was her blouse and jacket, her strong arms that always held him when he was afraid. Anne caught her breath as she felt the cold change steal over her. Instinctively, she held out her arms, and in the position, her arms turned to stone, her arms outstretched, her palms open. The strange stone, the lifelike statue-making ceased at her neck, and Jack could see the cords of her neck throbbing as the blood still flowed there.
‘Jack!’ said Anne.
Jack went towards her. He touched her cold arms with his warm hands and he felt the smooth hard folds of her clothes. Then he touched her face, still warm, still full of love for him. It was as if she had heard his thoughts, and she said, ‘Though my body is turned to stone, my heart is alive because of you, Jack, and, look, how my lips may still smile when I see your dear face.’
Jack stood looking at his mother, as still as stone himself.
The Magus came forward. ‘You have done this, Jack. This is your disobedience. Now look carefully at your mother – once and twice she has been punished for you. The third time will be the last time and she will not speak to you again, but be as a statue in the street, and you will never know her more.’
‘You said you would free her when the Work is completed!’ cried Jack.
The Magus nodded. ‘The power is its own power. Once, and twice, I may free her, but when she is stone and nothing but stone, then I may not free her more. Think well, Jack, think carefully what you do next. Other lives depend on you now.’
‘What must I do?’ asked Jack.
‘You must assist me,’ said the Magus. ‘It is dawn. Tonight the alignment of stars and the new moon demands the beginning of the Work. In twenty-seven days’ time, at the full moon, there will be an eclipse of the sun, and then the Work can be completed and the City of Gold will be mine!’
‘And then?’ said Jack.
‘And then indeed!’ repeated the Magus. ‘And then your power will be no more, and you may return to the world you long for, with those you love.’
The Magus turned. ‘Wedge! The boy will rest. Feed him and rest him, and secure him well. I want no further escapes – he must be ready for tonight. Do you understand?’
Wedge nodded. With his heavy hand on Jack’s shoulder, he led him away.