Strange Devices of the Sun and Moon (13 page)

“About a group of people here at court,” Christopher said, shrugging off Will's comments. “They're small and seem oddly misshapen. They're petitioning the queen about their ancestral rights.”

Will grinned at him. “Their ancestral rights!” he said, delighted. “Is this a story?”

“Nay—they're quite real, I assure you.”

“I've never seen them. I'll wager even the queen doesn't know about them. Tell me more.”

“That's all I know,” Christopher said, looking at Geoffrey. The other man had not betrayed any knowledge of the folks Christopher had seen. Could it be that he truly knew nothing? Or was it only that he was a very good actor?

He did not see Will and Geoffrey for another week, until the afternoon of the masque. Then he caught sight of them a little ahead of him, among the great crowd of people going into the Presence Chamber. He nearly called out, but at that moment he spotted Sir Philip Potter, dressed in what seemed like every color but Isabella.

Christopher moved through the crowd, working his way toward Potter. What did the man think he was doing? The sight of him in the same room with the actor playing the queen would doubtless set the court to laughing again. “Sir Philip,” he said.

“Aye?” Philip said amiably. “Who are you?”

They had stopped in the middle of the crowd. He took Sir Philip's arm and steered him to a quiet corner. “I told you not to come here,” he said softly.

“You told—Oh, aye. I know you now. But surely they've forgotten everything after all this time. Don't you think so?”

A courtier passed them and pointed out Sir Philip to the woman leaning against his arm. Christopher didn't think they had forgotten a thing. “Remember what I told you,” he said fiercely. “Say nothing. Give them no cause for amusement.”

Sir Philip stepped back a little, alarm showing in his face. Probably no servant of his had ever given him such forceful advice. He nodded meekly and they went into the Presence Chamber together.

They were among the last to enter. Christopher found two places on a bench at the rear of the chamber, and looked around him after they had settled themselves. The queen sat on a carved wooden chair at the front and to the side of the audience, surrounded by her courtiers and maids-of-honor. A consort played somewhere, the music nearly drowned out by conversation.

Will and Geoffrey sat a few rows ahead of them. Will turned and, on seeing him, smiled his extraordinary smile. Christopher nodded back.

The music of the consort grew louder; folks turned their attention to the stage. A painted mountain stretching nearly to the ceiling was wheeled in. The mountain opened, revealing seven women who stepped down to the stage to dance. The music grew wilder, and the women, dressed in artful rags of black and red, began to dance faster and faster until, quite suddenly, they stopped.

The queen applauded enthusiastically. Sir Philip clapped loudly as well, until Christopher forced his hands to his lap. Only then did the courtiers begin to applaud, and finally the rest of the audience. Philip grinned at him, wholly caught up in the merriment. What am I to do with you? Christopher thought.

One of the dancers stepped forward to speak. Because he and Philip sat at the back they could barely hear her. Philip strained to see around a group of people in front of him. “Who is she?” he whispered loudly.

“Some vice or other—Falsehood or Slander or Discord. Hush.”

“Discord? What is Discord doing there?”

“She's to be vanquished by the Virtues.”

“How do you know?”

A few people in front of them turned and looked at Philip. “Everyone knows,” Christopher said. “I'll explain it to you later.”

There was a puff of smoke and a loud burst of music, and then the mountain was hurriedly wheeled off the stage and a large castle wheeled on. Seven knights issued from the castle. One of the knights came forward and began a speech describing the Heroic Virtues, with himself, Order, as the chief of them. Philip glanced at Christopher admiringly. Had the man never seen a masque before? “Who's that?” Philip whispered.

Christopher frowned. A man wearing an ordinary doublet and hose had followed the knights out of the castle. His dress looked odd among the allegorical costumes of the players; only the mask covering his eyes set him apart from the audience.

The man moved forward and addressed the hall, speaking for a long time on the subject of Discord and Order. Order, behind him, looked angry and upset. Christopher had seen enough of actors to know that this part had not been rehearsed; the man had enlarged his speech beyond what had been written for him. And the verses were poor, not nearly as polished as the speeches that had gone before.

“Who—” Sir Philip said.

“Quiet.”

The man began to talk about falseness, the false order imposed on a people by tyranny. Suddenly Christopher understood what was happening: the man was not part of the masque at all. He stood quickly. Several people in front of him began to stand as well, and someone called out something he could not hear.

“We here abolish Discord, and do sing,” the man said, “about a new Order, and our new king.”

To Christopher's astonishment Arthur stepped out on stage. The man in the mask raised a gun. Several people screamed. The knights seemed stunned, unable to move. The man fumbled with the gun, pushing the cover away from the pan filled with priming powder. Then he leveled it at the queen.

An explosive noise filled the chamber. The queen slumped in her chair. For a long moment no one moved. The assassin smiled oddly beneath his mask; he seemed almost to be waiting for applause. Then several men rushed the stage, and more hurried toward the queen.

Amazingly, no one seemed to be paying any attention to Arthur. The young man stood uncertainly for a moment and then ran off the stage and through the room. Christopher followed, trying to keep him in sight among the crowd.

Arthur forced his way past the people in the Presence Chamber. A few of those he pushed shouted after him, but most seemed more interested in the queen and the capture of the assassin. The crowd thinned as they left the chamber. Arthur hurried along the gallery and out of the palace.

Christopher ran after him. Arthur kept the Thames on his right, heading toward the great manors on the river's edge. Up ahead Christopher could see the gray bulk of the Ryders' house, and he wondered again about Geoffrey's part in the conspiracy. But Arthur did not even glance up as they passed the house. Instead he looked behind him quickly, and when he saw Christopher he put on a burst of speed.

Christopher fell behind when Arthur passed through Ludgate and into London proper. The other man seemed tireless. He was near St. Paul's now, pushing through the crowds that surrounded the churchyard. Christopher strained to keep him in sight. A half a mile later Arthur came to Gracechurch Street and turned left. By the time Christopher turned the corner there was no sign of him.

Excellent, he thought, panting. What would he say to Poley now? Dusk had come; the waxing moon rose in the east. Suddenly he grinned and looked up at the street in front of him. He knew exactly where Arthur was going. He took a deep breath and walked quickly toward the Saracen's Head.

Fifteen minutes later he came to the tavern and went inside. Arthur sat at one of the tables, deep in conversation with Tom Nashe. The man he had chased through London seemed at his ease, not even winded. Tom raised his head as he came in and called, “Kit!”

Arthur looked up. Christopher could see in his face that until that moment he had had no idea who had followed him; he was only now beginning to work out what had happened. Arthur rose, nearly tripping over the bench in his haste.

He moved back against the wall. Christopher stood at the only door to the room; the other man was trapped. Arthur looked around him frantically, seeking an exit. “What—” Tom said.

The air in front of Arthur turned golden. Arthur put a hand out in front of him carefully. He hesitated for a long moment, and then walked through the shining curtain and disappeared.

8

Anthony Drury knocked at a door and waited. They had taken a different, winding route to the house, but George thought it was the same place he and Anthony had visited before. Piles of refuse—horse dung and rotting vegetables—overflowed the gutters and lay along the unpaved paths. The houses presented mean, closed faces toward the street.

Anthony knocked again. This time they heard footsteps, and then a deep voice spoke from behind the door. “What was a month old at Cain's birth that's not five weeks old as yet?”

“The moon,” Anthony said.

George felt relieved that Anthony had known the answer; he was not very good at riddles. Then the door opened and he realized that Anthony hadn't answered a riddle at all but had given a correct password. They had been set some sort of test.

By the light of the candles George could see the same strange machine he had glimpsed before. It was pear-shaped, with arms of metal snaking out from it in all directions. Alchemy, he thought, with a quick shock of excitement. He had been right. And then, Will they teach me?

The alembic squatted on the wooden floor. Next to it was a table, and on the table stood bottles and stones and retorts and opened books.

When he looked up he saw that there were two other men in the room. One stood in the shadows, and George could see only that he was small and had some sort of stain down the front of his doublet. But it was the other man who drew George's attention. He had long flowing white hair and a white beard, but his bones were sharp and clear and his face seemed that of a young man. He looked at George with dark brown eyes under heavy black eyebrows, and seemed to read all of George's secrets at a glance.

The man turned to Anthony. His voice was deep and powerful, and now George realized that beneath his long gown he had strong, well-defined muscles. “You say you can vouch for this man?”

“Aye,” Anthony said. “His name is George Cowper. He has promised to lead us to the woman's son.”

“Excellent,” the man said, his voice so pleasant and full of authority that it was several moments before George thought, But I promised nothing. Anthony never kept his part of the bargain.

“George, this is Paul Hogg,” Anthony said.

“Good day,” George said. With anyone else he would have been tempted to laugh at the absurd name, but here in this house, in front of this man, he could find nothing amusing about it. Where Anthony burned with his fanaticism, seemed always on the verge of winning through to some goal, Paul Hogg looked as if he lacked nothing, as if he had already achieved his desire. “Good day,” Paul Hogg said. “What have you told him of our work?”

“Nothing,” Anthony said. “I left that for you.”

“You've seen the alembic,” Paul Hogg said. “Our purpose here is to discover the secrets of Dame Alchemia. I know the first eleven steps in the process—I lack only the twelfth, the final one. See here—” He put his hand on the alembic but did. not open it. “I've performed the first three steps, calcination, solution and separation. And over the course of a year or so I'll do the rest, and learn the final step. And then I'll have it, the lapis philosophorum, Philosopher's Stone. All metals it touches will become gold, the perfect metal, and all men it touches will live forever.”

Live forever, George thought, and the idea was so breathtaking, so fanciful, that he laughed. “Aye, even you, George,” Hogg said. “Why not? Once we learn the process, you and I and Anthony will live forever.”

He wondered why Hogg had chosen him, someone who had had no training at all in the sciences. But he knew enough not to ask. “What do we do next?” he said.

Hogg did not answer him. Instead he inscribed a circle around the four of them, chanting words George thought might be Latin. Sorcery, George thought, remembering his earlier misgivings. How would this help him win Alice? Why had he come?

He made a move to leave but was stopped by Hogg's strong, confident voice. And after a while he no longer wanted to go, could not remember, in fact, why he had ever moved toward the door. Anthony had assured him that everything they did had a basis in natural philosophy. And surely a man as wise as Hogg would not put his soul in peril.

Then Hogg stood and said three sharp words. The roof blew off; they stood on an empty plain with the wind howling past them. George screamed, or was it the wind screaming around him? The plain seemed to stretch out forever. There were no rocks, no trees, no houses, only the other men to catch and hold the eye. Hogg cursed in several languages.

A black shape lit by flickering fire came toward them. As it came closer George could see it was a horse, but larger than any horse he had ever seen. It walked on its hind legs and its eyes were as white as moons. Fire played around its hooves.

Hogg said something, tried again as the horse came on. The horse's neighing sounded like demonic laughter. “Back!” Hogg said over the rising wind. “Go back, and fetch your master!” The horse wheeled around in a circle, laughing, and then left.

No one spoke or moved. George shivered in terror and looked at Hogg, but the other man paid no attention to him. His jaw was clenched and he stared at the horizon as if he could see something invisible to the others. He looked determined, prepared to stay all day if necessary. The wind grew louder.

The other men looked terrified. Something scuttled near them; something else called out, chittering. Wings flapped near George's eyes and he closed them in fear, but the darkness frightened him more and he opened them again at once. The noises around them grew louder: the shapes were drawing closer. Then he heard the neighing again. The horse had returned.

Something man-shaped rode it this time, keeping its balance effortlessly as the horse danced on two legs. It looked like the thing that had followed Anthony to his lodgings, but whether it was the same or not George couldn't say.