Strange Devices of the Sun and Moon (21 page)

So the red dragon had lost, Alice thought, surprised at how little she cared. But the silver dragon was leaving too. Folks began to drop their weapons and stand as if amazed, the queen's band on one side, their opponents on the other. Oriana and her standard-bearers advanced toward the center of the field. From the other side came a man Alice had never seen, tall and clad in red mail, with a crown red as fire. Several of his warriors walked behind him.

“Now they parley,” Margery said.

“But who won?” Agnes asked.

“No one. No one has won. Neither side has enough men to continue the fight.”

“But someone has lost,” Paul Hogg said. “The queen has lost her ablest warriors this night. Go back to your cottage and sell your charms for twopence, Margery. The next time these two meet will be the last.”

“Aye, the last,” Margery said. How could she stay so calm? “The battle will end when Arthur is found.”

Arthur! Alice had forgotten him. But Margery had been wrong; he hadn't come to this battle. Whatever ties he had to the Fair Folk had loosened, or had been weak to begin with.' She would never see him again, him or her true son.

“Arthur's dead, or lost forever,” Hogg said. “And what man would fight for a woman who cared so little for him she gave him away at birth?”

“Who would fight for a man who never takes the field, thinking only about his own safety? See where he comes, your king. King of the Cowards, they call him.”

“But they fight for him just the same.”

“They have no choice. He's bound them to him with his arts.”

“You lie. Nothing he does is unlawful. And next you'll tell me that Oriana's people fight out of love.”

The king and queen had reached the center of the field and began to talk in low voices. Alice studied the group around them, trying to make out the humans who had fought against Oriana. Was it true that they were bound to the king by necromancy? But now she noticed that they all had stains like splashes of water down the front of their jerkins. She closed her right eye and saw the faerie-light on them. Of course, she thought, remembering the stories from her childhood. They were water-people, lying in wait at the side of lakes and rivers, ready to drown travelers walking by. The stains on their clothing gave them away.

Opposite this group the queen stood, straight as a sword and unyielding, her warriors grouped in a semicircle behind her. What did they talk about? What terms would the red king force from Oriana? If her folk left London would Alice ever see Arthur again?

Whenever people talked about war Alice always thought of the individual people who would have to die. She was not like the others in the churchyard in this, she knew; when they had rung the bells and built the bonfires at the defeat of the Spanish Armada two years ago she could not share in the exultation of her neighbors. She had thought only, Thank God Arthur will not have to go soldiering.

But the Fair Folk cared nothing for Arthur, she knew that. Margery could not claim that Oriana's people fought out of love; whatever emotions they felt love could not be one of them. They understood nothing about the bond between mother and son. Not one of these finely dressed folk would consider her or her son in their decisions.

Suddenly Alice cried out and ran onto the field. She heard Margery call something after her but she ignored her and made for a small bundle of fur near the queen and king. Brownie lay curled up on the grass, a long gash open on his flank. The blood that matted his fur looked black in the moonlight. As Alice watched he breathed in shallowly. He was alive!

“Margery!” she said loudly. “Margery, help me!”

Margery went to join her. “We must not interrupt the parley,” she said, speaking softly.

“The parley be damned. He's alive. We have to help him.”

“I will. Quiet now.”

Margery opened her purse. Alice had been watching Brownie, willing him to continue breathing, and by the time she looked back at her friend Margery had taken out a cloth dipped in herbs. Where had she wetted the cloth? It didn't matter; what mattered was that she smoothed the cloth over Brownie's fur, that his breathing grew more even, that the wound seemed to close a little. At last he opened his eyes and looked up at them.

“Did we win?” He sat up, a worried look in his soft brown eyes.

“Nay. Lie back,” Margery said. “Queen Oriana—”

“Hush. She rules still.”

Brownie fell back, satisfied. “We have to get him to my house,” Alice said.

Margery looked up at her friend. “Do you think that's wise?”

“It doesn't matter. Someone has to care for him.” Margery seemed to see the logic of that. She nodded and braced her shoulder under one of Brownie's arms. Alice took his other arm carefully and they lifted him together. He was surprisingly light.

They sat him down against a tree at the edge of the field. George nodded when he saw them, as if his suspicions had been proven correct. Did he still think that Brownie was a demon? How could he, when he consorted with things far more evil-seeming? Alice thought that George's mind must be a kind of swamp where nothing was clear-edged, where he believed whatever was easiest for him to believe.

“You've found him, I see,” Hogg said.

“Aye,” Alice said. “And still alive.”

“For the moment. I doubt he'll last the night.”

Alice turned to Margery, seeking reassurance, and for once her friend gave it to her. “You must not believe anything Paul Hogg says,” Margery said firmly. “He's told me many lies over the years, haven't you, Master Hogg?”

“No more than you've told me,” Hogg said. He looked distracted, anxious about something, and a moment later Alice saw what it was: the parley had ended. The queen and king bowed to each other elaborately and, Alice thought, a little mockingly. Then both sides retreated, and the work of gathering up the dead for burial began.

A chill wind blew suddenly and Alice shivered. “It's over,” Margery said. “Nothing's changed—there are a few more dead on both sides, that's all. It won't end until Arthur is found.”

“And she claims that I lie!” Paul Hogg said. “It's clear to me that Oriana's folk lost here. One more battle and your precious queen will be vanquished.”

“We'll find Arthur before then.”

“Arthur!” Hogg laughed. “Alice, let me tell you your future. Arthur is dead. And when she learns the truth about your son, Margery will forsake you as well. She needs Arthur, doesn't she, to progress beyond her small petty magics. You will grow old alone, with no one to love you. You will die in bed, and so little will you be missed that your body will not be discovered for three days.”

How had he known her deepest nightmares, her dread of growing old and friendless? Was that why she had rescued Brownie, because she knew she could not keep company with humans? He was wrong about Margery, though—her friend had no magic, only wisdom and a strong knowledge of plants and stones. She shook her head, not wanting to bandy words with this odious man any further.

“Good night,” Margery said to Hogg. “I know we'll meet again.”

“Good night,” Hogg said. As he and his men turned to go Alice saw that one of them, the fourth man, had a stain on his jerkin like that of the water-people. She closed her right eye and saw the faerie-light on him, though green and tarnished, the way it had appeared over the man who had fought with Robin Goodfellow. What hold did Hogg have over this creature? How had he made one of the water-people serve him?

Brownie was able to walk by the time they left the field, though the nut-brown color of his face had faded to a pale gray. Agnes did not remark on their new companion; no doubt she had seen stranger sights tonight. They said nothing for most of the long walk home, each woman thinking her own thoughts.

As they reached Cheapside they heard the bellman give his call:

“Remember the clocks,

Look well to your locks,

Fire and your light,

And God give you good night,

For now the bell ringeth,

One o'clock.”

Without discussing it they hid in a small alley as he passed. “I wonder what he'd make of us,” Agnes said, laughing, as he passed. “Maybe he'd think we were whores.”

Alice didn't care. No accusation that anyone could make could be as dreadful as what George had said at the stationers' meeting yesterday. Had it been only yesterday? So much had happened since then: the play, and Walter …

She felt a pleasant warmth spread through her at the thought of Walter, and she told herself firmly to forget him. Love did not come to someone her age; the only thing left to her was caring for folks and easing their pain: her strange son, and John in his last illness, and now Brownie … It was not much, but it was work that would keep her until she died.

As if to prove that her life held no new joy she said to Margery, “Arthur never came.”

“Nay. I'm sorry.”

“I wonder why not.”

“Who knows? No one can say why these folk do what they do.”

“What happens if Oriana loses the war?”

“To your son, you mean? I don't know. He might be taken captive, or—”

“So we must find him.” Or killed, Margery had been about to say. She had never been one to spare her friend's feelings.

“Aye.” They came up to Paternoster Row and Alice's house. “And soon. Good night.”

Alice could barely come awake the next day but she took time to look at Brownie and bind his wound. Then she walked to Paul's; she could not afford three days' absence at the churchyard. As she went through the gate she saw Walter coming from his stall to greet her.

“I looked for you all day yesterday,” he said. “Were you ill?”

At his words strong feelings coursed through her like lightning, excitement and pleasure and desire. Her face grew hot and she wondered if he could see it, and the thought made her color more. Blushing, at her age!

“I went to visit my friend Margery,” she said. Damn, but she should not have said that; she must be tired indeed. Now he would tell her she should stop seeing Margery, that she should be careful after the accusations leveled at her the day before.

He said nothing. He was not George, after all. But the trip had been dangerous; if anyone still harbored suspicions that she was a witch this would have confirmed them. She felt glad that he did not pry, that he left her alone to make her own decisions, and thinking this she remembered again how pleasant his company had been the other day.

“There were strange sights last night,” he said. “So they say in the churchyard, anyway. Dragons, two of them, fighting against the moon. Did you see them?”

She couldn't think what to reply. But her face must have given something away, because he said, “Has this anything to do with you? Or with Margery?”

She wished she could answer him. Not because she wanted advice about her son, or because she was tired of lying, but just so that she could stay and talk with him a little longer. “Nay, of course not,” she said, and turned to go.

13

Warmer days came to London. The nobility left for their estates or to follow the queen on her progress but the city seemed as full as ever. The acting companies that had gone on tour returned and joined the ones that had remained in the city, drawing huge crowds, showing five or six plays a week. Beggars and pilgrims, madwomen and thieves came as well, and gypsies in scarves and bells who danced and spat fire and told fortunes. The streets stank of offal left to rot in the sun, and the people stank too, and doused themselves liberally with perfume to cover the smell. Kites and ravens flew overhead.

Tom Nashe made his way through the crowds in St. Paul's churchyard, heading toward Alice's stall. He was driven by a kind of anger; Christopher still refused to discuss what had happened the evening they had followed Arthur, and that left Alice as the only person in London he could talk to.

He was jostled as he walked through the churchyard, and without thinking he put his hand to his hat to keep it from falling. He had recently unearthed the hat from among his old clothing, and had pinned the unfading silver flower to it like a lady's favor. “Good day,” Alice said as he came up to her stall.

She always smiled when she saw him, he realized, as if she expected him to say something witty. He wished he could. “Good day,” he said. “I think I have news of Arthur.”

She looked at him sharply, not hiding the interest on her face. He began to tell her about the strange land he had come to, the women weaving garlands, the flower he had been given. As he talked he felt a vast relief; he hadn't realized how much he needed to unburden himself to someone who might believe him.

“And did you see Arthur in that land?” she asked.

“Nay. I felt—I felt almost as if someone watched me, studied me, and then passed me over. They were looking for Arthur, I'm certain of it. And it seemed to me that—” He searched for a way to explain it to her. “That the land itself was a sort of door. That Arthur reached out without effort and opened the land like a door, and passed through to—to—I can't think where. To another land, maybe.”

“Then he's gone.”

“Gone for now. I think he left because too many people want him. He was involved with a plot to kill the queen—”

“I know. Perhaps it's good he's gone—I don't think he understands the danger he's in.”

“And now these people are looking for him, for their own reasons, whatever they are—”

He saw Alice hesitate. She knew something, he was certain of it. And she could not bring herself to tell him what it was because she had heard of his reputation: that he liked to gossip, liked rumor, liked to pass a tale back and forth.

She said nothing. “Who is Arthur, that he has such power?” he asked. “That he can travel through that land without being stopped by—by whatever lives there?”