Strange Devices of the Sun and Moon (23 page)

Brownie backed toward the hearth, the way he had done the first night she had seen him. “I can't.” He sounded wounded, unhappy.

“Why not?”

“The queen has commanded me to stay.”

“Oriana? Why?”

“Because—” He sounded reluctant, but she saw that he wanted to tell her. “To spy on you.”

“To spy—”

“Aye. In case Arthur comes back.”

She could not help but feel a sense of betrayal. She had thought that Brownie stayed on, however reluctantly, out of loyalty to her, out of gratitude for the care she had given him. Now she saw that other forces operated here: they were all pawns in a larger game. “Go then. I won't be spied on.”

“I can't. Queen Oriana won't have me.”

She almost laughed. What could she do, throw him out of the house? She was not even certain how he had come to be there the first time. “Well, then,” she said. “As long as you're here let's make the best of it. Why are you so unhappy?”

“You showed me to that man, the one with the hard face.”

“I know, Brownie. That was a mistake. I won't do it again, I promise you.”

“Aye, you will. You'll show me to the other one, the man who comes to your door sometimes.”

“Walter? Don't worry about Walter—he won't be back.”

“He will, though. You love him.”

“How do you know that?” she said, sharper than she had intended. “You folks know nothing about love.”

“We know some things. Love is a mystery to us, but we can recognize it in others. Someday you will forget your promise to me. You will be so happy to be with him, so eager to do something wonderful for him, that you will bring him inside and show me to him.”

“Nay, Brownie. Trust me, please. That man will never bother you. I promise you this, by my hope of winning Arthur back.”

He seemed to relax a little. She smiled at him and went to make herself a small supper, and that night, without saying anything to her, Brownie cleaned the dishes and pans.

Thomas Kyd walked through the deserted streets toward Paul's. Today, he thought, he would buy himself a book. Not a history book to base a play on, and not something written by one of his friends, but a book to read solely for enjoyment.

He smiled a little as he walked, thinking of the luxury he was about to allow himself. He had sold his play
Soliman and Perseda
before the closing of the playhouses, and for very nearly the first time in his life he felt he had enough money for his modest desires.

A woman carrying a basket and a red wand hurried down the street and stopped in front of a door marked with a red cross. The door opened, and a breath of rank contagion came from inside. Tom crossed the street quickly.

He turned to watch as the woman went inside the house, delivering food to those quarantined by the plague. What would it be like to minister to folks who were ill, to have to come in daily contact with the infection? Like living in London during the plague season, he thought, and abruptly his good humor vanished.

He had some money, true, but it would not stretch far enough to take him away from London. If he had a patron he could be out of the city, enjoying the healthy air of the country-side. Lord Strange, for example: Strange's company of actors performed everything he wrote. But no invitation from Strange had been forthcoming, and he could not help but feel a little resentful. How many years did a man have to serve his lord in order to receive favors from him?

A year ago he and Christopher had taken a room together, thinking that they both needed a place to write, but he had not seen Christopher since the plague began. He felt certain that unlike him the other man had found a patron. The thought galled him. How had Kit deserved such good fortune while he was left to struggle against the plague? But nay—it was best not to think of such things.

He glanced up the street and saw Arthur coming toward him.

He raised his hand to hail the man before he realized his mistake. This wasn't Arthur but some poor starving beggar, his clothes torn to rags and nearly falling off his shrunken frame. As he watched the man stumbled and went down.

Tom ran forward. It
was
Arthur, he saw now, but an Arthur strangely changed, with hollow eyes and a haunted expression on his face. What had happened to him in the two years since he'd seen him last? Tom's heart turned to see him looking so frail, so lost. “Arthur,” he said, bending over the other man. “Arthur, are you ill? Do you need help?”

Arthur looked up. There was dirt caked in his hair and an open sore on one of his arms. “Where were you?” Tom asked.

“Dead,” Arthur said. “I was dead and in heaven, or some place like it. Do they still search for me?”

“Who?”

“Everyone. Everyone wants me. Do you know why?” He looked around anxiously and then whispered to Tom, “Because I'm king.”

Tom looked around as well. If anyone heard them they could be arrested for treason. “Listen,” he said, shaking Arthur's shoulders to make him pay attention. “Listen, Arthur—you must not say such things. Do you understand?”

“But it's true. They all told me so, in the country I went to—they told me I was king. It was because I'm a king that they wanted to—to—” His eyes clouded for a moment, and he shuddered. “So I opened a door and slipped away from them, to another land, and then to a land beyond that. There are as many countries in that place as there are drops of water.”

“Don't say it even if it's true. They'll arrest you if you claim to be king. Do you understand? They're looking for you anyway, I heard—they think you had something to do with the plot against the queen.”

Arthur looked up at that. “The queen?”

Tom sighed. What could he do with this man? The queen's men searched for him, and so, he knew, did Christopher and Tom Nashe. Nay, he would not allow this sad lunatic to fall into the hands of Tom and Kit, to be used for God only knew what purposes.

He straightened, and as he did so an idea came to him. He thought for a moment of the book he had been about to buy; he would not be able to afford it now. “Get up,” he said, trying not to regret what he was about to do. “Please.”

Arthur got to his feet and followed Tom for several yards before stopping and looking at the empty streets around him. “Where am I?” he said, his voice suddenly uncertain. “What country is this?”

Tom turned and stared at him in amazement. “England. London. Do you understand?”

“Oh, aye,” Arthur said, sounding reassured. “I'm king here too, you know.”

Tom walked faster, not caring now if Arthur followed him or not. They went through side-roads and alleys and came at last to Bishopsgate. Once through the city wall they passed St. Botolph's Church and then turned in at the gate to St. Mary of Bethlehem Hospital.

Tom stood in front of the asylum for a while, studying it: a long low building with two dark wings coming forward on either side. Would this be a good place for Arthur? He shrugged; he had no choice. He took Arthur gently by the hand and led him to the steward's office.

“Ah,” the steward said as they came in. “Is he a relative?”

“Nay,” Tom said. “A—a friend.”

The steward frowned. “Lodging in Bedlam is not cheap.”

“I—I'm prepared to pay. He has nowhere else to go, and I thought—well, I can't take care of him—”

“Ah.” The steward nodded; apparently they were on more familiar ground here. “Good. Come with me.”

Tom followed the other man down a brick corridor. The place was ill lit and smelled of sweat and urine and rotting straw. There were ten barred cells, five to a side, and in front of each of them stood the folks who had paid to view the lunatics. Inside the cells men and women laughed or pointed or shouted vile abuse. A few of them lay bound in chains. A woman stared at Tom with wide eyes as he passed. “I have to get a message to my daughter,” she said. “Tell her—”

Tom looked around him in dismay. Surely he could find something better for Arthur than this prison. By what right did he think he could sentence Arthur here for what would probably be the rest of his life?

But what else could he do? He certainly couldn't turn him over to the queen's men; Arthur could be killed for treason if they found him. And he would not allow the poor man to be a pawn in Tom and Kit's intrigues. If Kit wanted Arthur he should have stayed in London and looked for him himself.

Arthur went meekly into the cell, and the steward closed the door and turned the key in the lock.

A few days later George went with Anthony to the house off Cheapside. The day had grown hot, and flies buzzed around the garbage in the streets. George felt weary; he wanted only to go home and rest. He had spent over two years with Paul Hogg, and while Hogg continued to give him coins from a seemingly endless supply he could not help but wish that they made more progress. Two years, and they still hadn't found Arthur.

Where was the boy? George remembered him from the churchyard: a simple dreamy lad, almost a half-wit. How had he managed to elude a man like Hogg, who seemed to have all knowledge at his command? And the Fair Folk searched for him as well, both the red king and Oriana, and Alice and Margery …

George felt the silk lining on his jerkin and looked at the ruby rings sparkling on his hand. It seemed to him that the more riches he had the more he needed. His shop had expanded too quickly, and then the plague had brought an end to a large part of his trade. He owed money to some of his creditors, and to his new workers and apprentices as well. When would they find Arthur, and with him the final step in their search for gold?

A man lay in the street against one of the houses, trying to take advantage of what little shade the wall offered. His mouth was open and he panted shallowly. George looked away quickly. A plague victim, probably, and who knew where the illness would strike next? But if Hogg found the way to the Philosopher's Stone he would live forever. The plague could not touch him. The man said something in a weak voice, begging for alms, probably, and George and Anthony hurried on.

They entered the small house. It had grown more cluttered since his first visit, more filled with glass and tubing, manuscripts and stones and vials of sulphur and salt and mercury. In the past two years Hogg had gone through the remaining steps in the alchemical process, all but the final one. At first George had watched with great interest as Hogg heated and distilled and purified, as he hunted for certain minerals by the light of the moon. The substance in the alembic had grown red-hot, turned black, become liquid, turned white. Hogg had clearly reveled in the whole thing, carefully explaining why he sealed the vessel when he did, why he warmed it with fire, why he unsealed it again.

As the process dragged on, though, George had grown tired of it. He wanted only the result, the Philosopher's Stone; how Hogg got there was unimportant. Now, as he went inside, he glanced at the alembic in its place on the floor, still unchanged. He sighed.

Hogg welcomed him, his normally grave face shining with pleasure. His assistant, the man with the stain on his doublet, stood behind him in the shadows. “We found him,” Hogg said triumphantly. “We've found Arthur.”

At last, George thought. “Where is he?”

“Look.”

Hogg led him to the table and pointed to the scrying stone there. At first George could see nothing. Then it seemed as if a mist cleared away, and a picture formed of a beautiful young man with red hair and green eyes. The man burst into wild soundless laughter. “Is he enchanted?” George asked.

“I don't know,” Hogg said. “That is what we must discover. Come.”

George watched as Hogg traced a circle around the floor. Over the years he had become convinced that most of Hogg's conjuring, his Latin and Greek and other strange tongues, meant very little to the Fair Folk, that they came and went as they pleased. Sometimes they even appeared before Hogg had finished his invocation, breaking into the middle of his long and solemn chants.

Even more ominously, the folk sometimes came without being called at all. The green creature still followed Anthony at times, though it had not attacked him again, and Alice had her demon. And George had finally recognized the man with the water-stain as kin to the people who had fought against Oriana. He wondered if those who meddled with these folk somehow bound them unknowingly. Hogg had assured him that what they did was lawful, and so far George had not seen any evidence to the contrary. But lately, when he walked home, he heard the steps of someone—something—following him.

One of the green men appeared in the middle of Hogg's circle. George stepped back, still not used to the thing's sudden appearances, and the creature laughed, showing sharp crooked teeth. “We have found Arthur in the scrying glass,” Hogg said to it. “But we cannot discover his whereabouts.”

He indicated the glass on the table, among the litter of instruments. The image of Arthur laughed again, silently, and George shuddered. Now he noticed that the man in the glass seemed ill: he had grown thinner, and his hair was caked with dirt. His green eyes looked enormous in the thin face. What had happened to him?

“His whereabouts?” the creature said. “Oh, that's easy, very easy. Ask me something difficult.” It hissed a little as it spoke, its words distorted by the long snout, the pointed teeth.

“Where is he?” Hogg said.

The creature laughed. “In Bedlam.”

“Bedlam?” George said, forgetting to keep silent. “But we searched there. We went to all the hospitals.”

The thing slowly turned its snout toward him. George tried and failed to meet its gaze. “Aye, Bedlam,” it said. “You must go and bring him back for us.” It vanished before Hogg could give it permission to go.

George looked at Hogg, hoping for an explanation. But the other man seemed confused, uncertain, and for once he said nothing. In the past two years George had grown used to relying on Hogg for guidance, and for a moment he felt frightened, alone. Then Hogg seemed to rouse himself, and the moment passed. “Come,” the other man said firmly. “We'll go to Bedlam.”