Strange Devices of the Sun and Moon (34 page)

“Am I prying?”

She shook her head.

“Is it because of George? Because you trusted George, and he betrayed that trust?”

How well he knew her, after all. She nodded, glad for the moment that she did not have to speak.

“Alice, listen. I am not like George. I care about you, more than you know. I think you are brave, very brave, to have done as much as you have on your own, but it is not good for anyone, man or woman, to be too much alone.”

She nodded again, thinking that she must be dreaming. For how many years had she imagined he might say something like this? For how many nights had she lain awake, hoping that perhaps the next day, or the next, would bring a declaration of his feelings? She turned to him, intending, finally, to tell him the truth. Then she saw something move outside the tower, and she gasped.

They were in one of the highest places in London, she knew. Nothing human could walk outside the tower. The thing scuttled along from buttress to buttress, using its feet and hands equally. Then it stopped and looked directly at her, opening its pointed snout to show her its teeth. She shuddered and turned away from it, toward the churchyard, and saw a few more of the creatures scurrying among the booksellers. The battle they all had waited for had finally begun.

“What is it?” Walter asked.

He hadn't seen it. She looked out beyond the churchyard walls, and what she saw there made her gasp a second time in alarm. A few of the creatures were headed toward her house, toward Art and Brownie. What did they want with her son? Did they imagine she still had the Prince of Faerie? She could not think. She knew only that she had to stop them before they found Art.

“I—I'm sorry, but I have to go home,” she said. “Something—something pressing—”

“What is it? Can I help?”

Of course. He could come with her. All at once her feelings of dread left her, and she began to breathe easier. She turned to ask for his help, and then she remembered the promise she had made to Brownie. She had said she would never bring this man into her house. Walter had spoken of trust, and she could not betray Brownie's trust a second time.

“I—Nay. I wish you could. But this is something I have to do alone.”

He nodded slowly. She could see that he did not understand, that he still hoped to do something for her. “I wish you trusted me more, Alice.”

“It's not that!” she said, feeling that she could bear any words but those. “I have to do this alone.” And she turned and ran down the stairs before he could say anything more.

Tom Nashe hastily pinned the flower to his hat and hurried outside after the brown woman. She had joined a group of women, the ones he had seen by the stream in Arthur's land. They moved quickly down Bishopsgate Street and he ran after them, trying to keep her in sight. Ahead of them he could barely make out a crowd of outlandish figures, horned men and animals, tiny flying creatures, all of them calling to one another excitedly.

The procession continued down Cheapside, toward Paul's. As they turned in at the gate Tom saw Alice Wood run from the tower and pass him on her way out. Did she have dealings with these folk? Her son certainly did. It irked him that someone might know something about London that he didn't.

Then the brown woman motioned toward him again, and he forgot everything but her face, her hands, her hair.

When Alice reached her house she found Margery and Agnes at the door. “Where's Art?” she asked. “Is he in danger?”

“Nay,” Margery said. “Brownie's hidden him.”

“Brownie? Where?”

“I don't know. Come—they're moving toward Paul's.”

“What do they want with Art?”

“The red king wants him. He doesn't know which child is Oriana's true son. And even if Art is not her son he hopes to gain information about her from him.”

“How do you know?”

“Never mind that. We must hurry.”

Alice nearly followed her, moved by the urgency in Margery's voice. But something made her stop and face the other woman squarely. “Why? What do I care about Oriana's wars?”

“You can do nothing here. And Brownie may be in danger.”

Alice sighed. Her life seemed to be bound up with these people whatever she did. She followed Margery back to Paul's.

They were in time to see the red king's creatures pass into the churchyard. The huge horses came first, then the sea-creatures, and after them a group of small misshapen figures who laughed and pointed as they walked. Finally they saw a long line of folks covered by shadow. Alice shivered a little in the afternoon sunlight, remembering what that shadow had hidden in Finsbury Field. The red king was nowhere in sight.

Some of the stationers looked directly at creatures and seemed to see nothing. Others rubbed their eyes, as if their vision troubled them. Though the weather was fine, a sun too bright for June shining on the yard, a few of the booksellers began to pack up their wares and close their stalls.

Oriana's soldiers, some of them mounted on the horned animals, some standing, faced the creatures with their lances ready. Their silver mail seemed light as gossamer. Behind them were the standard-bearers, and then the circle of horned men surrounding the queen. Alice thought she saw Arthur next to Oriana, but in the next moment the guard moved together and hid him from her. Was he ready to fight a battle of this magnitude? She did not believe that he could be.

There must have been some signal she missed, because in the next moment the two sides began to grapple with each other. The sea-creatures climbed over the stationers' stalls, scattering books and papers as they went for Oriana's men. Some scurried up the strong wooden buttresses of the church, or broke windows and ran through the aisles, calling shrilly to each other. As Alice watched one jumped from the roof to land on a horned man, who cried out and fell to the ground. The creature's strong, supple limbs kept him from reaching for his sword.

The booksellers had completely abandoned the churchyard now. Some watched from beneath the pillars, their faces filled with amazement and terror, but most had packed up and gone home. Two of the red king's men rocked a stall back and forth and finally succeeded in toppling it to the ground. They sent up a wild high cry of triumph.

Alice could not see George anywhere. But Walter had come down from the tower and was looking out at the disorder spread before him, standing too far away for her to make out his expression. What on earth would he make of it? Would he think it her doing? She remembered their conversation in the tower and thought that even he would not be anxious to keep company with her after this. Oriana had blighted her life, had taken away two of the people Alice had held dear, Arthur and Walter.

She glanced at the queen, standing surrounded by her guard, and hoped bitterly that she would lose the war. Look at her, she thought, watching it all from the safety of her protected circle as others go out to die for her. How is she better than the red king? Arthur stood next to her, an abstracted look on his face. Oriana pointed to something, and Arthur nodded.

A brown figure darted out into the midst of the fighting, and Alice held her breath as she watched. She had never known Brownie to hold a sword before, but she saw with a sense of loss that it seemed to suit him, that he fought as well as any of the men alongside him. If the red king defeated Oriana she prayed that Brownie would come through safely. It was only then, her hands clenched hard in supplication and hope, that she remembered that Brownie had hidden Art, that he might be the only one to know where her son was. What if he dies? she thought. How do I get my son back? It seemed impossible to her that Art could have been given to her for so short a time, another of Oriana's cruel tricks.

The fighting closed in around Brownie. Margery was saying something at her side but Alice barely heard her. A sea-creature cut down one of the guards and moved up behind Brownie, and as Alice watched he turned at the last moment and parried its sword. Then he plunged his own sword into the thing's heart. “Look,” Margery said again, pointing.

Alice turned away with difficulty. Paul Hogg stood by the churchyard gate, along with George and another man and his assistant, one of the water-people. How long had they been there? Hogg said something to the water spirit and it moved out into the battle. To Alice's horror she saw it going directly for Brownie. Then several of the twig-people, running through the yard, cut them both off from sight.

Perhaps the battle turned then, or perhaps Alice only noticed it at that moment. All over the yard Oriana's people were falling. The sky darkened, casting a kind of twilight over the churchyard. A huge creature carrying a club in one hand and a chain in the other grappled with one of the horned soldiers. The twig-people ran from the field, crying out to one another, and small leathery shapes scuttled after them. The winged creatures fluttered around the tower, not daring to come closer. As Alice watched she saw the light die from Robin Goodfellow's staff.

“Something went wrong—somehow the battle started too soon,” Margery said, as if speaking to herself. “They were not made to fight in sunlight.”

“But the sun's fading,” Alice said. “Won't that help them?”

“Nay, that's the red king's doing. Darkness covering light, that's his weapon. Just as Oriana's weapon is light shining through the darkness.”

Who were the creatures of darkness then? Alice thought. George had been wrong; the division between the two was not as sharp as he had thought.

“When will Oriana send Arthur?” Margery asked. “They will follow her son whatever happens.”

“Arthur?” Alice said. “Look at him. He's not here to fight. He's here to be admired, to be made much of. After twenty-three years he's found a mother who will let him do as he pleases. Do you think he'd give that up?”

They saw Oriana speak to Arthur. “He might, if you talk to him,” Margery said.

“If I—” Alice said, astonished. “Even when he thought he was my child he never listened to me. He's Oriana's son now—let her convince him.”

“But she can't. Look at her.”

“That's nothing to me. It's not my war.”

“Then they will almost certainly lose.”

Alice turned toward her friend, away from the field. What did Margery care who won? But before she could ask she saw something that stopped the words in her mouth. Margery held her hands out over the battlefield. Light streamed out from her, and the force of it seemed to raise a wind that blew her thick hair back from her head. The fighting stopped momentarily as both sides turned to see where the radiance came from, and then Oriana's folks raised their voices in a cheer.

When the battle started Tom lost the brown woman in the confusion. He moved anxiously around the edges of the churchyard, hoping that she had not decided to join the fighting. After a few minutes he caught sight of her, standing near the guard of horned men. She turned to him and then looked back at the churchyard.

He remembered what she had asked of him, back at the tavern. She wanted him to fight for her. And it was true that he wore her favor, though he hadn't realized when he had pinned it to his hat what she would require of him. But nay, he thought, shaking his head. What am I thinking? I'm no soldier.

Her eyes sought him out again, and this time she looked beseeching, filled with hope. I have no sword, he thought, but even as he protested his hand reached for the dagger he wore at his back like every other gallant in the city. Would it be enough? Would it protect him against the great horses that were even now moving into the thick of the fighting? Truly I must be bewitched, he thought, moving slowly into the churchyard. A few of the stationers called to him but he ignored them.

Blackness enveloped him almost immediately. He realized that he must have stepped into one of the eddies of shadow that covered the red king's followers. Muffled sounds of fighting came to him, the ring of sword on sword, the neighing of horses, but he could see nothing. Even the solid bulk of Paul's was lost in the darkness. He flailed around with his dagger and backed away a few paces. If he couldn't fight he could at least return to the safety of the church.

Two white eyes peered out at him from the shadows. The eyes looked sickly, like marshlights. Something hissed. He moved toward it, his dagger poised. The eyes disappeared, reappeared to his left. Or were there two of the creatures? He changed his course to counter it. The hissing noise came again, louder.

The eyes vanished again, and he spun around. This time they reappeared to his right, and slightly closer. I'm going to die, he thought. Who is this woman, that she can ask this of me?

He heard the hissing noise again, and something else, the sound of a great wind driving across the churchyard. As he watched the wind swept away the blackness. Nay, it did more than that; it seemed to carry with it its own light, a brilliance that suffused the yard. Now he could see the soft, wrinkled creature that stood before him. It was barely three feet high. He moved toward it and it turned and ran. “Coward!” he called to it, laughing wildly in his relief. “Will you attack only in the dark?” In two steps he was upon it, and he hewed it down. The fluid that came from the thing seemed more like foul water than blood.

The sweep of the light revealed Brownie. He and the water spirit thrust and parried with their swords, first one and then the other gaining the advantage. Alice watched as they moved back and forth across the churchyard, and she remembered that Hogg had spoken to his creature before it had gone out to fight. Had he directed it toward Brownie out of spite? Did he want Brownie dead because he knew of her fondness for him? She had not realized, in all her years, that such malice existed.

The water spirit gained the shelter of one of the stalls and clambered to the top. From its advantage it moved as if to cut Brownie down, but Brownie overturned the stall with one quick motion and the water spirit fell. She saw Brownie stand over it and slash downward with his sword.