The inner enclosure of the old Priory was still used for growing herbs and small vegetables, and although it was only just dawn, men and boys were already beginning work tending the plants.
Jack pulled his own cap low over his eyes, and stealthily took a wooden wheelbarrow and a fork, and went among the lettuces. He had to find his way to the ruined chapel.
He saw that at the outer edges of the market gardens was the boundary leading to the open spaces used for archery practice. There was a broad ride along the boundary between the gardens and the target ground and some instinct told him to push his barrow that way.
Suddenly, on the other side of the wall, he saw the Magus, wrapped in his black cloak, with two of his servants setting up an archery target. Other men were already stringing their bows and firing into the padded wheels of the targets.
Jack loaded some earth into his barrow to keep looking busy, and he wheeled it along the outer path so that he could get closer to the Magus, who was standing with his back to him watching the target.
‘You there!’
Jack turned, and it was a good thing he did so, for the Magus turned too, and would have spotted Jack. Someone was waving at him to get out of the way, and as he moved himself and his barrow, a proud, tall woman riding sidesaddle on a fine bay horse cantered past him. She continued towards the archery targets, where the Magus had clearly seen her.
Is that the woman called the Abbess? Jack wondered to himself. Certainly, by her bearing and the magnificence of her horse, she was no common woman.
A servant held her horse while the Magus helped her down with great courtesy. She is important and powerful, whoever she is, thought Jack, or the Magus would not treat her so.
The Magus bowed, then he and the tall elegant woman began to walk slowly around the field, talking intently.
Determined to get to the chapel, Jack pushed on and on with his barrow, until he found himself in a lonely part of the market gardens, where frames and barrels and sticks and stakes were kept in piles, along with tools waiting to be mended and heaps of sacking.
He could still hear the thwack-thwack of the target practice over the boundary wall, when he spotted the ruins of the old chapel.
It was not quite ruined, for there was a small stone ante-chapel, roofed and with high windows, and Jack guessed that this must be the place.
Leaving his barrow, and checking that he was alone, Jack cautiously tried the door to the stone chapel. It was locked, but he had his iron tool, and in less than a minute he had opened the door and gone inside, locking it behind him. He looked around. It was not what he had expected.
Inside was an altar, set in the high old Catholic fashion, now outlawed in England since the days of Henry the Eighth, when he had defied the Pope, and made himself Head of the Church of England.
Jack knew that his master, Roger Rover, was a Catholic, and that he had a priest hidden away in the house, and he knew that the penalty for those who followed the old religion was death. But Roger Rover was a favourite of the Queen, and she knew how to overlook what she did not choose to see.
The altar was set for a Mass, but as Jack looked closer, he saw that the candlesticks were made of lead, and that the altar cloth was black, and that there was a strange star on the altar, drawn in gold, like two triangles upside down on one another.
A pentangle, thought Jack. This place is being used for magic.
There was no sign of any of the alchemical apparatus he had expected to find, or that the boys had laboured over in the Dark House. No alembic, no furnace, no jars, no vapours.
It was eerie and empty, waiting, it felt like – but waiting for what?
Jack heard footsteps. He ducked under the altar and held his breath. He could see a pair of feet and two sturdy legs. Abel Darkwater, he thought to himself, and he lifted the altar cloth so that he could see more.
Darkwater was rolling a heavy barrel towards the altar. He was breathing heavily at the exertion. Then, he left the barrel and went back outside, leaving the door ajar. Jack peeped out. The barrel was big enough to pickle a man.
What a strange thought to have! said Jack to himself, but Darkwater was returning, and the Magus was with him.
Silver, with Crispis in tow, had followed Mistress Split to a low broken-down collection of sheds and poultry houses, where fowls were clucking up and down, and a few pigs were snouting in the dirt. She could hear a man shouting. Grabbing Crispis by the hand, they crept through a little side door to one of the poultry houses. There was Wedge.
‘Hatch it! Hatch it!’
Wedge was standing over a turkey and the turkey was sitting on the coconut. Mother Midnight was tied up in a corner, her black cat lying across her shoulders.
As Mistress Split came in at the door of the shed, Wedge turned and snarled at her, and spat at Max.
‘Found your way home like a stupid dog, did you? Speak to the stupid old woman, you disobedient half!’
‘You were told she would not speak to you, stupid half yourself!’ said Mistress Split, brandishing her sword at Wedge.
‘I want the Egg, Egg, Egg!’ yelled Wedge.
‘Then Beg, Beg, Beg,’ yelled Mistress Split in return.
Mother Midnight laughed. ‘Bury it in the ground and then it will split and come forth.’
Wedge looked at her in astonishment. ‘In the sods?’
‘Get a spade, you clod!’ shouted Mistress Split, and Wedge ran outside, dug a hole as deep as despair, and flung the hard-pressed turkey off the coconut, and buried the coconut in the earth faster than anyone could say idiot.
‘How long?’ demanded Wedge.
Mother Midnight said nothing to him, but grinned her toothy grin at Mistress Split. ‘Say to him three days and three nights and he must not leave it.’
‘Leave? I won’t move to breathe!’ exclaimed Wedge. ‘Three days and the whole world will be at my foot.’
‘And I am made of soot . . .’ muttered Mistress Split, hopping off.
Silver saw that with Wedge minding his coconut and Mistress Split out of the way, she had a chance to reach Mother Midnight and untie her.
‘Crispis, stay very still! I won’t be long.’
Silver ran over to Mother Midnight and began busily untying her hands.
‘Jack sent me to rescue you,’ said Silver. ‘He is at the old Priory.’
‘He is in great danger,’ said Mother Midnight.
AND TWISTS . . .
Is everything prepared?’ asked the Magus.
‘Everything is in order,’ replied Abel Darkwater. ‘We ‘ have only to wait for the sacrifice.’
‘I bring news of that,’ said a low, pleasant female voice.
‘My horsemen have done their work.’
And from under the altar, peeping out, Jack saw the skirts of the Abbess.
While Silver was untying Mother Midnight, Crispis heard horses nearby, and ran to hide himself. There was nowhere to hide at all, except in a field of sunflowers growing on a patch of ground. The men on the horses saw him dive into the patch, and gave chase, but when they came to the sunflowers, it was impossible to tell which was the child and which were the flowers, so, imagining he had given them the slip, the men rode off. Crispis stood very still and upright because he knew that something awful was about to happen, and it did.
Silver and Mother Midnight hurried round the backs of the sheds, where they had no choice but to cross the open spaces of the Spital Field. Silver would have run for it, but Mother Midnight was old, and she was carrying her cat, so as it was they limped slowly along, and Silver hoped that they looked like any other of the London flotsam and jetsam that walked hither and yon – a beggar woman and her boy.
But as they crossed the Spital Field towards the archery butts, where men were practising, the horsemen saw the two of them, three if you count the cat, and galloped up, tall on their horses. Roughly, one pulled Mother Midnight up into the saddle behind him, and the other caught Silver, and sat her in front of him, wedged aga
inst the pommel, and wriggling like an eel, but it was no use.
‘This must be the boy we are looking for!’ said one of the men.
And at that, the horses galloped forward, and in no time at all, Silver found herself tossed to the ground.
‘You may release the old woman,’ said a voice. It was a woman’s voice, and Silver would recognise it anywhere – through the curve of the universe, and all of time.
But no, surely it wasn’t possible? Silver looked at the Abbess, who was jewelled and beautiful and perhaps forty years old, but not forty Elizabethan years old, for her skin was strong and clear. She was not a young woman, but she was youthful. Echoing back into Silver’s head were the words of Mistress Split, hopping through the Priory tunnels: ‘Old is as time does, what is time to her?’
‘This is not the boy,’ said the Abbess. The horsemen looked at one another. ‘There was another, very small, but he escaped us. We shall seek him.’
The Abbess shook her head, watching Silver all the while.
‘The other will be nearby. And this one will do very well for my purposes. She is, is she not, blood most dear?’
As the Abbess said these words from the Book of the Phoenix, she pulled off Silver’s cap, and her girlish hair fell down in its unruly curls. The woman and the girl looked at each other, and it was a long look, with centuries in it.
‘Silver . . .’ said the Abbess. ‘Is it really four hundred years and more since our last meeting?’
And without another word, the Abbess signalled to her men, who clipped Silver to a chain in the wall outside the ruined chapel.
Then the Abbess went inside, and through the open window Silver could hear the voices of the Magus and Abel Darkwater.
She waited. Nothing happened.
Nothing happened. She waited.
Then, with a shiver and a shadow, Silver looked up and saw that the edge of the moon was beginning to pass across the sun.
ECLIPSE OF THE HEART
Jack was still lying like a stone under the altar. He heard the scrape of the tinderbox as the Magus lit the candles, and he could smell a strong incense.
‘The quicksilver . . .’ said the Magus, ‘the Aqua Mercurius.’
‘The barrel is prepared for the sacrifice,’ said Abel Darkwater, ‘and I shall open its mouth.’
Jack could hear him prising the top from the barrel. Then the Abbess came in, with news of the sacrifice, and soon afterwards, to his horror, Jack saw Silver’s feet being dragged towards the altar.
‘Let me go!’ she shouted.
‘This is not him,’ said the Magus angrily. ‘Where is the Radiant Boy?’
The Abbess smiled. ‘I promised you a sacrifice, yet I did not say what kind.’
‘We had a pact!’ said the Magus.
‘I want nothing from you,’ said the Abbess. ‘If I help you it is because I am helping myself.’
Abel Darkwater walked up to Silver. And he walked round and round her as though she were a fish in a bowl.
‘The Golden Maiden! The Girl with the Golden Face! Silver! You have many names, but one end, and it is now! We are well met here, for we shall never need meet again – not through continents of history or geographies of time. Do you remember me, Silver?’
‘How could she forget Abel Darkwater and his alembics?’ said the Abbess.
‘I have not forgotten Abel Darkwater,’ said Silver, ‘and I haven’t forgotten you either, Maria Prophetessa, for that is your true name.’
The Abbess inclined her head and said nothing.
‘You have betrayed me!’ cried the Magus. ‘You are in league together, you and this conjuring idiot, Darkwater, and you have both betrayed me!’
‘Childish!’ said the Abbess. ‘Betrayal assumes allegiance, and I have no allegiance to you. You have your sacrifice, and that is necessary for your Work. To destroy the Radiant Boy is a different matter, and no matter of mine.’
‘Nor mine,’ said Abel Darkwater, ‘and this Maiden was ever my price, as well you know.’
‘And I have no price, for I cannot be bought,’ said the Abbess, in her low and pleasant voice, ‘but you mistake me, Magus, if you imagine I have no interests. On this occasion, as far as the girl is concerned, my interests happen to be the same as those of Darkwater. That is all.’
Abel Darkwater picked up Silver against his strong boar-like chest. He seemed to bare his tusks at the Magus. ‘You shall get your City of Gold,’ he said, ‘but when this Maiden is gone I shall soon be Master of Time!’
‘The Timekeeper is mine,’ yelled Silver, ‘now and for ever!’
‘Such spirit,’ said the Abbess mildly. ‘In a strange way I shall be sorry to lose you so much sooner than expected, Silver.’
‘And I shall not be sorry!’ shouted Abel Darkwater. ‘Into the barrel with her!’ And he tossed Silver into the air like a fish that is caught.
The chapel was darkening. The Magus strode over to the Abbess, his face close against hers. ‘Again, I tell you, we had a pact, you serpent of the Nile! Where is the Boy?’
‘He is here,’ said Jack.
Jack came out from under the altar. He stood unafraid and still, and there was an authority about him, and a power, that made everyone hesitate.
The chapel was darkening. The moon was halfway across the sun.
‘Silver is not to be the sacrifice,’ said Jack, ‘the sacrifice of blood most dear, and neither am I. There is to be no sacrifice. You are defeated, Magus. By my presence here, you are defeated.’
It was a good try, and Jack nearly succeeded. The truth is, he was powerful, but he was untaught, and knew nothing of the magic arts, or what he should do. He simply trusted the power he felt in him, but the Magus was ancient and wily.
‘How so, Jack Snap?’ he said. ‘How so?’
But that was the Dragon’s voice. Jack felt a sudden confusion, and he faltered. Who was the Magus? Where was the Dragon? Were they the same? Were they separate? And had not the Dragon told him that any fear or anger or uncertainty would weight the power back to the Magus?
Jack was uncertain. He shifted his gaze. The Magus felt the moment and used it to spring at Jack with claws and teeth, no longer in human form, but some monstrous beast unknown.
In the darkening chapel they fought. The candlesticks on the altar were turned over, the cloth ripped to the floor. Jack saw that as the Magus fought him, his own body was shining like gold, but like living gold, and he lit the darkening chapel as though the sun that was eclipsed outside was bottled inside him.
They rolled and held, and were like creatures welded together; first the Magus had Jack with a claw at his throat, and then by a twist Jack had the Magus locked at the jaw.
But Abel Darkwater had plans of his own. No matter how Silver kicked and struggled she could not free herself. He carried Silver to the barrel of mercury. She was about to cry out, but as she saw Jack in mortal combat, she knew that for his sake she had to hold all her courage in her mouth, for if she distracted him now, even for a second, he would be killed by the hideous clawed beast that was the Magus.
The Abbess stood by. She watched everything. She said nothing.
Abel Darkwater lowered Silver feet-first into the barrel. As the mercury touched her feet, she felt its terrible cold that numbed her legs as she was dipped and dropped deeper and deeper. She was too cold to shiver, and it was as though she had become the cold moon, and the sun had gone out of her. She closed her eyes. The quicksilver covered her. Abel Darkwater closed the barrel.
Without a backward glance he quitted the chapel into the darkening noon, leapt on his horse, that shied at the loss of light, and galloped away.
As the last of the light left the chapel, in the fullness of the eclipse, there was a fearful cracking noise. Jack had the Magus pinned under him, and with his golden strength he saw the half-animal, half-human form begin to diminish and fade. He was utterly concentrated now, and wanted only that this moment should be his, and the Magus defeated for ever.
&nbs
p; And then the Abbess said, in her low and pleasant voice, ‘Another has sacrificed herself in your place.’
Jack let go.
And his grip on the Magus loosened. And he stood up alone, in the dark, and he was dimmed, and he was lost, and he was nowhere, and he was no one, and he was nothing, scrap, whittle, ounce, speck, atom, dream. The battle was lost, and he had lost, and, and . . .
And the Magus was gone in his phoenix form through the open window.
Jack felt in his own body the emptiness of the universe.
Darkness
Silence
Despair
Jack went over to the barrel, which was freezing cold and covered in icicles. He stood in front of it, hanging his head like a broken beast.
‘It is called the Dissolutio,’ said the Abbess mildly. ‘It is a part of the alchemical process of transformation. Silver, like quicksilver, has dissolved into a million parts. There are millions of Silvers in the barrel, and none at all. Farewell, Jack.’
And the Abbess left the dark chapel.
Jack shouldered the barrel – and it was easy for him to do because of his strength, and he went outside and looked at the sun, and now the eclipse was passing, as the moon sped on, and the sun was beginning to light the earth again.
Heavy in his body like lead, with a heart that was dead as a stone that must feel nothing lest it break, Jack walked, upright and steady, out of the Priory, and down Bishopsgate Street towards the river. His shoulder and arm were frosted and frozen with the frozen frostedness of the barrel.
No one stopped him or challenged him. All the people were dazed by the eclipse, and the strange apparition of the strange boy and his barrel seemed part of the wonders they had seen. And as Jack reached the river, he understood why everyone was amazed, for he reached the river long before he reached the river; the waters had risen and broken their banks, as the Book of the Phoenix had foretold.