Battle of the Sun by Jeanette Winterson Read Free Book Online Page B

little enough harm that it can do, but it would be unwise to free it further, do you understand, Wedge?’
    Wedge didn’t understand, but he obeyed, and nodded.
    ‘Go and prepare the boys for bed,’ said the Magus.
    Wedge left the room. The Magus bent down and picked up the bottom of the jar. Then he looked up towards the skylight, and frowned.
    The boys were in a file at the door of the refectory. Jack’s mother was clearing the table. While Mistress Split was yelling and threatening and waiting for Wedge, Jack’s mother shoved something into Jack’s pocket as she brushed past him.
    Then the boys went up the stone stairs, Mistress Split in front carrying the blazing flare, and Wedge behind, muttering oaths and threats and curses. As Jack was last in line, he felt that these oaths and threats and curses were meant for him, which they were.
    In the bedchamber, Wedge made a great fuss about examining the window, and then noisily locking, unlocking and relocking the door. ‘Any person that finds himself able to pass through this door is no person but a ghost!’ he shouted from the other side. ‘Hear me? Dead!’
    ‘Well said!’ came the voice of Mistress Split, and the two of them, or the one of them, however it is best to describe them, went hopping back down the stairs.
    Jack was sitting on his bed. He got out the hard thing his mother had pushed into his pocket; it was a leg of chicken, and round the chicken leg was a message. I am near.
    While Jack was hungrily devouring the chicken leg, and wishing he had another, he felt someone beside him. It was Crispis with a piece of bread.
    ‘I saved it for you, Jack,’ said the little boy.
    Jack smiled. ‘Do you know anything about dragons, Crispis?’
    ‘Oh, yes,’ said the boy. ‘The one in the moat, I’ve seen it.’
    ‘Did you speak to it?’
    ‘Oh, no,’ said the boy. ‘A dragon cannot be spoken to unless it speaks first. It is very ancient, and has the ancient right of speaking first.’
    ‘Who told you this?’ asked Jack.
    ‘The Magus,’ said Crispis. ‘He used to love me, and when he used to love me he used to sit me on his knee and tell me things.’
    ‘Why doesn’t he love you now?’ said Jack.
    ‘I wasn’t what he wanted. I wasn’t the right magic.’
    ‘What is the right magic?’ asked Jack, but Crispis shook his head.
    ‘I wish I were a heron that came to the deep pool and found the golden fish.’ Then the boy fell straight asleep, just like that.
    Jack laid him gently in his own bed and went and stood at the window. There were clues here if he could unriddle them.
    What was the truth about the boys? What was the ‘right magic’? And what about the Dragon?
    There was a noise at the door.
    Jack bounded across on soft feet and listened. He put his eye to the keyhole and fell back, because there was another eye on the other side of the keyhole.
    ‘JACK . . . JACK . . .’
    It was his mother.
    Jack speedily unlocked the door. His mother came into the bedchamber and hugged him with all her heart. Jack locked the door again and he took her by the hand and led her over to the window.
    ‘How ever did you find me?’ asked Jack.
    ‘The magnet did lead me here. Then by some miracle, the
    Creature – Mistress Split – conceived so great a longing for your dog Max, that she allowed me leave to be a servant here. I shall see you every day, and before another moon passes, I swear we shall escape, Jack.’
    ‘Escape we shall, Mother,’ said Jack, ‘but we cannot forget the other boys, and there is an old king imprisoned in the cellar. And the Magus has some Work, some terrible Work I think, that will make gold out of all the world, and that is why he stole these boys, and that is why he stole me.’
    ‘Gave he a word of explanation?’ said Jack’s mother.
    ‘Yes, he tells me I am something called the Radiant Boy.’
    In the clear moonlight Jack could see his mother’s face cloud with alarm. ‘Mother?’ he said questioningly.
    ‘Oh,