The Harlequin Tartan: Quest of the Five Clans

by Raymond St. Elmo

  Centuries ago a mysterious family of mad geniuses split into five clans; feuding, hiding, hording their secrets of fighting and art, magic and science. Now at the dawn of the mechanical 19th century, only the five clans united can hold back the blood-red tide of industrial apocalypse.

  Unless they dive into it laughing. I did say 'mad'.

  Quest of the Five Clans

  Book 3: the Harlequin Tartan

  Raymond St. Elmo, 2018

  Edition 2.0, 2019

  “I am a part of the part, who once was part of the whole.”

  Faust, Goethe

  Chapter 1

  In Defense of a Flower

  A proper duel begins at dawn. As birds pipe the sacred song ‘welcome, welcome, returning light’. The correct setting: a garden of flowers, silver-wet with morning dew. I prefer roses, though this requires one quarrel in time to the seasons.

  Why a place of green life at day’s birth? If you intend an enemy’s death, far better someplace drear, when sunset shadows gather. Let your foe’s life slip into darkness with the dying light. Clearly we choose dawn among flowers for our own last thoughts. We arrange a duel not as proper scene to kill, but to die.

  I wasn’t dying this dawn. Not by a fop of a fool of an inbred who’d drank himself into heroic-if- incoherent challenge. I faced graver risk shaving by candle-light. Scrape wrong across the Adam’s apple and blood must flow. Which accounted for all my blood loss this morning. Not that Lord Gould did not know his sword-craft. I just knew mine better. Far better.

  Still, it could happen. Perhaps it would. This green lawn, this gold dawn. I might lay me down and gently expire, grateful for the last view of light and life. In dueling one can never be sure. Though one could be damned bored and chilled if the other fellow is late.

  So I stood in cold wind and dim dawn, grumbling, tapping the lawn with rapier. A daisy dared peek out from the grass. I began bullying it with the point of my blade. Perhaps I’d reap its tiny green life. My secretary Phineas leaned against the carriage, yawning.

  “It was for today, was it not, Mephisto?” I asked, putting point to the daisy’s throat, just beneath the petals. “Where is the man?”

  Phineas drew forth his silver watch. Placed it to ear as if to inquire of a sea-shell the sound of tide and wave. At length he nodded at what the Sea of Time whispered. Annoying show. He knew the time, I knew the time. The damned birds knew the time. It was past damned dawn. Where the hell was the fool who’d scheduled to kill me?

  Not that he would kill me. Nor I him. No, I’d give Gould brief pain and a respectable scar he could display to mistress and mirror. Women and mirrors admire dueling scars. Hellfire, I could sell the service of providing them. If I wished. I didn’t, it required getting up too god-damned early in the morning.

  “You might have brought coffee,” I complained. Phineas nodded to say indeed he might. His black-tinted spectacles glinted in the rising sun. Unsettling, as if he lacked eyes, perceived the world through dark holes. Or windows painted black. To annoy him, I took the mysterious note from my pocket, unfolded it, considered the words.

  ‘Sir you have ben enspelled by the folks in smoky glasses. Remember your wife she’s a drinker of blood but good-hearted you love deep. BEWARES lest they trick you to perdition. MORE later!’

  Yesterday some lunatic tossed a half-brick through my window, this message attached. I found it disturbing. Not just for the promise of more broken windows, more fees to glazers. But ‘wife?’ I had no wife. Might have married Elspeth if I’d been braver. And yet to be told ‘you have a wife you love deep’… it was like a dream calling me to enter some house never seen in waking life, where each room ached with heart-break and familiarity.

  “I deny enspelling your mind, Master Rayne,” declared Phineas, in voice of reproach.

  I put away the note. My head ached. I never suffered headaches till this last month. Perhaps the enspelling? That or lack of coffee. “You are my valet, Mephisto,” I sighed. “You have no function but the domination of my every thought and habit, till I walk the earth your creature.”

  He considered. “Well, yes. But such is in the normal course of servant and master. I deny using arcane arts, mesmerism or diabolitry in grand conspiracy. If you have forgot a wife, sir, the cause lies elsewhere than the performance of my duties.”

  I weighed him with a look of doubt, of distrust. He straightened in umbrage at the weighing. A man of rectitude, declared his spine. “Tinted spectacles are fashionable items this season,” he declared. “They would make an absurd mark of conspiracy. You might as well suspect a style of hat, else a particular shape of ear.”

  He pocketed his time-piece, pocketed his umbrage, un-pocketed his rules-booklet on ‘The Code Duello’. He began leafing through in ostentatious disinterest of my suspicions.

  Mysteries, suspicions, conspiracies… my cup overflowed with them. Yet all my struggle lay in not yawning impolite. But a week before, as the gardener dug about the stump of the great oak in my courtyard, he unearthed a bronze box tangled in the roots. Etchings of suns and moons upon the top. No keyhole, no hinge. A shame to smash it open, find it full of tin spoons. Yet suppose within lay rubies? A human hand? Another message? A pair of tinted spectacles, more like. My invitation to the conspiracy, left by ancient Romans.

  I considered Phineas again. He radiated secret initiation, sly knowing. But that was a proper valet’s attitude. I gave up, turned from him back to the daisy at my feet. Seven yellow petals, a dark center. I tapped each with blade-point. It peered up, calm before my threat. What a brave little bit of greenery. True, it did not know its danger. We seldom do, flowers or men. No, but it knew the rising sun. It knew that life was green, that light might be touched by petals reaching blindly out. Would I were so wise. I’d have stayed in bed, left dueling to the dogs.

  “Rule Twenty-one,” Phineas read aloud. “Seconds are bound to attempt a reconciliation before the meeting takes place, or after sufficient firing or hits, as specified.” He cocked black lenses at me. “Rayne Gray, will you not now stand and give pardon to Lord Gould?”

  I pondered. Evening time, a cup or three down and warm bed waiting I would have yawned, said ‘oh, why not’. But in cold morning without coffee? Never. The harsh corners of the world stood revealed in dawn’s glow. Observe the daisy at my feet. It rises from a battle-field of weeds, roots and worms, grappling for its share of light and earth. All the world is just such a death match. I shook my head.

  “Forgetting is certain. Forgiving, a trifle. But if the fool does not bleed I shall not cross the street without a dozen new provocations. Which must lead to death and maiming for a dozen fools, instead of one.” I considered this possibility. A world with twelve fewer fools would be no loss. In simple mathematical summation, a better world. But the cost were overmuch. Rise before dawn, shave by candle light, ride outside the city, stamping the damp out my boots? A dozen times? To grant one pardon? Never.

  “Gould struck me before witnesses,” I informed the daisy, tapping point to each separate petal. “He said unpleasant things about my mother. Deliberately misunderstood Rousseau. If he does not pay in coin of pain with receipt in scar, he will walk the world thinking insult comes free of cost. Sound economics will then slice him for mutton. It were no mercy unto him to turn cheek now.”

  Phineas nodded, saddened but unsurprised. He refolded the rules of dueling, refolded arms and unfolded a sigh, duty satisfied. I felt put out. He might have striven more. Appealed to humanity, Christian charity, Rousseau’s social contract that binds all men. True, I would have snarled never. But a proper valet should affirm the ideal of one, not the reality.
>
  The daisy and I ceased our fencing to consider my servant Phineas. He leaned against the carriage. Thin as the daisy’s stem, or my rapier. The trim waist and embroidered waistcoat granting a waspish look. Eyes covered with black-tinted spectacles, turning boyish face to sinister mask. Dark windows, giving amiable grin the hint of menace. He’d been in my employ a month now. Far different face and demeanor than my old pirate Stephano.

  But each day I fought urge to grab those satanic lenses, crush them beneath my heel. Why place dark glass between oneself and the world? For vain desire to appear mysterious? What other reason, unless sign of secret conspiracy?

  He straightened, same I heard the horses. My opponent at last. I wondered if Gould brought coffee. Would he share? If so, I’d spare him life and skin and honor. Yet, perhaps all his coffee forfeited to me if I killed him. The daisy stared up in reproof. Wrong to kill a man for coffee. But if the brew were thick and sugared, tinged with a touch of whiskey… I snarled. How would a stalk of greenery understand?

  Horses, but no carriage. How very casual. One plans returning from a duel with the possibility of wounds. Well, the other fellows do. I came by carriage because it was warmer. Next time I’d come with a wagon of coffee.

  Three approaching riders. I labeled their souls by their offices, identifying offices by their clothes. A watch-runner for the Magisterium, a thief-catcher for the Aldermen’s Council. A third ecclesiastic sort, young but important. Bother and behold: three symbols of Law. Officers come to argue the right of two peaceable, tax-paying gentlemen to kill one another.

  “Don’t even begin,” I declared as up they rode. “We are outside the city, we stand on private land with permit of the owner. No church within five hundred paces.” I sword-tapped the ground beside the daisy. “What gentlemen decide here is a matter of honor, not law.”

  The three exchanged glances. I marked how control passed to the cleric. Interesting. He was youngest, and not of rough sort. He goaded his horse towards me; I stopped this approach with upraised hand.

  “No closer, your supreme holiness. I would not have hooves trod this innocent.”

  Young Priest glanced down, at length located the tiny flower so far below his steed, his person, his God. “Are you serious, sir? You come to kill a man, but stay the death of a piece of grass?”

  I bowed meekly, the better to mock. Gestured for him to descend from his throne. To my surprise he did, passing reins to the watch-runner. I tapped each petal of the flower, as if knighting it. Arise, Sir Daisy.

  “Consider this tiny being. Far more ephemeral than a man. And so more to be valued than a drunken fool of a peer. Does Lord Gould grace each day with such simple holy face? With so sweet a smell, so true a mark of innocent existence?”

  The cleric stared down awhile. “No,” he admitted. “Gould does not. Did not, I should say. And yet, it is but a weed with a pretty hat. A symbol given unto us, that man’s life is brief.” He shook head, recited. “‘As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourishes. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.’”

  Ecclesiastes cited, he raised boot heel to crush. Then stopped. My rapier-point had moved from Sir Daisy to the hollow of Young Priest’s throat. “I beg you to reconsider,” I begged. “If man is but grass, should we not respect that much more each life beneath our feet? Can a good man not aspire to watch where he blasted walks?”

  I would have met the cleric’s eyes, but he bore the damned-popular tinted lenses. A servant to God but a slave to fashion. That, or part of the Grand Conspiracy. No matter, best keep eyes upon thief-catcher, watch-runner. Armed with sword and pistol, they knew the daily use of both. Had they come to threaten, arrest or kill? If this came to fight, the first would seek to front me while the second circled behind. Best I seek the trees, or the carriage…

  But the cleric smiled, for all the steel pressing throat. I grant him that. We met gazes. Rather, I stared into tinted glass; windows painted with pitch. He gazed into my kind blue eyes, seeing the soul within. Neither liked what either beheld of the other’s house. He reached up, slowly pushed my blade aside, then stepped back.

  “I am wondering if you are mad,” declared the cleric.

  I shrugged. “Does aught hang on my sanity? At least, to do with you or my business with Lord Gould?”

  Young Cleric looked to the thief-catcher, the watch-runner. Law-enforcers all, in their separate offices. For Church, for the Magisterium and the Aldermen’s Council. Some crime lurked in the wings, waiting to be revealed. Something more of note than two rich fools dueling. I shot a glance to Phineas. Pert servant, he already stood in casual position. One hand reached into the carriage for the pistol within.

  “Your business with Lord Gould is concluded,” declared Young Priest. “Excepting you remember him at what prayers a mad killer may render in his bloody closet.”

  “He’s dead,” translated the thief-catcher. The priest’s solemn mien twitched.

  “Well, I didn’t kill him,” I told the green dawn. Honesty forced me to add, “I did schedule to kill him. But that was for here. If he is dead elsewhere, the guilt lies on another man’s itinerary.”

  Young Priest shook his head. “Your quarrel marked you suspect, Master Gray. But the manner of death would seem to exempt you. Not a… spadassin style of death. Still, the Magisterium requests your presence to discuss this murder, and recent others. Alderman Green insists you shall be of help. In which circumstance, God help us all.”

  I prepared the jest ‘Let Aldermen and Magisterium follow Gould to hell, there inquire of Gould himself’. Then withheld. A man was dead. One should keep proper decorum. And besides, curiosity poked. As former soldier, present spadassin. I’ve killed with hands, blades, poison, fire, pistol and bludgeon. With rock and knife, human thigh bone and a farming scythe. What horrible death could say ‘This was no work of Rayne Gray?’

  “Was he drowned in his bath?” I asked. It was all I could think of. I would never drown a man in his bath. A sacred moment, equal to grasping the horns of the temple-altar.

  The cleric mounted his horse. He aimed dark lenses down, not at me but at the defended daisy. Then, “Servants discovered Lord Gould in his bed this morning, throat ripped open, blood so drained from the veins his sheets scarce held stains.”

  I said nothing.

  The thief-catcher grinned. “Vampire ate him,” he told the day.

  Chapter 2

  The Origins of Fog

  “You repaired your window,” I observed to Alderman Green. When last in his private chamber, I’d thrown a chair through the glass. As a diversion; I hadn’t followed the chair. Twenty-feet to rose brambles? Painful. I recalled last-night’s shattered pane in my own study. The damned cost. “Was the work paid out city taxes, or your private purse?”

  Green considered. “It came from you, as it happens. The salvage from your house went to recompense victims of your crime spree some months past.”

  “Our crime spree,” I reminded. “Begun on your instruction. And if you argue I failed the mission, I point out a crime does not cease to be criminal merely for lack of success.”

  Green sat at his desk, poking papers in pretense of weighted thought. “That is the argument of a moralist, Rayne. In fact, a successful crime is by definition a legal act. You shall never be aught but a pawn in the game, till you see otherwise.”

  Ah, the pragmatic mind. When you scruple they label you innocent. When you withhold, they declare you weak. When you fight they name you violent. Their only pointer to the wise path: the weathervane atop their house.

  “Your words do not inspire confidence in your intent,” I noted, and began walking along the walls, tapping. “If naught counts by your measure but Machiavelli grinning agreement up from Hell, I wonder if I am wise to trust your backing of my cause.”

  Green growled. I turned in surprise. He was not a man to growl. Usually he flowed words out like honey sighing in regret. Behold t
he man angered.

  “Your cause, sirrah? I wrote half the damned Charter, you posturing colonial! I worked for years to bring it solid, sensible support. When you set it all aflame, I maneuvered Black into continuing my cause! And why the hell do you tap upon my walls?”

  Tap. Tap. “While chained in my cell I meditated upon secret passages,” I explained. “One naturally does.” Tap, Tap. Solid stone. I moved towards the fireplace. “I decided you have one in your office. You denied it last I was here. That made me sure it existed.” Tap, tap.

  Green sniffed. “You arranged for me to be mistaken for you.”

  I sniffed louder. “You arranged for me to be arrested.”

  Green frowned. “I was beaten by my own guards in your escape.”

  I frowned deeper. “I thus escaped your guards beating me.”

  Green slapped his desk. “You burned down a damned warehouse. And cease your tapping, I have no-“

  I slapped the wall. The panel moved inwards with a click. I stared into a dark doorway, steps leading down.

  “…no interest in further discussion,” finished Green. “Let us have coffee.” He pulled the bell, summoned servants. I closed the panel, marking its presence. I was not to be trapped in this chamber twice. Granted, it now made two entrances to watch.

  I took a seat, eyes upon servants and coffee, hand near hilt. I sniffed a fresh-filled cup. Steam rising for prayer to heaven. A coffee-heaven. If such existed I vowed to storm the gates. Within would be angels with silver decanters, wings stirring a wind of black oily beans roasting…

  But this was earth, not heaven. As is above, is not as below. So I watched Green sip, before daring my own cup. Seemingly un-drugged. Excellent. “To business, then.”

  “Three citizens have recently been found in deceased state similar to the unlamented Lord Gould,” said Green. “Two in their beds. One in his armchair. Possibly two more in alleys. Less certain, alleys being as they are.”