Chapter 4
In Praise of Paper and Ink
“I dislike violence,” I explained to the gathering of workers at the Joiner’s Guild. “I prefer writing letters.” I gave the table an admonishing rap, no violent thump. “Let us wield steel facts granting no least mercy to error. True power lies in logical argument, bending an opponent’s knee to reason’s banner.”
These wise words received pitying smiles. I fought urge to rise up screaming, pound their heads against the wall. How satisfying to hear that wet ‘crunch’ of brick and bone, for introduction of fool to stone. But it would weaken my argument. I tried again.
“Good sirs, our cause is just. Do any here doubt it?” I met every eye; not a one doubted. “Then why should we abandon our greatest advantage, the moral approval of the people?” Ha, signs of consideration in face and eye. “We must not be seen as revolutionaries, but as pillars. Let the opposition be what a man fears in his bed. We gain his support in the street, in the court, in his church.”
Excellent words. I lunged for their hearts with a pointed conclusion. “Striking an ideological opponent with an axe gives him the victory.” Again the scoffs! I parried with “A posthumous victory, yes, yes, I admit. But still a victory, gentlemen.”
“Well, suppose the other fellers like violence?” asked the head of the Joiners Guild. “’Cause they do, Gray. They like blood fine, we all know it. They don’t care a fig for strong letters. Don’t never read ‘em. We gather peaceful to talk votes, an’ they send ruffians swinging clubs. When we don’t fight back, we bleed, Master Gray.”
Then bleed, I wanted to say. What worth is not measured in blood? These were rough men, leaders of rough men. Workers used to bleeding at mill and dock and tavern alley. They bled for their daily bread. Was a better world not worth as much? Still, one doesn’t win battles haranguing troops to decant their lives to flag and glory. I’ve seen officers try. It just determines every man to keep his life-blood tight-corked for private use.
“When we hold back from riot, we are seen by the people to be the law abiders,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, but bruised and bleeding law abiders,” he replied. “People think the other side has the stronger arm, and they’d best join ‘em or keep head down.” He chuckled, feeling he’d won. So did the table. So did I, to be honest. But honesty to the devil, a higher truth was at stake. If we fought in the street we’d lose in the courts. Again I considered bouncing heads against the wall.
Tedious. All our words trudged the same tired path of argument. We must match the evil of our foes, else our good cause shall fail. Look at history’s road, see the track of our own footsteps and declare amazed “By God, we wind in a circle.” And having so discovered the truth of our path we marched right on, knowing it for a circle. Because each next step was pragmatic, practical, necessary. I fingered my many-times broken nose.
“Fewer love violence than you think.” A weak reply. But I loathe violence, hate adventure. Yes, and dark alleys, tavern brawls, moonlit leaps across roofs. To hell with rapier and pistol alike. My deepest respect is given to… paper.
In the modern world it is not bricks and roads, cannon and swords that define power. No; it is paper. Books of laws, deeds of ownership, writs of forbiddance and permission. Titles of lordship, directives of the king’s sub-Ministry for Associated Trade. Memoranda from that last desk alone could sink ships and shake kingdoms, decide the fates of thousands across the sea. Ink runs thicker than blood. Paper: more powerful than an army or the pox.
For which we at this table strove for one sheet of parchment to be signed by the King, granting all men and some women a vote; eliminating the debtor’s prisons and workhouses. A paper to break chains, straighten human backs. Glorious.
But for the king to sign, the full Magisterium must approve in accord with the Aldermen’s Guild. For them to agree required each chamber to issue more paper, each committee and ministry to sign here, stamp there. In return each robed personage wished some small note writ to the profit of their purse or belly or god.
And so to move this mountain of holy writ, we printed pamphlets, speeches, letters, declarations, scoffing denunciations, solemn affirmations. While our opponents printed counter-arguments, furious and scurrilous slanders and the occasional nasty truth. Presses and ink-pots, quills and type-setters scratching and thumping through the midnight hours.
In paper is the victory. But did the words on paper matter? One could wonder. Who read the things? If all the kingdom’s law books held random scribbles, who but lawyers would know? And for certain they’d never tell. No, the power was in the paper itself, set in sacred niches upon ritual shelves. The paper was all; the words nothing. For which truth meetings like this circled in words ritualized as a convocation of clerical parrots.
I pushed chair back, stood. Strode to the window. Of late I could not rest except by a window. No telling what I hoped to see, instead of the multi-colored fog of humanity in the street below. Something was missing… I could feel it; in our words, beyond the window, within my chest.
My eye searched faces below, saw only noses and eyes, hats and human souls. Common stuff, all. Hawkers and gawkers and idle talkers. Trash-pickers, pickpockets and pamphleteers. Loungers and haranguers, loiterers and barking dogs. A preacher perched on the statue-feet of some forgotten prince, barking with less sense than the least canine.
“There is something missing from this world,” I told the window before me, the men behind me. “We all see the potential of the new century. For good or evil: what comes next shall be an age of wonders. And yet, the absence of wonder starves us now.” The room turned silent, one second from scorn. I turned to face the men.
“The magic of the future may enspell us into mechanical animals, a populace of wheels and workers, owners and owned, machine men in stone cities of smoke and fire. Or it may free us with brave new sciences, new laws, new concepts. Make each least man of the kingdom to be free as…” I sought some image of freedom. “Free as winter geese. To be where and what and who he wishes.”
I stamped a foot. The room jumped. Good. The Seraph had their attention. I turned back to the window. It was to the city outside, to the fog, that I addressed my words.
“The magic is close. The wonders are coming. Gentlemen, they are even now at the door. The people in the street hunger for that magic. They will follow whatever banner promises to lead them into the age of wonder. We of the New Charter must show ourselves the bearers of that flag. That is how we shall conquer lawyers and courts, masters and lords, liars and fools. By shewing ourselves the messengers of the future magic. To do this, we must be more than just another street crowd screaming slogans.”
I turned back to the men. Time to say all I truly had to say, all any of us had to say. The rest was fog seeping out our mouths.
“To capture the magic requires only that we step outside the pattern of our usual words, our usual trade of blows and spit. To meet lies with facts, hate with charity, distraction with clarity, anger with restraint. To convince even our foes, that we are the chosen messengers of wonder.”
The men at the table stared. Some sneering, others thoughtful. I had not won them to any decision, but for that moment they listened. Phineas seized the chance to clear throat.
“Gentlemen, that concludes today’s conference. I shall record the minutes…” Ignoring his hypnotic drone, I returned to window-gazing. The street crowd below held no one of interest. They bored me. They bored God. Surely they bored themselves. The beggars were dull, the passersby grey, the lounging riffraff leaned bereft of lazy charm. If any possessed magic, they kept it hid. If they thirsted for miracles, they settled for drinking brown fog flavored with smoke, with a chaser of dust and horse-shit. Every tenth breath spitting it to the cobbles with a wet ‘splat’.
I studied the street preacher. He looked entirely un-wondrous. No threat less he decided to embrace his fellow man. Sometimes they do, and pox and fleas leap upon your clothes like flames. I pondered
the woman selling loaves. She looked anxious. I measured more faces. Worry weighed upon all, even the dogs. As the prophet William Blake says:
“I wander thro' each charter'd street,
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow.
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.”
“How goes the rebuilding?” inquired a voice. I turned to Banker Furst. I’d lured him here to discuss keeping the Joiner’s Guild coin in his vaults. I wished such banker-bandits to consider that workers given more rights, had more money to bank.
What had he asked? Something about rebuilding. What, my life? No, he meant my house. It went damned costly. Not even counting window’s shattered by warning bricks. But I’d become vastly rich. The French lunatic Pierrot pretending to be me had deposited the funds of a small revolution in my account. C’est la vie.
“I am obligated to hire the same guilds I seek for support,” I complained, first ensuring no guild man stood by. “For which they feel entitled to dawdle arguing if Irishmen should be tolerated to both vote and breathe, and if plumbers and joiners should unite against the sewage workers or should clans of joiners and sewer workers fall suddenly upon the race of plumbers? My house is constructed by warring factions that must inevitably put door upon roof, fill windows with bricks and use sand for firm foundation.”
“The usual sort of kingdom, then,” decided Furst. I smiled, he smiled. Excellent. I’d bring him round to the revolution with polite conversation. I searched for winning words.
“And how goes your own house? Wife and children well?” From under a chair, Dealer gave a heavy sigh.
Furst frowned, shook head. “Behold the price of laboring for the masses,” he declared. “One no longer sees the individual. But Christiana died two years back, Rayne. You sent flowers, a kind note. More like, your Elspeth did.”
I closed my eyes. Of course. He’d worn a black mourning ribbon. The tiny plague flag that warns: sorrow infects this house.
“How has it been since?” I asked, eyes still closed. Why did I ask? How could I ask? The worst thing in the world to ask. No answer came. I opened eyes, expecting to see the man angered, else walking away.
But no; Furst stared out the window, same as I had done. He spoke slow, tasting the words for what pain or truth they contained.
“I do well, at times. Other times not. Sometimes one can’t breathe. One seeks distraction, sits staring at walls and clocks. Daily things are a relief. Strange, but it is just as you said to the guild. As if you were describing real loss, not the idiot lack of progressive labor laws. But one wakes feeling something is missing, and that loss touches all the world. The house is dull for the silence of a voice. The sunrise is dim for the absence of a face.”
We stood quiet, not in common sympathy but shared interest in the window’s fog. At length Furst cleared throat, returning voice to energetic drawl. “Are you going to the reading of Dealer’s will?”
Before I could answer, Phineas did for me. When had Mephisto appeared?
“Master Gray is scheduled to attend at two.” Which was to say, he the servant intended me his master to attend.
“Well, that’s going to be awkward,” chuckled Dealer’s head.
I considered declining, just to spite ghost and servant. I had no wish to hear Dealer’s last will and testament, being the instrument of his death. Well, a scythe was the instrument. Mine the hand wielding blade. Before he could shoot me, I point out. Did Green truly know the flaw in my soul that turned friends to foes? And did I dare to hear? If faces beyond the window lacked worth or wonder, judgement must be the same gazing into the mirror.
“I will attend,” I decided with a sigh. Let us see what Dealer had to say before death, instead of beyond the grave. Perhaps then I would cease to have his head rolling behind me, chattering of art.
“What an honor,” snorted Dealer.
“I delight to share my coach,” offered Furst. Ah, he’d taken the bait then. The man lusted to bed the guild’s dues and pension funds. Excellent. Now let him simmer, dreaming of dragon-gold. Soon enough he’d sit with the Chartists, reckoning up the profits of freedom.
“No, I need fresh air,” I declared. “Fresh fog, anyway. I shall walk.”
Humble servant Phineas cleared throat, loaded disapproval, fired. “The weather is unsuitable for a gentleman to stride.” I thumped a pat upon his young head, gazed into those tinted-glass eyes.
“Then I shall stride as spadassin,” I promised, and so strode.
* * *
Fog plays tricks. It muffles nearby sound, brings far-away din close about. From where came that hammer strike, that cry, that dog barking? Miles away or just behind, no knowing. Perhaps up from the earth. I walked one hand on rapier hilt, one hand on the walls of buildings, railings, posts. Fingers tracing dark trails in the mist-slime drenching brick and board. Ahead and behind, dark forms traveled the same, leaving their own hand-trails. The solemn procession should have brought us to common laughter, seeing ourselves in this blind-beggar march, this morality-play metaphor. It did not; merely made us curse and cough, shake wet fingers.
A throat cleared itself from behind, though I’d caught no steps. I sighed, knowing who followed. The decapitated head of the man whose last testament I walked to hear.
“As I was saying,” observed Dealer. “When we consider Art as Mankind’s progress in perception of reality, the grand path first turned towards corruption with the work of that renaissance reprobate Raphael.”
I did not turn my head to address his head. In company of others I would have ignored it. None but I saw the head, heard the voice. No more than another might see Macbeth’s dagger of the mind. Dealer was mere figment of my overheated brain. Audience would only mark that I stared and muttered at the ground. But in this fog-ocean restraint mattered nothing. Who would know I argued art with a ghost?
“Raphael was a genius,” I replied. “And Art is not an egg to go bad. Art is a mirror. If you gaze within and behold corruption, the fault lies not in the glass.”
Dealer harrumphed. “It will astound the Seraph to learn the world has wider purpose than reflecting a face,” replied the head. Touché, that comment. I glanced back, spied only the shadow of what trundled after. I considered running, losing it in turns and leaps. But no. To flee blindly from mad visions would lead to colliding with something worse. The river, or a worse vision. Perhaps a farmer with a pitchfork. No, I would walk careful of what waited before me.
Of course I collided into someone. Reached to draw knife, refrained.
“Guide, sir?” asked a voice. Not from out the fog, but within. Holding lamp to give a ghostly glow. “Penny gets you where so ever you wish.” A boy’s voice.
I doubted the child knew the way better than I, for all his lamp. These streets and alleys had been my battle-field and workbench for years. And yet… I recalled being a boy, before beard and baritone. A state close to the ground, beholding naked reality. And sound, smell, taste and feel as well. Ears and nose twitching like a forest creature. Senses guiding, not dull adult assumption. A glory of senses afire... No doubt this child could lead where I’d stumble. Granted, he might lead to an alley where his brothers waited to cut my purse through the strings of my throat.
“Fair enough. Penny then, to reach the Art Shoppe bridge side. Alive,” I added as afterthought.
I waited for a palm to demand payment first. But no, the hand reached to fasten upon my cloak. A tug, and off we went. Crossing streets where carts insisted on racing despite the stumbling foot-traffic. I caught the thump, thump of the rolling head behind.
My guide wore muffling coat, slouch hat. The hand on my coat would leave a smutty print, even if it didn’t remove purse, handkerchief, knife. At his probable age I’d worked in a tavern by the docks. Dangerous place, but I rose each day grinning. A cavern of fire and lamp and bottle, fascinating strangers, idle friends, dangerous enemies, shouts, songs and strange curses. Frequent fights, seldom to gr
eat harm. Female creatures of every age and blush and type. I shall tell of them, when the words of Politics and Paper begin to drone.
“What’s your name, boy?” I asked.
“Penny, sir,” replied the figure.
“What, for your name?”
Dealer’s head sighed. No idea why.
“Penny’s what I’m given for my name, sir.”
“Well, I decline.” I walked wealthy nowadays. But start tossing farthings to fog just to hear a name, soon enough its gold sovereigns to the river just to hear the splash. I’d find myself owning a stable of horses and five different pairs of boots.
“I shall call you…” I considered. “Penapsu.”
“What sort of a name is that?”
“My mother used to call me it. From her father’s people. Wild folk of the colonial forests. Means ‘boy’.”
“Well it’s to be a confusing sort of name. They’ll shorten it to ‘Penn’, and then I’m down to half-Penny.” He laughed, Dealer laughed. No idea why.
“How old are you, Penn?” I asked.
“Ten years, God keep me.”
“Do you believe in vampires?” I asked.
My guide stumbled at the question.
“Sir?” he asked. “Cheese’n Christ! What a thing to ask a body!”
“My apologies, Penn.”
We went on. What had I believed at ten? Anything I wanted. Any tale to make the day more fun, the night more alarming. In giant pigs rooting beneath the streets. In the corpse-eaters who pulled black carts by night, hunting children out past curfew. The Alley Spiders, beautiful girls with breasts so long they flipped them over their shoulders. They’d shriek when you tossed iron or salt upon them. I wouldn’t have, I’d want to fight them, kiss them, befriend them. I held no opinion of vampires. Nor in Father Christmas. Cinderklaas, my father called him. Silly nonsense, I’d said so to his face. He’d admitted as much.
Bells clanged and banged, tolled and rolled down upon us. The Cathedral close by. The great bell, the lesser bells. Stephano told me their names, the night he’d died. ‘Old Tom. And his sisters. They have names, those other bells. Named after angels. Luciel, Kariel, Oriel’.
The Harlequin Tartan: Quest of the Five Clans Page 3