“Seen ‘em, I have,” remarked my guide, recovered.
Did he mean the bells? The angels? But no, he would mean vampires. Well of course he’d seen them. What point in being a night-creeping shadow unless one dances on the rooftops before the populace?
“Where and when?” I asked.
“Oh, not takin’ you there sir, no, not for pockets of silver,” vowed the boy. “But it were the old cemetery downriver. Widegate. At night they flitter about thick as flies on a dog fresh dead. Buzz and dance among the stones. Eyes wild, mouths all bloody red.”
I smiled. “How do you mark the red by night?”
The boy considered. “Why, they carry torches and lamps,” he decided.
“Ah,” I answered. How easy to picture boys peering through rusted fencing, eyes wide in horror and delight. Into a graveyard ball where fantastical creatures dancing among the tombs, lanterns casting a festive glow. Strange clothes, stranger faces; voices lifted in incomprehensible song. Broken stones in background, sign of lost love and glory. Eldritch, aristocratic figures standing solemn for some ceremony…
“I do,” I told the fog.
“Do what?” asked Penn.
I couldn’t recall. I would have replied some nonsense but out the fog stomped a tall figure. The boy pulled to guide around, but the person reached, grabbed his lamp. The boy shouted, the figure laughed, shoved him flying.
Though the boy disappeared, the boy’s hand remained holding onto my coat. I screamed, batting at it like a girl finding a spider climbing her sleeve. The lamp thief laughed the louder. I took offense, kicked his feet out from under him.
The man dropped the lamp, rolling fast. Drew rapier, lunged quick as blink. I was already drawn, parried. A second rapier near skewered me. Well, he had two, and quite long arms. He windmilled both blades, stepping forwards with the sensible plan of mincing all the fog before him.
Well, sensible against any who confused waving blades with sword craft. I retreated, pulled cloak, threw it upon his windmill, circled around. He cursed, I lunged, he cried out. His turn to retreat. His moves came familiar as a voice. I’d fought this man before. Another parry and lunge, he retreated further. I fretted that we fast moved from my cloak. It would be stepped on. Claimed by the next passerby. Dammit, it had a silk collar and fur lining. And a boy’s severed hand for ornament.
I parried, stamped foot, considered the hand. Had it been cut off? I’d seen no strike, heard no scream. Spied no blood. Perhaps it was like Dealer’s head. Perhaps all reality was falling into parts. Which is to say, perhaps I was going mad. Perhaps I fenced fog.
Fury made me lunge again, seeking a reality that bled. My foe retreated, some fool passed between. I held back, not wishing an innocent’s death. A cart rushed beside me, near causing my un-innocent death.
Foe and I lost each other in brown mist. Different figures passed, not knowing how close they came to being spitted. I whirled about, spied the dim glow of the lamp upon the ground. I stepped from cobbles to the walk, put my back to a mist-dripping wall of brick. I fought a market duelist. I knew his type. He’d seek to bully me into declaring myself, then circle around. I ceased all motion, listened. Heard cart wheels, whistles, chickens, bells, horse clops, a dog bark.
“Good move, squire,” shouted a voice. “Apologize and I’ll call us square.”
I said nothing.
“Oh, please,” yawned Dealer from the fog. “This fool’s beneath you.”
I said nothing.
“After all, I get your cloak,” added the duelist. “Fits royal fine.”
I said nothing.
“Your fine new cloak!” bewailed Dealer’s head. “What a pity.”
I said nothing.
From out brown fog came a figure turning and whirling to spy all directions. Idiot, he’d make himself sick. He spun my way, blades waving. I did not wait till he came in reach. I threw a knife. No lucky killing strike, but drew blood. He cried out, tumbled, fell on his ass.
He struggled to rise. Alas, his head still spun. I leaped forward, kicked him down again. Then kicked him more to keep him down. He lay upon street cobbles. I considered simply keeping him there till a cart ran him over. Would that count as murder? I looked about for the boy. Gone. Wise child, to run when fools wave blades in fog.
I put point to the face of the fool at my feet. An angry, frightened face. The kind that is angry because it is frightened. Scarred and proud; a street ruffian of the cursed tribe that wanders crowds looking for easy insult. The rapier point moved to gravely consider his throat. He gaped in horror, watching its decision. As if a sword ever sided with mercy. Death, it decided.
I overruled the jury, settled for more kicks, left the fool groaning.
“Boy!” I shouted. No answer. I returned to the lamp. Broken, the wick still bravely bleeding light to the fog. Beside the dying light lay my cloak, neatly folded. And still clinging to the cloth: a pale, severed hand.
Chapter 5
What the Fire, what the Hand
My father longed to be ‘Sir James’. Noble title was all he needed to complete happiness. He already possessed a beautiful wife, a large farm in the New Jersey countryside. And a handsome and gifted son, myself. The innocent vanity of hearing ‘Sir’ instead of ‘Mister Mershon’ led him to favor a faraway King over colonial neighbors. Came war, came revolution, came fire to his door.
I was sent to Londonish Town, later off to war, where I became Gray. ‘Mershon’ had no meaning to me. A label for dead parents, dreary aunts. ‘A man may chose his own name, if he be his own master’. I recall tavern duty with Green and Black, expounding to a mob of wine bottles camped upon the table. The mob cheered me on, as bottles will do.
King’s politics led my father to champion statues, icons and embroidered pictures of various Georges. He took me on a rescue mission to retrieve a George no longer welcome in the tavern in Maidenhead. Once the proud ruler of the hearth-corner, now George leaned in exile against the stable wall for dogs and drunks to piss upon.
He looked rough stone, poorly carved. The rock-hewn idea of a king, one hand resting on sword pommel, the other raised in greeting. An ambiguous attitude, possibly accounting for the revolution. My father, his groom and the tavern keeper hefted it towards the cart, while townsfolk watched, jeering mildly. Then grasp of groom and tavern-keeper slipped. Poor George plunged to earth, shattering. My father cursed, the crowd cheered. George’s head stared up, stone-faced. Groom and tavern-keeper kept faces just as blank. They’d dropped the king on purpose. A five-year old could see that.
I rode home with the parts, fitting the puzzle pieces this way and that as the cart rumbled. Forehead and eye here, add on a nose; elbows that looked wrong no matter how I set them. A foot which did not belong at all. My father followed on his horse, brooding, watching his child play among the fragments of his king. What can he have thought, except how things fall apart?
* * *
I stood in the brown fog ignoring groans and curses from the defeated street ruffian. He’d best cease that and get on, else be drawn and quartered by the next dray. I didn’t worry upon it. I studied the severed hand clinging to my cloak. A right hand. No blood. The fingers still grasped tight to the cloth. Long, delicate fingers, tipped with pearl-like nails. I reached my own scarred hand out, touched. This was not flesh. Wood and leather, crafted wondrously real. Tiny hinges and springs to articulate each bend of finger.
I donned the cloak. Watched the duelist crawling into the fog. A cart came rumbling, he screamed, scrabbling out its way like a dog. Ha. The hand dangled like a watch-fob. I pulled it away, placed it in cloak pocket. Where was its owner? The rest of the boy, so to speak?
“Penn!” I shouted. “I have your… hand?” God, what a thing to shout. Sounds of bells, carts, dogs, grocers, geese, clatter of wheels and pots and doors. No answer to my call.
I abandoned the murdered lamp, continued on. Did the hand wiggle in my pocket? Suppose it began to crawl up my chest like a spider, seekin
g my throat? I considered throwing it to the ground. Absurd. I’ve known plenty with hooks and pegs, glass eyes and such. Not just sailors and soldiers. Workers in the guilds. Factory wheels eat a careless hand or foot fast as cannon-fire. We should add something to the New Charter about children working... Ah, best not. If we wrote a line to forbid every evil, it’d require a sea of ink, and our hopes would sink beneath.
The duelist would be standing now, daring himself to follow, tiptoe behind till chance came to cut my throat. An excellent day for such. Most likely he’d settle for limping home, beating dog or wife. I wondered where I’d crossed him before. In these same streets no doubt, in some quarrel forgot by dinner-time.
I came safe to where air tasted fresher, light mocked less. Wind keeping mist to a respectable backdrop. Convent Garden, full of folk defying fug and fog. All was a hustling crowd of acts and song, booths of sausage and bread, tents of wonder and fraud. Two bare-chested jugglers tossed flaming sticks between them, pattering and chattering nonsense to make onlookers laugh till a farthing shook loose. Were I a frighted child I’d flee hereabouts. I gazed about for the boy.
Behold the world attempting wonder. Juggling flames or pattering jokes, swallowing swords and dancing on stilts, balancing on balls, on horses, on the backs of one another. Eating fire, breathing flame, walking on coals. Hawking jewels, talismans, charms of tin and glass and feather. Half the crowd in an amaze of dress and undress, costume and tattoo. Dancers to drums and lute, Spanish guitar, bell and tambourine, oboe and flute. Rope walkers rushing back and forth like birds on a clothes line; actors in ragged glory and grotesque masks performing bits of chattering play. And always the bowl and hat passed about, to finance these marvels.
A woman stood atop a barrel, snake wrapped about neck for a serpentine stole. Pretty enough, if wild of hair and dress. We eyed each other, measuring who might take who for fool or bedmate. Or fellow traveler on life’s hard road, why not. On occasion a man and woman do so gaze, measuring the other not for profit to pocket and groin, but as equal souls beneath the sun. Common pilgrims on life’s hard road. Would I could ever meet such. We’d walk through every last fair in the world, holding hands fast, never letting go, never, never…
“You well, luv?” asked an old woman. Dressed in scarfs of bright colors that defied the day’s drear. She peered up into my face, shook head at what she saw. “Summat’s got their snakes in your head, boy. Best shake ‘em out.”
I blinked in suspicion. “You think it the people in tinted lenses?”
She considered. Reached to pocket, brought forth dark spectacles. Donned them, turning her kindly face at once sinister as death’s mirror. The warm smile transformed to knowing and mysterious. “That’s just fashion, luv.” Turned and walked away. I shook my head to clear it of fog, not snakes. Could mist get inside a man’s mind? Why not, if rain can fill a boot.
Upon her barrel, the wild haired woman made the snake writhe in furious race up her bosom, round her neck, down around her hips. Grinned at me to say that’s half the show. I nodded, tossed a shilling to a bowl.
She whistled, and a girl trundled forth a basket big as herself. Gawkers stopped to enjoy, not contributing a half farthing, of course. The girl wore hair white as paper, for all the fair pink skin of childhood. She sighed, handed her jacket to the woman, her shoes. Looked to me to say ‘your coin, cobber’, then climbed into the basket. The woman clapped hands, circling about the basket, passing the snake above her head, between her legs. The crowd cheered, whistled, made the expected jests. Was it living creature, or some rope-like puppet?
Dance ceased, she gestured for me to lift the basket cover. I sighed, reached down, lifted. Up from the basket rose a snake, green-scaled, shiny as beetle shells. The watchers jumped back, swearing, laughing. It swayed gently as a young elm in a soft wind. Tongue shot out, retreated, tasting air. For a second I met its yellow eyes. Amber beads, wise and cold. I felt urge to reach out, stroke its form. It seemed a thing stripped of all that was not grace itself. A pure line of life, of awareness. A wonder.
The woman lowered the basket lid, snake disappearing beneath. I waited for her to lift it again, resolve the magic, return the girl. But no, she jumped back atop the barrel, winding her own snake about her woman’s body in spiral, not circle. Gawkers wandered away. I nodded; the woman nodded. I gestured to the basket, eyebrows raised in query: where was the girl? She smiled, pointed snake to coin bowl. I sighed, not much inclined. I’d lift the basket and the girl’d leap out with a hiss, hoping to surprise. How else? Unless the boy with the missing hand leaped out. That’d be a wonder. I laughed, all but turning away.
But it bothered me to leave girl or boy in the basket. As if my disinterest would trap them twixt dream and reality. Your wife she’s a drinker of blood but good-hearted you love deep. Something was missing. Where was the girl? The boy? I tossed another shilling to the bowl. The woman nodded permission. I reached, lifted the basket lid.
The basket was empty. Void of snake or child. Of course. I achieved a face of mild astonishment. The woman smiled. Ours eyes met; hers were amber beads matching the snake’s. I replaced the basket lid, looked about for how the trick was done. A secret exit. A trap door. The snake-woman gestured to the coin bowl again. I growled. Bah. For another shilling she’d produce the snake. No, a rhinoceros like enough. Then a tiger, then a wolf, all the creatures that crawled the earth.
Enough. I replaced the basket lid, refusing the mystery. Snake woman sighed for my shuttered heart, shuttered pockets. I turned, wandered on.
A short figure in long coat ran past, dodging jugglers with flaming torches, upsetting their timing, turning art to comic pratfall. They cursed, struck at him. He dodged flames and fists, darted between and away. Was he missing a hand? That or the sleeve hung overlong.
“Boy!” I shouted. I felt an urge to take out the hand, wave it. Bizarre thing to do. People would take us for an act. Perhaps we were. I hurried after, circling angry jugglers. They glared to say their burns and bruises were my fault. Unjust creatures, your jongleurs.
A barker stood before a tent, describing sights within. “Professor Zeit-Teufel’s Hall of Wonders”. He held a crosspiece of dangling strings, in which a doll figure writhed, fly in web. I peered down. A small wooden man. Rough carved but for the face, which showed hinged jaw, painted eyes, long wood-pin nose.
The mad thought came that I looked not for a real child, but a similar creature entirely of artificial parts. I stared at the manikin, debating to ask it whether a child had just passed, or a fellow puppet running free.
“Watcha lookin’ at, yah gob-smacked moon-faced shite?” it asked. His jaws clapped with the words. The voice a faint, breathless whisper seeming from nowhere. From the barker, of course.
“You seem tangled,” I observed.
He thrashed in the strings, then slumped defeated. “It’s the idiot taking the coin,” he sighed. “Fool just shakes the frame till the strings knot. Amateur.”
“Your strings, your act,” said the bored voice of the barker. He returned to shouting at the passerby. “Come, see Professor Teufel-Zeit’s half-alive Puppets!”
“Half?” hissed the manikin. “You can’t even keep to the spiel. No wonder the acts’ half dead.”
“Long as I get dinner,” yawned the barker.
“Did a child run past? Hat, long coat?” I asked the wooden manikin. And yes, I felt the absurdity of asking. But if I’d addressed the barker, he’d have shrugged, shouted of Teufel-Zeit’s Wonders till I’d bought a dozen tickets. He had a script and a yawn for his fellow men; and no more. But let a man speak through another form, even a puppet, and he shall become another. Sure as donning a mask. And a trapped puppet speaks for all trapped beings. A creature needing aid, and so understanding another’s need.
In reply the puppet whispered, “Well, now, cobber, got a knife?” He gestured at his strings. “Gordian knot time.”
I looked about. The barker merely shrugged. “Amazing!” he shouted. “S
o dull they must be real! Come one, come all, see Teufel-Zeit’s Wonder Hall.” I shrugged, drew knife. The doll jumped in his tangles.
“Easy there, squire! And no, I’m not a’gonna ask why you can pull knife quicker than the vicar’s first lie on his wife. Hold it out straight. Just what she said to the vicar.”
I held the blade out. The puppet thrashed left arm, ripping strings along the edge. They fell loose. Did the same with those upon his head, his left foot, right foot. At last it moved the right hand, slashing the strings with a cry. And the puppet collapsed unstrung. Well, of course. I’d just aided its suicide. Or a puppet act. I looked about. Those watching didn’t know what to make of it either.
But “Thanks, cobber,” the voice whispered.
“Zeit-Teufel’s living Puppets,” shouted the barker. He glanced down at the lifeless doll, sighed. I hid away the knife, feeling a bloody killer. Well, I am a bloody killer. I straightened. A final whisper came from the unstringed puppet. Words so faint they might have been wind in a sea shell. “Boy. Ran. Inside.”
“Zeit-Teufel’s Amazing puppets!” shouted the barker. “They sneeze, they pray, they dance the night away.” He raised arms high, and declaimed.
“Folk of magic clay, clan of the unborn day,
Living to wander, laughing in wonder,
What the fire, what the hand,
People of a clockwork land.”
Poor doggerel, that. And yet it reminded of real poetry; not the thing itself but the idea of the thing. It teased a vision of a people holding fire and time and mystery. Or so whispered the fog in my head. I shook it, wanting cold wind to blow my mind clear.
I stared at the entrance to the alleged Hall of Wonders. A building, no mere tent. I felt no belief it housed more than sham, dust and fast patter. A penny worth of stage craft, shilling bought. I shoved hands into pockets to say ‘no thanks’. Pulled them out again, startled. A hand already waited snug in one pocket.
The Harlequin Tartan: Quest of the Five Clans Page 4