The Blood Tartan: Quest of the Five Clans

by Raymond St. Elmo

  I listened to the speaker begin pacing the slates of my roof. He cleared throat. I knew without seeing that the man now put hands to the lapels of his coat. Horrors. He prepared to deliver a lecture on economics.

  "Moonlight, my dear. All the world once recognized the moon's untarnished beams for the one true and universal standard of worth. Every race of clay traded in moonlight. We measured the value of our eternal souls and daily bread upon standard weights of moonlight. For only the light of the moon is incorruptible, eternal, a thing of beauty and worth surviving empire and pocket."

  I heard him thump fist upon palm in declamatory gesture. Around me the air became thick with smoke. I began to climb. Perhaps I could slip past during the lecture.

  "Moonlight! Of source celestial, of worth undeniable. And our greed? Insatiable. We chased the Moon by night across the hills, holding up our cups and bags, nets and spoons. We panned her reflection in rivers, sifting out the argent sparkles. We blasted great holes in storm clouds to mine the silver veins of light. Kings built treasure houses to hide the precious glow. Dug fastnesses beneath mountains to keep their vaults of light. Barrels and bags and chests of lunar nuggets, humming holy silver. Why, my grandfather, your great-grandfather, kept a cave five miles beneath the earth, with ingots of purified moon-beam stacked high as houses. In those days even the lowliest pauper kept a pocket jingling with moon-glow, round coins bearing the face of Cynthia herself, pop-eyed with wonder and horror at the earth's doings."

  'Ah," said the female, disinterested. Then her tone shifted. Revealing a child’s hope and sorrow for what her heart feared lost. "When will Chatterton show, Uncle? The house beneath shall soon be ablaze."

  Good point. I could scarce breathe for the smoke now rising about. Sparks singed my bare feet. Still I loitered, searching for vines to let me remain in this half-way point twixt heaven and hell. Well, no. Between one hell and another. But I did not wish to descend into the madness below. Nor climb to the madness above.

  "Some minutes till curtain-fall," declared the man. Steps sounded above. I decided to descend. Hands reached, vetoed my decision by lifting me above the eaves. So help me, I was dangled like a child.

  "Is this him?" asked the dangler. I drew knife but did not strike. I was thirty feet above the ground. Knifing what held me up would be pyric victory. No, on consideration it would be idiot defeat. "Hmm, I see it is not. Who are you, fellow?"

  I beheld a tall man, dark-skinned, thin to gaunt. He had hollow eyes and hollow cheeks, long face, long nose. He wore a black frock-coat worthy of the deacon for a wooden country church. The tail flapped behind. He tipped head sideways, studying me out one eye. I never met a more bird-like personage in my life.

  Who was I? The Seraph? Rayne Grey? The master of this burning house? Those were labels for someone currently playing fox and hound. One fox, to a kingdom of hounds. A pseudonym, then. But this man was reading me, black eye glinting. He’d spot a false name. He was clever and mad. Best give him a mad, clever name. It came to me at once.

  "The King of the Oak." I nodded as though we met at the door to church, exchanged pleasantries about the weather.

  He put me down, eyes wide. I considered thanking him with a shove over the edge. I decided to delay. By the light of stars and sparks, I examined the roof to my house.

  I beheld a slanted slate-field of fresh death. Half a dozen bodies lay broken about us. Necks twisted, mostly. One fellow lay with chest caved in, the hammered bones poking forth. Another hung impaled upon the weather vane. The wind's arrow now pointed a fixed North. This presaged storm.

  I studied the clothes and weapons of the deceased. They were more of Black’s bandits. Posted atop my house to kill me. Weakness to feel pity. Fear and horror, God yes, but not pity. But from my pocket, William Blake sighed. Blake can be a milksop.

  Can I see another’s woe,

  And not be in sorrow too?

  Can I see another’s grief,

  And not seek for kind relief?

  Fine. They'd been penny-guards and street-fighters hoping to earn a month’s wages in a night. Rough men expecting to return home with pockets clinking, able to buy food for child or dog or favorite whore. At least a night of drink. They’d been people. Now they were not. Why should I care? I was the Seraph. I'd seen worse. I'd done worse. I turned away.

  A woman perched on the edge of the roof, staring into dark, observing the swirling dance of smoke and spark. Naked as the new needle, white legs folded cat-like beneath, white breasts pointed before. She hung her head low, hair covering face for a veil. A structured pose of casual disinterest which she spoiled by batting at sparks. They settled on her bare skin, her long hair, making her twitch. She gave the pose up for lost, and stood.

  We considered one another. Young, I decided. She stood with that awkward slouch of a girl full-formed outside, not yet within. The creatures need a few years to learn the balance of breast and buttock, back and tummy. Sixteen, I supposed. I also guessed she was insane. There were clear clues to that summation. Naked upon a burning roof, angry mouth. Indifferent to scattered corpses. The wide unblinking eyes. As well, she was splashed with blood as the vintner with fresh grape.

  She squinted at me. When she spoke, her voice came pretty. Nothing special.

  "This is he who danced with my love the night past. But not so well that Chatterton seeks him out again. Oh, Uncle, this night's watch is wasted."

  I had to consider. Night past? Were they looking for the Teary Madman? ‘Chatterton’? Well of course. He was surely their fellow. Escapees from bedlam together. Nothing to do with Black or Green. Nothing to do with Magisterium versus Aldermen. Nothing to do with me.

  The house was afire, hunters circling. Time to run. If two lunatics seeking a third sought to hinder me… well, a naked woman and old man? Even weary I could best them. Thus spoke Reason.

  Instinct asked Reason 'Are you out of your mind? Look at the fellow on the weathervane.' A fair point. The girl stood blood-drenched. The Bird-man had lifted me as I would a kitten. Dangled by neck-scruff. Instinct grabbed the reins. I continued polite conversation while edging towards the far side of the roof.

  ."By dance, you mean did we try and kill each other?"

  The mad girl laughed, twirled, breasts bobbing, bare feet tapping in delight. "My love is sudden death, a sword of ending, the bronze drum beating dirge. He is the hawk's leap, the tiger's talon, the, the -" she paused, tasting different images for deadly. "Chatterton is a thing that kills very, very fast. If you breathe now, he never sought your death."

  "Dance we did then." I noticed I still held a knife. Neither she nor the Bird-man seemed to care in the slightest. I found this disquieting. Fresh corpses of armed men scattered about, also disquieted. As did the burning house we stood upon.

  There was a whoosh of fire, and the branches of the oak burst aflame. The new light revealed four corpses dangling, bobbing. Spider-caught flies. Christmas ornaments in hell.

  I sheathed the knife. I had no fight with these insane creatures. More likely I owed them my life. So I would give them nods of thanks while making careful exit. On the far side of the roof, the corner bricks would give easy path to ground and sanity. If I could reach it before the flames brought down the roof.

  I stepped forwards and upwards. My bare feet promptly slid on blood-slicked slates. I began to glide towards the roof edge, wind-milling arms. The Bird-man politely held out a hand firm as iron, stopping my slide. I regained footing, nodded polite thanks. I tried a more careful, casual step.

  The girl turned to stare at the burning tree, to pose as careful, as casual, as my steps. She cleared throat, squeaked in little-girl voice.

  "Did he… mention me?"

  What a song of hope sounded in that squeak. Of course. Here must be the girl for whom the Teary Madman in the warehouse pined. I edged higher towards the chimney, babbling what I hoped would please.

  "Ah, he spoke no name. But I observed him as he stared into candle, wept into bottle. Sang a s
ad song. Carved your picture upon the table top."

  She whirled to face the Bird-man. Her white breasts bounced. Her white toes danced. "I told you, Uncle. I told, I told, I told you he cares, he cares."

  The Bird-man stood with hands clasped behind, indifferent to corpses, sparks and roof-slant. He gave me a slow, sideways look that advised caution. Always good advice. I continued climbing the slates towards the roof peak, entirely cautious. Through the soles of my feet I felt my house shake. Fire moved into the second floor. Below me, flames would be nestling into my soft feather bed, make themselves cozy in my quilts. Conflagration settle with a happy sigh against my pillows, consuming the decanter of precious whisky on the bedside table.

  I took another step to safety, assuring the blood-spattered mad-woman how this world was sane and kind to loving hearts.

  "That man fought thinking of something more important than death, whether his or mine. He moved as, as a bronze death-machine. I never saw the like of the fury of his love. Not in war nor storm nor tavern. Chatterton stared me down with eyes to whom a secret love has given inhuman strength." I felt moved by that last line.

  "Oh!" So help me, she clasped hands before her, struck to the core.

  I reached the chimney, grasped it as a castaway would embrace a rock in stormy seas. My chimney. Perhaps it would survive the fire. In war you see that. Chimneys standing gravestone duty for lost cottage and manor. Ah well. Better to survive your house, than have it survive you. A selfish attitude, but survival is just so. I continued across the roof, chattering idiot words in affirmation of the strength of Love.

  "As I crept upon him, he busied himself carving a girl with heart-shaped face, curls of hair that flowed, tangles of locks in waves of knots." I stopped. Something not apropos to that. Something disquieting in the sudden quiet. I turned.

  The woman's eyes showed black and empty as wounds in a corpse three days dead. Her hair ran long down either side of a face not particularly heart-shaped. Hair so fine and straight, each strand might claim its separate tooth in the comb.

  "Oh bloody hell," sighed the Bird-man.

  I turned to run. She leaped the distance between us, grabbed me by the neck.

  "Her! Her! Her!" she screamed. "Again and always her!"

  I drew knife but did not strike. I cannot say why. Clearly I have an instinct for survival. At the time, I supposed it milksop pity. Hard to explain how a blood-soaked lunatic strangling one, inspires pity. Yet she did. Perhaps because my house burned beneath my feet. Elspeth burning within it. My servant Stephano had taken my riches. Crowds that cheered me but days before, now screamed for my hanging.

  The turning world had thrown me to the ground. I deserved pity. I had every right to scream, to cry out in mad words. If I wished. I didn't, I wanted rest and revenge, firm footing on the world-wheel again. But staring into the mad broken face of the woman, I knew kinship. She and I were forlorn together. And so I declined to strike, but spoke.

  "You love him," I gasped.

  She ceased shaking me. She stared surprised, wondering who this fellow was that put his throat between her delicate hands.

  "I didn't love Elspeth," I whispered. "She loved me."

  At that she stepped back. She turned to night and fire and sky, searching for someone not present. Someone who would not be present. She put hands to face. Moaned. A low keening, lonelier than wind in tree branches at winter's twilight.

  "What am I to be, without the part of me I most need?" she asked. "Who am I, what is left, without him that should be my mirror, my pillow, the rain to the earth that is my body?"

  She waved arms in the air, displaying the naked bloody earth of her body.

  What to say? I had no wisdom for a broken heart. Not hers, not mine. There is no such wisdom. I found myself patting her on the back for what comfort it might give. Words came out my mouth, as they will.

  "Elspeth is on the couch in the library below. Burning, burned, gone," It hurt to say. Since finding her dead, I had been fighting for my life, fleeing hunters, edging past madmen, brooding on poetry and whiskey and vengeance. And yet beyond the words and the blood I was still staring in shock down at Elspeth, checking again for pulse and breath, because it was not understandable that she should at once be lying before me, and yet be gone.

  "I don't know if I loved her," I heard myself admit. "It wasn't a question the Seraph considered."

  Still patting the moaning girl's back, I turned to the Bird-man, frock-coat waving in the hell-spark wind from below. He studied us both; silent, solemn, and deeply concerned.

  "I was just happy to be with her. She, Stephano and I made a family together. A home. The first I ever had beyond the camps of war. Was that love? Or just happiness? Smoke and ash now, and gone."

  Suddenly every act of survival seemed idiot dance. I watched sparks of books and love rise up to the stars, and discounted books, love and stars together. Trash and ash. My voice came in gasps. The smoke, I suppose. Made my eyes tear as well. Of course.

  "What the hell is the point? Stars and sparks. To hell with it. What is the point?" I looked to the mad woman, naked and bloody, as if she might know.

  She stared at me, eyes wide. She had no words either. So she reached out a bloody hand and patted me, as I did her. We did so together. At length she leaned close, gave me a slight hug. I returned it. God, her skin felt cold. Yet desirable. The tips of her breasts were black buttons, hard as pebbles.

  Finally she stood straight, stepped back. She shook herself, studied her bobbing breasts, realizing her lack of decorum or dress. She covered chest with one hand, crotch with the other. A shy girl-look crossed her face.

  "Majesty-of-the-Oak, I find myself at a, a disadvantage."

  "Call me Rayne," I said. I felt an idiot wave of shyness, a boy holding a flower outside a girl’s window.

  She curtsied proper, a fascinating act to observe.

  "Rain it is, then, and wash us all away?" she said, arch, clearly flirting. But backing away. She was embarrassed, hiding the fact as she hid the triangle of her legs, the dark tips of her breasts. Backing away.

  "And you must call me Lalena," she granted me. She turned to the Bird-man. "Uncle, I must leave. He won't show this late, and dawn may not catch me so."

  The roof began to collapse. Sparks roared up. The girl continued to back away, till she stepped beyond the last slate of the roof. She stepped into airy night. Then she was gone.

  The Bird-man seized me as I tumbled. Together we charged up the slope of the roof and down the other side. Through smoke I beheld the corner of the house, made towards it, sliding fast and faster. The Bird-man grabbed me as I near-plunged from the roof. I gasped in relief. Then he tensed and leaped. I screamed. Not a sound I often make.

  I awoke to cold air and night sky. A pillar of fire-lit smoke rose in the distance, ancient sign of war and loss, the futility of all striving. Some blocks away from my house. I had not walked here, that I recalled. I lay coughing. The Bird man leaned over me. I recognized his look. A battle-field crow, debating if he beheld sleeping soldier or fresh meal. The Seraph was no one's meal. I sat up.

  "Excellent," he declared. "I confess myself concerned."

  He straightened, hands clasped behind. He began to pace. I feared a coming lecture. A monetary reexamination of star-shine. A spiritual sermon on sea waves. The medicinal power of marigold wine.

  Instead he declared, "I owe you thanks, majesty. I am told yesterday you came to the assist of some of my wandering family, of the day-side blood.”

  It had been a busy day. Did he mean the puppet-show audience? On consideration, there was an obvious family resemblance. Mad words, lunatic gazes, and a frequency of spilled blood.

  “Then tonight, you succeeded in doing what I thought impossible. You turned my niece's mind from her obsession."

  I struggled to stand. Bare feet on cold cobbles. Now they missed the warmth of a burning house. I took inventory. No major wounds. Foil gone. One knife. One book of poetry. No coin. No b
oots.

  I sighed, turning to the Bird-man, patriarch to entire tribes of lunatics. He nodded, encouraging me to find some reply. To what? Something about his niece’s new obsession.

  "Weather-cocks, king’s cocks and girl's hearts. They spin with the wind."

  "Quite right," he nodded. "And now her heart points to another."

  I pictured the blood-soaked chit, her eyes black, mouth open, spouting mad words. To what unlucky creature did she now direct her lunatic gaze? I foresaw. Best to have it said aloud.

  "To me?"

  He tilted head to side, again a crow deciding whether he beheld life or lunch.

  "To you."

  Chapter 10

  Wherein the hero declines an invitation, accepts the One True Hat and follows a piper.

  The Bird-man vanished in the night. In stories characters make these dramatic exits. I staggered off to do the same. I failed. Wherever I went, there I was. Like going mad, I cannot master the trick of simply disappearing. How pleasant it must be to exit stage, one’s scene done. To rest while others nobly declaim or furiously shout, stomping and dancing what lines life has scribbled for a part.

  Not that I stomped or danced. No, I limped and dodged round corners, seeking the darkest alleys. I could find no rest or refuge. I lurked in shadowed doorways, waiting for enemies who missed their cue. The theatre was not empty. The night-city hummed. Everywhere I heard distant shouts, feet running, horses clopping, doors slamming. Bells ringing, jingling, clanging alarm. Yet no actor came onstage to share the scene. Ignored, I wandered long empty streets seeking a doorstep to commandeer for night-defense. But no hole offered refuge from the hunt, no curtain proffered exit from the theatre.

  At some cold hour I found myself on the High Street Bridge, gazing at a great fire in the east. Surely my house? What a holocaust it made. My burning books brightened full half the sky. The blaze painted entire clouds red and orange, grand mountains of purpled silk above, the sullen red of heated iron beneath. I noted softer touches too, as if the essence of Elspeth moved the fire into a gentler, kinder light. As she had done for me.