The Blood Tartan: Quest of the Five Clans

by Raymond St. Elmo

  Below the bridge, rushing water caught every tone of red, becoming a river of blood to suit the visions of Dante, the thirst of Moloch. And yet, it swirled at peace with its bloody essence. It burbled happily. A quiet morning for hell. I shivered cold, stared down, watching the river run to the sea.

  And yes, I knew it was dawn reddening the eastern sky. But I was feeling sad, mad and poetical. It pleased me to mistake sunrise for my burning house. Is not the world my house? Nor am I ever out of it. So take bloody dawn as model for the reality of the conflagration, Take it so for all my fellow tenants. Our house is burning down.

  A watchman trotted past, scowling at my bare feet, my rags, my blood, my soot, my existence. He continued ten paces, then halted. He turned, considered, ran back.

  "Aren't about to be tossing ourselves off the bridge, are we?" he demanded.

  "Never occurred," I said. I searched for any cause for such an act. "I might as tactic. I've survived close fights by swimming. Astonishing that soldiers seldom learn. Sailors, even. I recall hand-to-hand once, on a bridge in France. Hopelessly outnumbered. I jumped. Five leaped after me, drowned to a man. I swam to shore and just laughed."

  "Right," said the guard. "So no jumping then, till we have a nice row with France." He turned and hurried off. He disappeared like a master. He had the trick. Exit nameless guard, stage left.

  Granted the words echoed, once declaimed. 'To be, or not to be.' Not that I could ever deliberately end my life. I am too aware of who I am for vanishing, for madness, for suicide. They are the same. Dramatic exits. I have spent a life-time mastering the arts of keeping myself present, sane and alive.

  And yet the question echoes; for me, for the mad, the sane, joyful or despairing. All at once, like enough. 'To be, or not?

  Bah. I chose to be. I only considered otherwise to be polite. The river invited so kindly, the water burbled so soft and welcoming. It offered to cool my burns, soothe all wounds, then last and best bring peace to smoke-scorched lungs. It promised to carry me far from fire and strife, swirling, circling, gently bearing me to a sea of final sleep. I pretended to weigh the offer. I turned to the sunrise, so like a burning home, a funeral pyre of books and love and life. I could think of nothing to do but laugh. To be, I told the river. It was a beautiful dawn.

  Back to work, then. The Seraph performs his wonders, though cold and hungry, wounded and hunted. Tighten belt, examine assets, find a wall for the back and consider the next step. That step showed clear: kill Alderman Black.

  He'd affronted me. No reconciliation possible. No hesitation or roundabout legal nonsense about tax embezzling. The Seraph would come for him. He understood this. He’d be surrounding himself now with guards, testing meals on the dog, hurrying past windows, checking under beds. Delightful. How amusing to let him simmer so for a month, pickling in the acid piss of his fear.

  Perhaps I should leave funeral lilies upon his pillow. Sly notes in his shoes. Put pepper in his coffee. Over-spiced coffee… I considered how that would taste. Not threatening enough. No, best done quickly. Today. Get in, cut throat, wave him off to hell.

  His death would take the hunters from my trail. Black gone, the Aldermen would be leaderless. What friends I kept in the Magisterium would insert Act of Pardon for the Seraph into the minutes of the next meeting. I would draw funds from my Paris account, find a nice hotel, begin rebuilding my house.

  I searched my person. My book of Blake, and a mere knife. Foil lost in roof-top lunacy. The poetry-book was not really an assassin's tool. The knife would suffice. Black would be cowering in his guarded study upon the third floor, watching access to his house, shouting at servants through the keyhole.

  I turned from the river, deciding my route. Across the city, over the walls of Black's estate, down into his cellar, then it'd be up the shaft of the dumb-waiter to arrive at the shadows back of his chair. I have dined in Black’s house as he in my garden. And an assassin considers these things, even as guest.

  Wheels rattled. An old man and a boy pushing trash on a hand cart, struggling to reach the crest of the bridge. The boy wore an oversized hat covering most of his head. The old man seemed sailorish. Riverside trash combers. Mud-larkers.

  The old man gave me an old-man look, weighted with centuries of suspicion and insight. He searched a pocket, showed the result to the boy. They exchanged words. The boy began a slow edging towards me, as one would a lightly chained bear. That animal mind I am told I exhibit. Would I were a more stylish beast. We can't all be lions. To be a bear was mine to bear. I leaned upon the railing of the bridge and observed the approach, the old man muttering encouragement.

  At last the boy came within reach. I withheld from raising arms with a snarl, fangs gaping, eyes wild. So very tempting. Sheltering beneath his giant hat, he proffered a coin.

  A shilling. I felt outraged and touched. Mud-larkers pitied me? But those who comb the river-banks find strange treasures, follow strange traditions. Imagine spending your existence walking the river, searching through trash, raking through shit-rich mud, knowing that under the next bloated dog-corpse could rest a bag of Spanish doubloons. The longer you searched without finding, the more certain you were that today you must seek and find. Madness.

  I took the coin, considered it. Certainly not a doubloon. It showed a scratch across George’s chinless profile. Same as handed me yesterday. I dismissed the coincidence, debated whether to toss this charity into the river for a wish. But I was starved. My wish would be for breakfast. Made more sense to buy the meal, skip the bureaucracy of fate and magic.

  The boy retreated from the philosophical bear. He and the old sailor continued pushing their trash-cart up the crown of the bridge. I stared after them. In the cart rested bits and pieces of wood, cloth, brick, broken glass. A large square of black-charred wood, stub of a table-leg hanging from a corner.

  Couldn't be my burned table-top. I'd left that with Dealer. And the girl as well. And yet…I recalled a similar ancient mariner at yesterday's mad puppet-show. The boy beneath the hat might have been the rag-and-tangle brother to the girl Flower. The child who declaimed of lost glories. If so, his name would be something absurd. Twig. Pebble. Wisp.

  I wondered if Flower had returned to her street-corner, sweeping moon-dust from the paths of passersby. I owed her a shilling. Probably Dealer would give her breakfast. He was a good sort. At least, he wasn't a bad sort. Art came first, but Humanity was still a sub-category of Art.

  The boy's over-large hat. Did it hide pointed ears? Absurd. That had been confusion of yesterday's fire and thunder, smoke and dagger. Today I stood in cool morning-light. Clarity flowing through me as a river of sanity. I felt renewed, fresh-waken from fever. Let us put aside the mystery of the puppet-show, unnatural ears.

  In a glow of good sense, I began my bare-foot trek across the city to kill the chief merchant of the city. Perhaps I would catch him in his bathtub. The thought made me chuckle.

  I crested the hill. Below and ahead rumbled the trash-cart. Now the two struggled to keep it from rolling madly downwards. The boy's over-wide hat blew off. He wiped sweat from his forehead, pushed back tangles of wild-bramble hair.

  Too far to measure the angle of his ear. Say, was it not pointed as a cat or fox? I felt almost sure. But they rushed onwards towards High-Street. I came more sedately to the end of the bridge. There lay the hat. I picked it up. In my map to murder Black, I needed to turn here, continue along the north side of the river. I considered the hat. A turkey feather. Same as I'd taken from the associate in an alley yesterday. Traded for a dock-worker's cap.

  I popped it on my head. Perfect fit. A mad idea popped in my head. Suppose the shilling just given me, was the same that the Eldest Gray Grace had given. I'd passed it to the false prophet, who lost it back… then it had gone to Flower. She'd handed it to the boy at the puppet-theatre. If that was the same boy, perhaps it was in my pocket again.

  Perhaps there was only one shilling in the world. Passed back and forth as The One True Coin
. Perhaps there was only one feathered hat. One burned table-top. Or perhaps there was a cabal of folk with pointed ears following me about the city, teasing me with mad trash.

  An easy way to be sure. I found myself following after the trash cart, annoyed but amused. Very well. Get close enough to verify the angle of an ear. If it was pointed, the world was mad. If not, I was mad. That profound mystery satisfied, I could continue the sensible work of a Seraph: homicide.

  Simpler if all the recent lunatics had pointed ears. The mad girl on the rooftop, Lelala? Lalena? Normal ears, round like sea-shells. As had been the Bird-man's. Well, his had stuck out, as they do for the very young, the very old. What about the Teary Madman? I hadn't noticed. Probably not remarkable then. The middle-woman of the Gray Graces, her ear had spiked. The other two Graces had covered theirs. Suspicious. Not that most women didn't wear bonnets and long hair. Perhaps most women had pointed ears. Explained much.

  A thought occurred. I reached and touched my own ear. Round, not a bit animal or unusual. Handsome, I maintain. Stephano is always encouraging me to try a pirate's earing. Mocking me, of course. Entirely not apropos to a gentleman's attire.

  My non-pointed ears pricked up. Music approaching. Bagpipes. A procession marched down High-Street. I held back, unwilling to cross before so many onlookers. The trash-cart hurried on and away. I lurked, leaning against a wall, hat pulled low across my face.

  A wild procession, growing as it came. Carts had no choice but to move aside, retreating to river streets or western alleys. At the front marched a piper. I am fond of bagpipes. Wild music. Matters nothing if they play solemn Christian hymn. That keening is the voice of every pagan god still lurking in the hills of the human cerebrum.

  The marchers shouted and shoved. City Guards paced along, keeping out of reach. This could turn to riot quick as a library turn to flame. The shouts grew clearer. Startled, and then delighted, I heard my name.

  "Long live the Seraph! Down with the Magisters! Down with the Aldermen!"

  Brought tears to my eyes. Well, no it didn't really. But a grin, at least. Even a bear has the right to show teeth, when cheered in a baiting. Granted, the Seraph-shouters shoved and cursed with deluded contemptible belly-crawling knaves and fools giving huzza's to the Aldermen. Even to Black. I considered joining the shouting, and the shoving. Up with the Seraph!

  I did not. Not the mission today. I slouched, one more onlooker, biding till the main of the march should pass. And here came the center of the procession, about which swirled shouts and angry faces. Six rough men bearing one rough coffin. In my innocence, I wondered who lay within.

  Chapter 11

  Exequies, obsequies, orations

  I considered darting through the funeral march, pursuing the trash-pickers. But why? The act was poetic whim. The Seraph had serious work today. Crossing busy streets while hand-bills promise fortunes for your head, balances courage and folly. Doing so to measure the angle of a child's ear-tip? Pathos and comedy.

  Too late anyway. I kept the hat low, leaned ruffian-style against a wall, waiting till sufficient crowd surrounded that I would not be noticeable for slinking from the fun. And then plans changed, as they will in war. For here came Alderman Black's carriage. I smiled to see it, and slipped into the flowing crowd, as into a hot red river.

  The men closest were of the burgher class; secretaries, tradesmen, clerks and such. The Aldermen’s people. Not mob-riffraff. They eyed my rags with distrust. I slowed my walk, drifting back to a rougher pack. No matter. I kept Black’s carriage in close sight.

  We marched shouting down High-Street, following the wails of the piper. I joined with others to give the Seraph several cheers. Good fellow, God keep’im. We came to the cathedral steps where late the Three Gray Graces sang. The pall-bearers climbed the foot-worn stones, laid their burden down. The piper stood farther back, puffing away. A tall man, thin of face and limb. He wore a kilt red as spring roses, red as fresh-spilled blood.

  The carriage door opened. Alderman Black climbed out. Four guards leaped from the carriage to surround him. Four more following on foot, did the same. They kept a wary eye, pushing a path for Black to gain the stair tops. He took a stand by the oblong box, folded hands and bowed his head. The piper stood by the great double doors to the cathedral. He ceased to puff. He looked around, puzzled to see a cathedral had tiptoed up behind him, a crowd dropped before him. I recognized that absent expression at once. So help me, it was the Teary Madman of the warehouse fight.

  Catcalls and whistles from the rougher sort. But they sounded poor style in the stone presence of the Cathedral. Doubly so while a man bowed before a casket. A sliver of silence came, and Black, eternal opportunist, seized it with the lift of his head. He pointed to the casket and shouted.

  "You will hear it said I was this man’s enemy. Excellent. Say it just so. Alderman Black was worthy of a great man’s enmity. Recall it above my own remains, and I shall fall to the fires of my reward smiling. I, an ordinary man, was honored with the opposition of a great man.”

  That was unexpected. A tangled compliment to the deceased, whoever the blast that was. Black wiped his forehead, in sign he stood with a heart sorrow-laden. He continued more softly, so we had to remain quiet to hear.

  “But let it be remembered that I was first his friend. Years past, Rayne and I drank together, drew new worlds in spilled beer. We saw the potential of the coming age. He, the soldier, saw the danger. I, the merchant, saw the chance for prosperity. He was wise. I too, was wise.”

  Ah. Rayne. Gray. Me. The Seraph. Was in the casket. But I wasn’t. I promise you I was not. I was here in the crowd. I knew it for a fact. People kept stepping on my bare feet. There is no more powerful reply to doubts of self-existence, than to have booted idiots tread your toes. Ouch, ergo sum.

  The Seraph supporters muttered, unwilling to interrupt with shouts. I needed ruder supporters. Black continued compliments to himself disguised as praise for the deceased.

  “Rayne Gray was not born in this city, to this land. He was a gift from the colonies. But let no one deny he became one of us. Shared our joys, our quarrels. Oft as not, he made his joys and quarrels ours. Exactly as family does. Rayne had no family but the people of this city. None but you, whether you shout for him to be remembered, or to burn in hell. Whichever you shout, remember with pride: he was our brother, with whom we quarreled.”

  Ah, clever Black. Many had not known of my unsavory colonial birth. They assumed an older Jersey. And ‘made his quarrels ours’? Very good.

  Black shook his head, considering the contents of the box before him.

  “Well, he is dead. He declared war upon the merchants of this city. He saw the Aldermen as grasping, and greedy, growing fat on the labor of others. He saw rightly. We are greedy. We grasp all we can. More oft than not we are damnably fat. Do any doubt it?”

  We shouted no. We did not doubt it.

  “And yet, who starves because I am fat? Who begs because I am rich? Not those we employee. Not those from whom we buy. Not those to whom we sell. Ours is a prosperous and peaceful greed. The fat of the Aldermen has kept starvation from this city.”

  I considered Black. Stout, but hardly porcine. He looked the same ten years past when he, Green and I drank together, scarce more than boys, feeling the world turn to place us atop. He fancied dark clothes then, in celebration of his name. Wore a black periwig. Had strong forearms. We'd wrestled arms across beer-sticky tables. And though I won it wasn't without effort.

  Black didn't use his arms to build his fortune. He used his mind; which is to say, titles and charters, writs and bribes, corporate shares and solemn words to justify public payment for private profit.

  Black sold sugar and chocolate to the city, grown by slaves in far-away fields. Used the profit to build factories along the river, across the hills where the smoke rose in sign of approaching battle, Babylon burning. Factory-mills of bricks and dogs, giving less right to move and breathe than the slave-fields across the seas. Th
e man placed the returns of this misery, as seed into greenhouse banks, where it bloomed to fantastical sums, orchids of untaxed profit. The Aldermen tended a balance of coin and poverty that spanned seas, growing like a dragon in the egg, a tumor in the brain.

  Granted, Black and the Aldermen had their point of view about it.

  "For Rayne Gray, peace was sloth; prosperity injustice. Strength was in facing an enemy, no matter the odds, and no matter the enemy. So we merchants of this city were paid a compliment as we shall never be paid again. The Seraph himself declared war upon us, burning our warehouses, slaying our servants. And though he died under the fire and blows of an angered crowd, let no one remember him as a madman, a brigand, a fanatic."

  This list of words not to remember me by, drew a lasting picture to recall me forever. Wild hair, animal mind... a man smiling as he walked city streets, choosing whom to let live. Arrogant, even in mercy. Insignificant guard, I bother not to cut your throat…

  Damnation. I am a man who holds fast to his identity. Yet Black half persuaded me of the reality of his portrait of Rayne, and not my mirror's. Those in the crowd who'd shouted for the Seraph grumbled like fading storm. Those for the Aldermen stamped feet, clapped hands. Black took a breath. He wiped tears from his eyes, shouted broken-voiced.

  "Let my friend, my foe, my Rayne be forever recalled as a warrior for a better world. The Seraph erred in whom to fight, and how to fight. But not for what to fight! Never for that! A better world."

  Black pointed down to the box of mortal clay before him. Broken in voice and heart. Yet finding strength to shout one last line, echoing from the great stone face of the cathedral stage-prop.

  "We flatter ourselves to wonder if we would even have the courage to commit the same error."