The Blood Tartan: Quest of the Five Clans

by Raymond St. Elmo

  Applause, cheering. Whistles, from friend and foe of the present clay. A moving speech. Admiring, I maneuvered through the crowd to a position where I could reach out, cut that eloquent throat on his return to his carriage.

  From out the cathedral doors came robed men. Priests clothed in sanctity, Magisters decked in authority. Cheers, jeers, here came my once-friend Green. Magister and Alderman faced one another before the box of mortal remains. Traditional foes, weighing the merits of the man within. Which raised a question. Who the hell was within? Yesterday’s fights, fires and roof-top slaughters left a wind-fall of corpses. Did they truly believe they'd found my body? Perhaps selected a random victim from the fire and served it smiling. One Seraph, well-done.

  I considered the chess board, puzzled to see the advantage of their move. True, news of my death would make it difficult for me to draw on funds and favors. But now the hunters would withdraw. Sighing, no doubt. Wondering if they'd have been up to the challenge of besting the Seraph. They wouldn't have, I point out. Just so it is said. I'd have killed every last mother's son of them.

  But death would transform annoying scofflaw to dramatic hero. Those I championed remained. Tradesmen demanding just pay. The poor demanding a vote, a voice in council and court. All who lay abed hearing slaves across the seas groaning in far fields. No crowd-shout for justice was stilled by declaring me dead. Rayne Gray: martyr? That helped the Aldermen not at all, no matter the praise shat upon my clay.

  Besides, officially dead I would be free as a ghost, to wander where I wished. And Black could have no doubt where my spirit wished to wend my way. Standing behind him suddenly by night, grinning, knife playing the veins of his throat as a bow thrumming the fiddle strings.

  I moved further up the steps, just a street-tough anxious to see the entertainment close. Quite close. But now Green spoke. He lacked the voice and presence of Black. But he possessed a warmth the over-practiced Black could not even understand to imitate.

  "I don't believe it. I don't believe Rayne Gray is dead. I don't believe he is in this box."

  I did the same weighing of those words as the rest of the crowd. Metaphor? Or doubt as to identification? Which question he answered by giving the casket a firm kick down the cathedral steps. We gasped in shock.

  Poorly made, it tumbled apart. Revealing a limp form wrapped in morning light and torn curtains. Hair long and loose as the threads of a beautiful tapestry come all unsewn. More than a day dead, face and arms livid. Filmy eyes staring up at the sky, considering whether it was time to give the clouds a good dusting.

  Elspeth.

  Chapter 12

  All lines said, every note played, last blade dropped

  My first thought was to kill everyone in the crowd. It was wrong for them to stare at her. Still clothed in green dress, white smock. But she lay lewdly naked of life. She sprawled entirely and only as a body, a pitiful obscenity for the crowd to leer. I drew my knife, stared from it back to Elspeth.

  A white smock, black with dried blood. With a knife handle protruding. Had I missed it piercing her heart before? Absurd. It had not been there.

  Green reached down, plucked the dagger as he would a flower. I cried out. But so did many others. A leaf of paper came with the dagger.

  Green stood a long time staring at the note. I could not read his face, his soul, except as a man hunched over, slumping. Perhaps to say he was weary. The crowd shouted, attempting to climb the steps, approach the body. Guards formed a line, blocking approach. More came out the cathedral, clearly in wait. Reinforcements, positioned in advance of an ambush…

  Training forced me to stop, examine the rooftops. Archers, crossbowmen. I considered the crowd. Here and there I spotted a face in wait, head low, hands out of sight. Hunters. This was planned out careful as a battle on a general’s new map.

  “Read, you fat fool!” shouted a thin grocer.

  Green seemed unwilling. He stood atop the steps an actor searching for his lines. Or rejecting them, unfit for his character. He turned gaze from crowd to corpse, to the paper he held. At last Black came, took the bloody note. Now his turn to read and keep silence. The street echoed with demands it be read. At length, solemn-faced, Black passed the note to one of the cathedral clerics. The poor priest held the paper in horror, staring from it to the dead woman on the steps, back to the crowd.

  “Read it! Read it!” shouted the crowd together.

  At length he croaked, loud and stuttering.

  “A knife for a spy.

  Another kept by.

  And in the morning glad to see,

  Black outstretched beneath my tree.”

  He gulped, croaked. “Signed, ‘The Seraph”.

  “The Seraph lives!” shouted someone. “Fooled your fat arses again!” Seconded by some few cheers. But most stared at the murdered girl on the steps, her faded eyes and bloody dress. No heroic triumph here, but bloody crime.

  Then “No!” shouted a voice. “Lies! Treacherous fat rat-pig whoreson shit-souled liars!” A voice of fury I knew, and welcomed as my brother in rage. A tall man pushing towards the steps. His gargoyle face axe-carved in old leather. My heart beat with the first thump of joy in days. Stephano.

  “There lies Elspeth,” my valet-pirate roared. “Gray’s house-maid. He’d never use her so. Never. Not like this. Spy or not. ”

  Shouts and shoving answered that. Supporters of the arisen Seraph agreeing he’d never do such a deed. But their voices drowned in the rising tide denouncing murder. To most, the truth showed clear as the corpse-face in morning’s honest light. The clever Seraph had tricked death and enemies with sly escape. Using the remains of the Aldermen’s pawn to mock their solemn eulogy.

  Murder? What of it? Was not Gray an assassin at war with lords and thieves? Even the Seraph’s supporters would guess the story so, as they left the theatre.

  Theatre. Black’s speech of forgiveness, Green’s kick to the mismade casket, the laughing note pinned to a wretched servant’s heart… a scripted play to make me look a mad animal. Last night Black stumbled upon Elspeth’s body and saw what he always saw for living and dead: a thing to be used. He had made of her a stage prop for the tragedy: Downfall of the Mad Seraph.

  I studied Black and Green. They exchanged no smiles to say ‘our lines said, our mischief done’ No, they avoided eyes and words, neither acknowledging the existence of the other. Both retreated towards the cathedral doors, along with priests and guards.

  The crowd grew wild as authority withdrew. They wanted a proper end to this show. There could be no good end. This would soon turn riot. I struggled to push through to Stephano. We would stand back to back and take on the Aldermen and Magisterium together. When no more foes faced us, we would take up Elspeth and bury her avenged.

  I pushed aside a man who whirled and grabbed my shirt. He put his face into mine. Hot breath narrated his last twenty meals, all of which involved sulphur and beer.

  “Who you shoving, friend? You on the Seraph’s side?”

  Not a question I ever long debate.

  “Finest man alive,” I declared. I broke my new friend’s hold but not his bones. As he wretched from a throat-punch, his friends turned on me. I had no retreat. They would beat me into the ground. I slashed air with my knife, remembering I was no mad and murderous animal.

  “I have kind eyes!” I screamed. “Elspeth said so. Do you call her liar?”

  My friend’s friends backed away, uncertain what position they held on the charity of my eyes. I dodged past, ducked a fist, tumbled over a tangle of figures to reach the stone steps. The guards had retreated in excellent form, following the swishing, swirling robes of Magisters, Aldermen and Priests. What a lot of robes the world wears. Too many; at least by two.

  The body of Elspeth lay gone. That is, I couldn’t find it. If anyone tread upon her I would cut their feet away. But no, gone. She must have risen. Perhaps her death was also theatre. I looked towards the cathedral in search of resurrections. I spied Stephano striding
towards the doors, bearing clay.

  “Stephano!” I shouted.

  He stopped. He knew my voice. Elspeth balanced in his arms, red hair hanging a sad flag, bare feet dangling a sad dance. He did not turn. After a long second he continued his solemn march, bearing the body into the cathedral. I hurried to follow.

  The street-shouts were suddenly overruled by mad wailing. The piper that stood silent through speech and riot. Now he tortured the disjointed beast of a bag-pipe, drawing out keening to express the sorrow of a thousand devils. A dirge, loud and long. Stephano walked past bearing the pale tired clay of Elspeth.

  “Seraph!” shouted someone.

  I stopped, turned, expecting swords.

  Here came Dealer almost upon me, fists raised.

  I puzzled. What on earth was he doing? I realized he intended to strike me down. His face shining with tears. Why? What sorrow could he have here?

  Ah. Elspeth. When he visited my house, he’d flirt and blither. She’d laugh sweet, being who she was; no fool but no coquette. He babbled of porcelain surfaces, jet black silks, rubies red as lips. All to imply she was art. She was not; she was what art aspired to be. The thing itself, not the idea of the thing.

  Now he rushed to avenge her. I stepped, grabbed as he passed and put an arm round his throat before he crashed into the cathedral, knocked it down. Dealer struggled, a delicate construction of silk and willow-sticks that poked and kicked. We stood so close to the piper I had to shout.

  “Idiot! I didn’t kill her!”

  He didn’t hear, or wouldn’t. If he recognized me, so also others. I needed to run. But I needed more to be heard.

  For which reason all the bells began screaming atop the cathedral. Not in song, but in storm of bronze and brass clangs that crashed and splashed against stone and ear. The piper’s dirge drowned in cacophony.

  I did my best. “It was Black! Or Green! Or some hunter!” I howled. “I need to kill them but don’t know who left her lying!”

  I wasn’t myself. Dealer pushed my arm from his throat, turned about. We faced each other. I handed him my knife. Let him see I was no murdering animal, but a man of laws and morals like himself. He took it, considered and then slashed at me. I blocked with a sigh, knocked it from his hand.

  Dealer shouted something I couldn’t hear. I screamed something he couldn’t catch. The riot and roar in the street grew to rival the bells and piping together. A large dog ran around us in a circle. We turned as one to study its fascinating irrelevance. The dog started a second loop. Red mouth opened, howling unheard barks. A familiar beast. Same stray that attended the puppet show yesterday. It even had pointed ears. I considered whether that counted as remarkable

  Dealer and I gave up. We stood two men with words to say, and no way to say them. I shrugged, then laughed. That I could not go mad, did not mean the world could not. Dealer wept. No point in shouts. No point in words, even could they be heard.

  I considered killing the dog, then the piper. Next the rioters. Last I would hunt down the fools playing with the bell ropes. Then we would have silence so sane minds could think. I turned to the dog. He stood teeth bared. At me? No, at those behind me. I didn’t know who but if they frighted a mad dog then it was best to leave. I broke for the cathedral door.

  A crossbow bolt stuck in the wooden frame. It had not dwelled there long. It still trembled, thrilled to have been fired. Apotheosis for a bolt, I suppose. Or climax? The doors of the Cathedral waited. I plunged within.

  Within waited dim light, cool stone air and twenty armed figures considering me. Behind came the piper, though I had not invited him. Also the dog. Also some of the riot. Men struggled, tumbling through the door, seeking weaponry amid the fonts and flowers of the narthex.

  Far ahead I saw Stephano stand in jewels of fire. Light spilled about him from stained glass portals to a world of angels and dragons, lambs, crucifixions, bright blue skies, fresh red blood. Respectful of his burden he climbed marble steps to the church altar. There he lay Elspeth down as a holy relic, sweeping away candles and crosses. That done, he knelt. Naturally the pipe organ began to thunder; brass notes beating the skull like waves in a sea of bronze. Well, Bach at least. Toccata fugue. The heavenly melody declared itself beyond the idiot din and thunder, the bells, the shouts, the piping. The barking dog. Which circled me again.

  Poor Stephano. Who knew the old pirate had so much soul within him? All my own soul’s desire was to kneel as well, join my grief with his. But the shouting! The bells! The organ! The dog! The five guards approaching, blades drawn. More would have come but the cacophony drowned all cries of recognition, all calls to attack.

  I reached for my foil, found air, reached for a knife, drew nothing. I’d lost every last blade. So I nodded to these observant servants of the law and ran.

  Through a side-chapel, searching for a relic with edge or point. A war-memorial sword, or the axe that beheaded some saint. I passed a statue of the archangel Michael driving spear into a writhing dragon. A marble spear, not my forte. Someone darted just ahead. If they held anything more dangerous than a prayer-book, I would commandeer it.

  But no, a girl in bright red gown. Gaudy for church. She did not turn, yet waved a hand as if to say follow. A Seraph-supporter, perhaps. I looked back. Through the noise-drowned arch of the chapel came figures miming their shouts, waving swords to symbolize intent. So I followed the red flag of a girl, because it was mad to do so, and of late I was curious as to the ways of madness.

  She ran fast as the devil, and knew her way through chapels and stations like an archbishop. We crossed a woods of epitaph-clutter and statuary to find a door secret as a forest-cave of faeries or robbers. I hesitated on the threshold, wondering if she fled me as I fled others. Or did she pursue another, as I pursued her?

  I could hear nothing in particular, only everything at once. All the cathedral was become a sea cave, stone walls echoing hymns to thunder sung by choirs of canons. Or so I thought. Perhaps it was only the heart-beat in my ears. You hear a sea-cave thunder just before you swoon.

  And yes, I have fainted, eyes rolled up to whites, mouth slack. Twice for loss of blood, once in fever. Once upon climbing out a pit in Normandy where I’d spent weeks eating rats. ‘Le Désespoir’, they called it. Gruesome story. I won’t share till I am bored. For now I ran, weary and hungry and mad with lack of sleep, lack of a world to find a moment’s peace, or make a decent stand.

  Past the narrow door waited old stone steps down to cold stone stench, dust of old bone. The cathedral crypts. An excellent place to lose pursuit. And one’s self. They connected to catacombs extending beneath the city like rat-runs, like worm-rot under a seemingly sound floor. Dangerous places, particularly without light, without weapon. But behind waited only a sword thrust, or a quick trial and a tight noose. My future seemed less sure forwards than behind.

  So I stumbled and tumbled along, deeper into shadow. The sea clamor diminished with the light. I turned, saw my pursuers framed in the day-world door. They shouted words I did not follow. Perhaps warnings not to wander in dark places. Calling me back to light and sanity so they could murder me. They didn’t seem eager to pursue the mad assassin into a dark labyrinth dedicated to the dead. One could see their point.

  I stumbled on and down, wishing for a lantern. I had just run through an entire forest of tall tapers, pudgy candles and vigil lamps, and never thought to thank them for their service to the cause of Light. Or impress one to my service as I passed. No doubt the pursuit would soon collect candles and courage, follow after me in comfortable numbers.

  Something dared cross the threshold, down the stairs. Not boot-steps. Here came the click, click of claws on stone. A four-legged form, bounding. The dog? Seeming bigger in the weak light, as a shadow cast on a wall, grown to impossible size. No longer a comic irrelevance, but something ominous, in fast pursuit.

  I stopped in the borderland of light and dark, staring forwards and behind. An antique arched hallway ahead. There I perceived a fo
rm, impossibly clear in the shadow light. Surely the girl who’d led me here. She stood facing away. I wished she’d turn. I approached, smelling a new taint to the dust of bones. Fresh blood. Behind I heard the click, click of claws. The dog. I stopped, turned, sure it meant to attack.

  Not yet. It howled. I backed away, bumped into someone directly behind. I whirled again, ready to strike. There before me stood the girl in red, wide mad eyes shining. How had she come behind so swiftly? Her face in my face, I knew her before she spoke.

  “My sweet, sweet love,” sighed Lalena happily.

  Chapter 13

  At the bottom of the world, looking up

  We stood embracing in the dark, all pain forgot. I drank from her lips, thirsting her wet kiss. She tasted of copper and salt, smelled of sweat and rot. I ran my hand up her back, under the long hair, placed palm against the smooth flesh of her nape, pressing her lips hard to mine. My pulse beat a sea-cave sound again.

  I do not lose myself. I cannot lose myself, not in madness nor despair, not desire. It is a choice I made years past, in a pit eating rats. I will tell that tale sometime, when this story goes dull.

  I do not lose myself, even in desire. So why was I embracing a mad creature in a crypt? With killers fast on my heels? Well, because her breasts panted firm and round, pressing into me as two cats purring. Because her dress shone impossibly bright in a dark hall, revealing curves of chest and thigh, the triangle of her crotch thrust forwards. Faery fruit in a fever-dream. I closed my eyes and she glowed even brighter, red dress and white flesh. Impossible. Eyes shut, I ran disbelieving fingers over the red silk, to send it slipping down around her feet. The dog howled. I thought of Elspeth. Her breasts were small and freckled, a farm-boy’s delight. These of Lalena were fuller, paler, with red tips for lips.

  Elspeth might lie above me now, an altar-offering in the light of holy windows, blessed sun. As if from Heaven, staring down through stone floor to this dusty hell of dull dark. The thought did not deter me from lowering my hand to Lalena’s firm bottom. The dog growled. I turned to it, saw nothing. Strangely, the dog had no magic ability to be seen by closed eyes. I opened them.