“Did you steal this from Dealer?” I asked.
“Commandeered upon the high seas,” declared the old sailor grandly. He swept skinny arms before him to designate a world of just war and just due. Would there were such a place.
“We snuck into the rooms above his shop,” bragged Brick. “Raided the larder.”
“He’s a friend,” I sighed. My fault, for bringing street-hoodlums into his house.
“Your friend sold you out,” retorted Flower. She scratched the Dog of Mystery behind the ears. “Soon as you took off, abandoning me, in came others. Loud-talkers, coin clinkers, blade-waggers.” She sniffed in disapproval. “Their leader a short fellow, big arms. Dark wig, long robe.”
Alderman Black, I thought. The news saddened me. I could have lurked behind some statue in the art shop, finished the entire story with a quick thrust. Such is war.
“When he saw me he started talking to Dealer en français.” She grinned. The boy laughed. So did the dog. Peut’etre l’chein, parle français.
“At first he insisted he hadn’t seen you. The dark-haired man tried threats. That failed. Then he got smart and talked reward. Worked. Your friend wants to own things. Have things. Things make his eyes glow. The dark-wigged man understood and grinned. He left, saying he’d wait in his carriage for an answer. He knew he just had to let the pot simmer a bit.”
“Dealer walked up and down his shop, muttering, arguing, telling himself he had no choice. I saw where that was going. Slipped into his basement, unlocked a window, came back up. Ha, he never noticed. He paced around, looking at pictures, statues, stuff. Stared a long time at a sketch of a man with bats and cats coming out his head. Spooky. Then he tried some sighs, some laughs. He was working out what story’d look best in his mirror. In the end he called me over, gave me a note, told me to take it to the man in the carriage outside.”
She fished her thousand pockets, found a slip of parchment, gave it me. I stared a long time before unfolding it. A simple note.
“Seraph on way home.”
Flower elbowed Brick, to share the jest. “Gave me two ha’pence, promised more later. Told me the note was to get dinner going. Ha. He didn’t think I could read.”
He wouldn’t have, I thought. You’re a beggar street child, not a polyglot mystic of scowls and Gaelic oaths. I reached into my own pockets, found the book of Blake’s poems. Opened to the first page, inscribed by my friend Dealer:
“From a connoisseur, to a raconteur”. Yes, the same grandiose scrawl.
I put it aside, sipped more wine. Stared at the carving of Chevalier de Courcy upon the stone slab. Wondering how he died. Stabbed in the heart in battle? Or in the back by a friend? I stared at the faces studying me. I could think of nothing to say but what I thought.
“Something is wrong with the world. Or wrong with me.” I didn’t believe that second overmuch. Still, it was a possibility to be measured.
“You are the Seraph,” declared the boy. “Famous. Death with blade and hand, walking through walls, laughing in shadows.”
Flower approved with a fist-thump on stone. No scowls now. She liked absolutes. Apparently I could be an absolute. “You fought Chatterton himself to a stand. Burned a warehouse around him.”
“Stole his girl,” snickered Brick.
Flower shook her head. “Cousin Chat cares naught for Bloody Lady. He’s still looking for her.” They all went silent, touching upon something distant and sad, fit for the gaze of a blind angel, stubs of wings shuddering.
“Bloody Lady?” I asked. “Lalena? Reeks a charnel house? Crazy dark eyes?”
They nodded. The dog growled low. I recalled Lucy and Lalena arguing the night before, debating in curses and growls.
“How did you know I fought Chatterton? That I met Lalena? That she’s chasing after me now? That I was here in the dark?” Maybe the snake-girl told them. Cousin Coils, no doubt.
The boy, the old man and the dog exchanged looks, smug and mysterious. But Flower leaned forwards to dramatic whisper: “We of the family are all horrible gossips.”
The old man sighed. “All the clans have been circling Chatterton, wanting him dead or married to a daughter. Watching, but never too close. He’s a dangerous creature, stinks of the madness that diminishes the family. He’s lost his closest kin. You can have no idea the sorrow that means to such as us.”
I frowned at the man. “Sorrow and loss are not exclusive to your family.”
Flower sat up, affronted. Brick looked surprised to hear it so. Lucy sighed, as if she knew already but hadn’t wanted to say.
Light considered, then nodded. “Ah, well, you have the right of it. The music of life does not play for the family alone. Not the sorrow, nor the joy. Still…” he went silent, considering. “To us this seems a world where there is only us. That others only play at what we master. Love, life, family.” He took a sip of wine, careful of his words. “Of the three, even the least of us would choose the third, before all else.”
The old man took a long sip of wine and memory. “Cousin Chatterton lost his closest kin. We admire him for his mastery, pity him for his loss, and fear him for what he portends.”
“What happened to his clan?”
The three exchanged glances. Did they guard a horde of secrets? Or were they merely looking for words to string together in random answer?
“His house, the Blade House, went mad, wanting to be better and best at their craft.”
“Which was what?” I asked. Though really, one could guess.
“Fighting. Killing. War. Of old they wandered, as did most of the family. Sometimes as mercenaries, oft as acrobats, performers, dancers, jugglers. It was all one craft to them. Movement, control, practice. Seeking any teaching to fighting, to strength and speed. They found strange masters. Some married into that house, became family of a sort.”
“Sound a hard people to kill.”
“Quite right. Unless they turn their attention to one another. They held endless test and contest, the elder training up the younger in ever-bloodier challenges. Weeding out the weak. And when the younger grew strong, they in turn created harsher tests, bloodier challenges. Their turn to weed out the old. Many fled, joining other clans or disappearing into the wide world. The Blade Tartan grew few. Feared by their cousin clans for their scars, the dancing menace of their step. The wild hunger for strife in their eyes. There came a year when they sent away the last of their children. And after that, not a soul of their clan showed for a gathering of the folk.
“They kept a secret valley when not wandering. I and two elders journeyed there in a sad cold spring. A lonesome place high against the mountain, with the wild birds crying, telling us what to expect. Houses empty, doors open to the wind. Cold ash in the hearths, grass on the paths. And everywhere, lines of graves set about like flower plots, their earth sunken for burial months past.
“Past the houses we found strange constructions. Pits crossed by narrow bridges. A high staircase winding in flights upwards, leading only to air. Swings and scaffolds, pendulums of knives swinging like hanged men in the wind. All of it dark-stained, rotting with old blood and months of rain.
“We wandered the valley ruins, calling for our cousins. Remembering their faces, their voices, the embrace of brother and sister by fireside and field. We loved them no less that they had gone mad and fearsome. Their loss struck us down. We sat in ruins of house and grave flowers, and wept for a day and night.
“At length beyond the village gate, before the very face of the mountain, we heard the sound of hammer on stone. We followed, and found Chatterton. King of the valley, laird of his clan, by right of winning every last test and duel and challenge. Ah, he was young. Fifteen, and skinny as young Brick here. But in nights of fight and murder, chase and duel, he’d slain every last man and woman, every brother and sister, uncle and aunt and cousin of his clan. As they’d tried to kill him, and one another, in a mad riot of duel and murder.
“Chatterton stood carving a face into t
he rock of the mountain. Talking to it and himself. A mad creature, naked, pitiful yet to be feared.”
“The Blood Clan took him in,” said Brick. “They thought he belonged. He didn’t. He scared even them. Picture that.”
Brick looked behind, ensuring no red creatures crept from shadows. “Engaged him to their laird’s daughter, the Bloody Lady. But Chat killed the old laird, cut his heart out on the feast table. Then fled. Only the Bloody Lady had the fire to chase after him.”
I considered the story. Pictured the boy carving the mountain side. “A girl’s face?” I wondered. “Heart-shaped, with locks of long curled hair, large eyes? Who was she?”
The three exchanged glances. They were not sharing all they knew. Oh well, they’d shared the food. I’d needed that more than answers.
“We don’t know,” sighed the old man. “No cousin declared, no face of family that any have seen. Some shepherd-girl from the hills, perhaps. Whoever, Chatterton wanders about carving her face and form in trees of the forest, in the tables of taverns.”
“Ah, he made her up,” declared Brick. “He wanted new family so he imagined a girl.”
“No, she’s Lady Death,” countered Flower. “His whole clan worshiped Death, and he won her.”
The old man spread gnarled hands wide, empty of answer.
I looked to my own hands. I found nothing but a book of poems. Well enough. I leafed pages idly, found what words the wind wished.
The human dress is forgèd iron,
The human form a fiery forge,
The human face a furnace sealed,
The human heart its hungry gorge.
“How can a human face be a sealed furnace?” asked the boy.
“How can a boy be a brick?” I replied. A scrap of paper fluttered between The Tyger and The Lamb. Puzzling. Nothing I’d put there. I studied it.
“Church of All Saints. Twelfth bell.”
Stephano’s writing. I frowned, then understood and laughed. I actually stood. Wobbling, but on my own feet again, leaving Chevalier de Courcy to his dusty sleep.
“He left this for me,” I declared. “My wonderful, valiant valet-pirate. He took all from my secret closet, then left me a note where and when to meet him.”
Flower considered, doubtful. “If it was already secret, why move it?”
I brushed that aside. “Because he knew they’d search my house.”
“In which case they’d find the note.”
“Guards don’t read Blake,” I explained to the child. “Poetry is for assassins.”
I considered what I would do with the jewels, the coin, the papers of identification. I began to pace, working blood and strength through cold limbs.
“First things: clean clothes, a new foil. Second: retreat to France. Under new name, purchase a house. Hmm. Something on the coast for easy access to the city. Begin reconnoitering the perimeters of Black and Green’s operations. Third: hire auxiliaries, associates I can trust. Perhaps Horse-Face. Certainly Mistress Stone…”
I looked about me, surprised I was not already in Paris. The crypt-chamber had lost its air of mystery, of finality. I stood in a dusty dead-end beneath proper life. A haunt for dogs, dreams and lunatics. Not that I would be so ungracious as to say.
Four sets of eyes considered me in fascination and pity. The blind angel stared away, smiling. Flower muttered something to Brick. Brick nodded, whispered something to the dog. The dog’s turn to nod.
“What?” I asked. Ancient Light kindly translated.
“Are all assassins idiots?”
Chapter 15
The whispered wisdom of old bone, cold stone
Flower led through dust and dark, her dragging broom singing its sad wisp, wisp. She glowered and muttered, doubting the wisdom of meeting Stephano. Brick kept a silent shrug, swinging the lamp to set shadows dancing. The two walked catacombs confident as I my front hall. My former front hall. I listened for hunters, for red-dressed phantoms, for the slither of scales.
“Might have been a dream,” I commented. “But in the night, I swear I saw a creature half-snake, half woman.”
Flower stopped, examined me in pitying wonder.
“A what?”
I have never stuttered in my life. In that child’s gaze I found I could stutter.
“I saw, well, a woman. White hair waving on its own. And she was all giant loops of snake and, and scales, from the belly-button down.” Put to words, it sounded unlikely.
Flower nodded, fascinated. I was an exhibit of lunacy to replace the lost puppet show. While Brick goggled astonished, peering into the dark, scanning for circling chimaera. Flower tried to lighten my shame.
“Perhaps a woman in tight lace dress with a long train?”
Of course. Absurd that someone wandered catacombs dressed so. And yet possible. Snake-women were not possible. I wondered how much in the last few days had been visions of a sleep-starved mind. An imagination drowning in a surfeit of Blake.
“Just a dream,” I said. “Been a strange few days.”
“Oh, no, that was cousin Dema right enough,” said Flower. “Dances on feet when she wants, coils when she doesn’t.” She limped, hopped to imitate a coiling progress, then strode on.
“Waltzing about outside her blouse again,” snickered Brick. “Waving her ciochan.” I wondered what ciochan were. One could guess. Flower sighed low in Gaelic. Brick sniffed unconcerned. Flower returned to fretting over things more serious than waving ciochan.
“The man’s your known servant. How does he leave bed to sit in the street, and not be seen? Followed? Watched?”
I considered. Stephano was a rough sort. He would not make it easy. But no doubt hunters would eye where he went of nights. Still, they would have done so three nights now. Grown bored, nodding at their posts.
And working past guards was the Seraph’s forte. A better strategy than lurking in alleys and cellars, stealing bread till arrest for high treason or petty larceny. With the wealth Stephano safeguarded, I could purchase time and opportunity. Better odds. Sharper weapons. Cleaner clothes.
“I never said he would be there. He may well have sent another.”
“Giving them your treasure to sit on?” scoffed the girl. “Or waiting to lead you to him? In which case, they bring you where the hunters also wait.”
Annoying to be questioned by a child. Did she think me ignorant of guards, hunters, spies and treachery? Me, the Seraph? I turned, sat on my haunches, grateful for the rest. I studied my rag-and-tangles companions. Mystic as cats. And feline-like, inclined to give themselves airs. Well, bah to their lost glory. I had my own. Had they been in war? Held a captured flag on a field of dead? Fenced German bandits atop a burning carriage? Played games of poisoned cups with Italian smugglers?
The wall beside me showed a hole. Within peeked a skull. Grinned at me, at the dark, at the world. I pulled it forth. Loathsome to touch; shreds of skin, mold. A beetle skittered out an eye. I considered the skull, discounted Hamlet. I held out the skull to the girl, so the two grim creatures could face one another.
The child flinched not. She scowled, readied broom to strike the thing. I turned it towards me. Long yellow teeth, brow-ridges raised by a century of thought. An old man of a skull. No doubt once packed with wisdom, not mold and vermin.
I confided to it, as between friends “When I was at war, I sometimes spoke to the dead. I would stop in some charge or skirmish to ask advice of a fresh corpse. Which way? Head to the trees? Follow the river? Retreat? Advance?
“Why not? The fallen knew the path. They were one mistake wiser, one step forewarned. Often I felt answered. Go left, go right, fire into the trees, avoid the rocks. Battle-corpses were free with wind-whispered wisdom. A’times I saw ghost hands in the smoke, signing of danger or refuge.
“I followed those hints through woods and fields where the cautious, the brave and the battle-hardened fell with a musket-ball in the guts, or lay open to the bone by axes, blade-ripped veins spilling.”
&nbs
p; I considered the skull, gravely inquiring “Should I go to meet Stephano?”
I placed the foul thing next my ear, awaiting the whispered reply. Nothing, only the sea-sound of a shell, the scrabbling of bugs in the decayed brain. But I listened as if this were wisdom. At last nodded. Replaced the skull upon its shin-bones. Gave it a pat and stood.
“Excellent. All Settled. We go on.”
Brick stood with eyes large as saucers, entirely impressed. Flower cocked head to side, less so. “He told you this meeting was safe?”
I sighed. Folly to attempt dramatic stage-lines with these creatures. They were past-masters of mad word and gesture. I was mere spear-carrier, fit for flat statement. “The King waits within. The forest is come to the castle. A ghost is on the wall.”
“The dead don’t give advice,” I told them, walking on. They stayed, staring from me to the skull. “In war I turned wind to words, smoke to faces, because I was frightened. But advice from wind and smoke never kept me alive. Talent and training kept me alive. I risk myself tonight because I count it sensible odds. I shall be careful, wise, experienced. But no wisdom keeps anyone alive beyond watching where the hell you walk.”
Alas, the spear-carrier tripped, spoiling his rhetorical line. I did not fall, merely stumbled over something. I kicked it annoyed. Brick reached down, retrieved it. A hat. Jutting turkey feather granting a jaunty look. The One True Hat again. Dropped by cousin Demagorgan, no doubt.
Brick and Flower turned to the wall-niche. He held lamp and hat while she pressed face to dark and dirt, whispered something within. I regretted my words. Cruel, to stir the dark fancies of these creatures.
Flower took the hat, solemnly placed it. The boy raised the lamp, revealing the old skull grinning out, now wearing the One True Hat at a jaunty angle. Flower and Brick solemnly agreed something in their play-language, then turned satisfied. We continued on. Pity. I could have used a hat. That one had fit fine.
“Beneath the church,” announced Brick. He pointed up a narrow stair of stone. “Up to the basement. I think.”
“Await me here,” commanded General Flower. She darted up the steps. I cursed, rushing after her. Probably she went safer than I. No guard or hunter would mistake beggar child for assassin-bear. But that did not mean they would not cut her throat, or fire a bolt for mere bored practice. We are not all honorable spadassins. Actually, few are. I alone, perhaps. I.
The Blood Tartan: Quest of the Five Clans Page 11