Chatterton recognized it too. He sighed, stopped, leaving the keys jangling before my face. I attempted to snatch them with my teeth, missed. Just as well, I’d have lost a tooth.
Into the cell came Lalena, naked as a willow branch fresh stripped of bark. And as white, where not crimson-splashed. She pushed between the kilted brothers, stepped daintily over the dead man and seized the keys from Chatterton. She cast a side-look to those others, defying them to mock. Then turned to me, grabbed my head, pressed it to her bosom.
“Hush, hush. You are safe, my soul, safe.”
I didn’t feel so but declined to say. She stank of fresh blood, half-smothering me in the cold silk cushions of her tits. The two at the door grinned their horrible canines at my smothering. At last she released me. I gasped for air and dignity. She put keys to the manacles, freeing one hand then the other. Glorious. Next my legs, then my neck. An overkill of chains, but the title Seraph bears a reputation a jailer will respect.
And at last I stood free. Weeks of crouching wished me bent. But in a room full of tigers, best not seem a lamb. I straightened. Lalena wished my face pressed to her soft breasts again but I took her by the shoulders, gently put distance between us.
I studied her. This blood-splattered lunatic had freed me. Friends had not. Supporters had not. Justice had not. Nor had I freed myself. There could be no denying. I owed her life and free limbs, twice over.
Lalena met my gaze. Mad, but no fool. She waited for me to stutter thanks, edge towards the door and run. Again I felt that strange mix of desire and empathy I’d known upon the roof of my burning house. Lalena was a thing of night and blood, thirsting to be loved.
So also, I.
I bent to place a chaste kiss upon left cheek, upon forehead, last to right cheek. “Gracious lady, your charity to this prisoner is key to all shackle upon his body, his heart, his soul. What can he do but owe you eternal thanks?”
Chatterton blinked. No half-awake look now. He stared astounded as if I’d flipped the sword from his hand with some master parry. The kilted twins gaped open-fanged. Lalena darted quick glance to these un-romantics. Then crossed dainty arms, tossed long hair, whirled to face the wall, pert nose tipped in defiant sniff.
“Really, Master Rayne I think your words scarce suffice.” She frowned at the dirt and grime upon the cell-stones. Clearly, no place for chaperones to find her. “How shall it look that a, a mere girl such as myself should forever be coming to the aid of a man of arms such as yourself? Do you think it seemly that a woman should be tangling in the brute affairs of men?”
The lighter-haired of the twins bent forwards, choking upon his long teeth. His brother grabbed him by the scruff and dragged him into the hall. Not that he didn’t choke as well. Chatterton looked from Lalena to me, back to her as if, as if, I have no idea what. As if.
I bowed to her back, inwardly screaming for the use of my spine. My gaze passing down from her delicate shoulder-blades to the smooth globes of her bottom, on down to the face of the dead guard lying on the floor between us. Blank eyes staring, puzzled at sudden death and comic theatre. Well, the man had repeatedly spat in my gruel. Besides trying to kill me in my chains. I refused him pity. Let him remain mere prop for the duration of the play or eternity.
His short-sword lay beside him. I grasped it. Began my journey upwards from the bow. My back made creaking moans for pity. I kept all agony from my voice.
“Sweet Lalena, courage is never ill-matched with beauty.”
She cocked head, arms remaining in defiant fold. “Ach. Do you mean your courage and my beauty are matched? Or do your words say ‘la, she’s comely enough, let’s yoke her courage to the cart as well?’”
I shook my head. “I mean Beauty and Courage are well matched within you, sweet lady. Sisters to your charity. I am the beast here to be yoked. But manlike, I shall mirror the virtues you have shown me.” I ran hands through my lice-ridden tangle of beard and hair. “The courage and charity, at least. We shall forgo matching the beauty.”
I’d made a weak flirting jest. She saw I’d done so. With her. I was her first. I felt sure. One can tell. She trembled lost as if I’d turned the conversation to the mathematics of light. In Arabic.
Enough. I was confusing the child. Avoid confounding the dangerously mad, advised an inner voice. As stated, I possess instinct for survival. I turned to the door, Chatterton leaping back as though I walked aflame or pox-infected.
Outside my cell at last! A place of lamp and gratings I half recalled. Some changes of late. Tonight it was scattered with mangled guards. Rose-petal corpses, scattered across the path for the passing of some prince. I shivered, joyous to be freed of chains, to be alive. That these men were dead in my freeing was the fortune of war. I knew it so. Told myself so. If only one knew the point of the war, which flag to defend, what banner to charge.
Well, I knew my foe in the battle. I looked for the corpse of Alderman Black, spied a dark velvet cloak, the jet-dark periwig. I kicked about, but found the man’s mere cocoon. The dark butterfly had flown.
“We leave now,” said the blonder brother. “The remainder barricaded themselves upstairs, ringing bells and praying. Best run before God and the king’s army arrives.” But he looked to Lalena, now standing in the door of the cell. Clear that we left when she decided.
I didn’t care for his gaze tracing across her young form. I stooped to grasp Black’s velvet robe. I stepped to her, holding it out. “My lady, you look cold as you look desirable.”
Lalena arched eyebrows. ‘Sir, you speak boldly.”
From the brothers, more choking ‘tween fangs. I held out the cloak. She studied it, then turned, suffering me to drape it about her naked shoulders. Turned again, chin tipped up, giving me access to her throat so that I might tie the clasp. Done, I stepped back. Again our eyes met. Interesting. Her eyes wept. Small pretty tears, silver drops, lamp-shining.
Ah, well and hell, and all the devils and angels and me among them. Stiffly I knelt, offered her the hilt of the dead man’s sword, with a bit of Milton. I looked up to her puzzled face, croaked. “A grateful mind, by owing owes not, but still pays, at once indebted and discharged. What burden then?”
The mad creature studied me, hesitated, eyes night-dark. She grasped the hilt, frowning at the blade. She raised it. She intended to strike my head away, bathe in my fountaining blood, singing of eternal love. I checked the faces of Chatterton and the kilted twins, understood they expected the same.
But no; the girl tapped me once upon the head, a soft thump of a pat. She laughed, crying, then tossed the blade to the corpse-strewn floor. She pulled me to my feet, pressed her head to my chest.
“Take me home now,” she whispered.
Chapter 18
Of Rivalry, Revels, and strange brides
To journey swift by night with silent companions is to move in a dream. I sat horse and stared at stars, shivered in clean cold air. Astonishing, this world of wind and breath. Months in a stone cell mouthing the decay of death, the wastes of life, the despair of the soul, I’d forgot the treasures a courteous summer wind brings down city streets and country lanes, through trees, across fields. Now I devoured fresh scents as a starved man would the offerings of a banquet.
Fresh-cut grass. Lilac and rose from gardens, cow-dung and moldering hay, river-scent of watercress and weed. Frog-song mud-scents from ditches and ponds, spiced dust rising up from the road beneath the horse hooves. Fire-side smoke from cottages where families gathered about the hearth, reading stories, sewing socks. Did they know the essence of their domestic heaven rose as a spirit up chimneys, wafted across the world to comfort night-travelers with the reminder that somewhere waited warm bright corners?
Probably not. But drowsing by firesides they missed the joy-shiver of the night-wind, watching the stars wheel and turn as cavalry circling the sky-fields. Nor heard the laughter of the wild geese passing. I recalled Brick’s lament. ‘We were the night-sky stars, the storm wind, the winter geese-folk
. Flying free, free’.
I realized I’d spoken aloud when the blond brother turned, surprised. He guided his horse closer. “You’ve kept strange company,” he observed. “Heard the gossip. Some of the eldest caught you in their mad dance.”
I smiled at the recollection. No one had mentioned a beggar-child at my trial. I had not asked, lest I draw attention to her. I wondered what path Flower swept now, what midnight ceremonies her folk held. Brick, Flower, Lucy Dog of Mystery. The ancient mariner Light. The three Gray Graces, the Bird Man…
“Two children, in the main. Not old. But yes, mad and dancing in their way.”
“Ach. Not elder in their persons,” said the blond. He tapped forefinger against a fang, in sign of thought. “I mean still keeping the old ways. Running free, nameless and wandering. Mad and laughing, sorrowing and singing. The first of the clans lived so. Some few, still do.”
I considered my present companions, seeking any sign of kinship with the beggar-children. Ahead rode Lalena, cloaked and hooded. She addressed no word nor sign to any, but rode silent and straight. She wore riding pants now, if you were wondering. Her graceful legs wrapped firm about the horse. She had the art of riding. On foot she moved as a child, in an energetic jiggling slouch. On horse, she was grown woman.
Blond rider to my left, dark to my right. I rode set about. As honored guest, or prisoner? I could not be sure. I wore a cloak, blade and helmet scavenged from men who had no further need for warmth or weapon. I doubted these creatures cared whether I went armed or not.
Chatterton followed behind, in rear-guard or indifference. I caught no sign this strange company feared pursuit. They rode from rescue and slaughter calm as farmers returning from market. I studied Chatterton’s dreaming face, muttering to a girl he carved on night-wind. Behind him stretched empty road.
Chatterton went armed. Neither so, the brothers. Or Lalena. Not so much as a knife. I had yet to see them fight. From the bodies I’d stepped past, neck and chest were primary targets. They possessed speed and strength beyond mine, doubtless. I saw no kinship to Flower, Brick or Light. Pointed teeth, not pointed ears. Well fed, well dressed, at least when dressed. Fierce and direct, instead of dreamy wandering.
“I suppose your name is River,” I offered, staring at the silver of distant water. “And your brother will be Tree or Star. No, wait, I can guess. Horse.”
The blond highlander straightened in affront. “I am christened Aibne Mathew Mac Broehain Sanglair,” he declared. “We do not wander like heathen winds, picking up names, dropping them again.”
“Ah,” I said. “Good. It seemed a difficult custom. What does ‘Aibne’ mean?”
“River, as it happens.”
“Ah. And your brother?”
“Half-brother. Each William Mac Lachan-Gaire Sanglair. Christened in Edinburgh. Not that holy rites shall comfort his damned soul.”
The soul mentioned turned, flashed a happy grin, damned pointed.
“‘Each’? Which means…”
“Horse, as it were.”
“Best call me Billy-River,” said the blonder.
“Ach, you’ve crossed them now, you nit,” accused his darker brother. “That’d make me Horse-Matt”.
“Ha, no, tangle the names and you’re off to hell as Mattie-Bill.”
Kin to Flower, Brick and Light after all, then. I studied the dark-cloaked form of Lalena, indifferent to company and conversation. Why did she not speak? Had I offended? I recalled when Elspeth would turn her back, keep a stone silence. Should I move my horse beside her, ride in quiet company? Apologize, perhaps. Or reach out, trace a finger along her ear... Not that such tactic ever conquered Elspeth’s mood. Still, El and Lalena were of different natures. Not that I knew Lalena’s nature. Not that I had really known El’s nature.
“Are you vampires?”
From left and right, laughter. Lalena stiffened slightly, but did not turn.
I’d spoken thoughts again. Dangerous habit, gained by weeks chained alone, talking to a taciturn wall. Best unlearn it or I’d speak honestly in some night assault or nobleman’s banquet. Still, the question had lingered off-stage long enough. Have done with the lurking. Are you vampires?
“Hmm,” said… Billy-River? The blond one dammit. “Tis a difficult question. You mean, are we unholy creatures of terrible strength and teeth, drinking blood from throats like juice squeezed out the grape, sleeping in the earth of our graves, hiding from the Lord’s sun less we turn to dust?”
“No such unnatural beastie exists,” scoffed Horse-Mat. “Tis a heathen superstition from the east, a foul excuse to fright the bairns and desecrate the blessed peace of the dead.”
“Well said,” approved Billy-River. “Granted, brother, we are irreligious creatures of terrible strength and teeth.”
Horse-Mattie sighed. “And I admit the occasional sip from a throat. Well? Am I less the man for that? Let he who has never shared cup, cast the first stone.”
The two chuckled, to my left, to my right, sharing white teeth with dark night. I measured my chances. An unexpected strike might take the head off one. What to do about the outraged rest?
Speed and strength are raw material in a fight. Neither ensure victory. Practice and technique can triumph over stronger, over faster. If Light told the story true, Chatterton was raised sword in hand, taught to fight by mad masters. He had no fangs, yet these red highlanders feared him. They were not unbeatable, then. Just damnably hard to beat.
“The Blood Tartan,” I recalled. “You call yourselves so.”
“Ach, we don’t do any such tomnoddy thing,” scoffed Billy River. “Tis a fool enough title, and I’d cut any who said it to my face. We are the Mac Sanglair.”
“Not one of the old clans,” explained Mattie Horse. “True enough, long ago the family kept no names, no castles. Wandered the earth as the wind. Running through forests laughing, or standing silent on the shore of the sea. Masters of every tongue, every art, every secret of star and stone. Ha. And yet pocketless, penniless, homeless. People of the wind, walking in and out of the world no more touching the earth than the shadows of clouds passing on summer days.”
“Well said, brother,” sniffled Billy River. “Brings an ache to my heart to recall it so.”
Horse snuffled, equally moved. “But every so oft, some part would settle, take a valley, keep a name, grown weary of wandering in dreams. We of the north and west became the Sinclair. When the troubles came, the Rivalry, our elders traveled far to the east, came back with bonny strange brides.” He and his brother chuckled at the antique, romantic doings of grandparents.
“What was the Rivalry?” I recalled Brick’s puppet-show history. Something about strife separating his people. The usual fall from grace.
Billy River sighed. “The family, by which I mean all the clans, take a deep interest in one another. And when you have such a grand tribe of proud busybodies, then comes a certain tension in who sits by whom at the banquet table.”
“So proud a thing, to be us,” I recited.
“And Pride goes before a tumble,” agreed Mattie-Horse. “But don’t be blaming the Mac Sanglair for it! The Rivalry began long before us.”
“The settled clans sought mastery of sword and craft, song and secret,” explained Billy River. “For long years we met peaceable as tea with the vicar, matching ourselves in duals and games. But jealousy arose. Certain clans made alliances with the hidden peoples, magic folk, Fae of earth and sea and the like. To join secrets, join talents of the blood. T’was then the Sinclairs went wandering, returned with pale brides.”
“Many didn’t care for the mixing,” admitted Mattie-Horse. “Though the creatures were our own cousins, far, far back. The Rivalry fast turned to distrust, and that to fear. Things fell apart. Some clans became so changed we scarce knew them for our own blood. Others tribes hid. Came no more to the Revels. Who knows whether they still sit by fireside recalling our faces? ‘Tis a sorrow to gnaw the heart.”
“True enough,”
sighed Billy River. “But we children of the Sinclairs and the pale newcomers, weren’t the kind for disappearing. Nor apologizing for tooth and diet. We shouted hell-with-ye, yah blue-nose twits, and took our own name, the Mac Sanglair. Say what they will, they stand when we enter the Revel. That bit of eastern blood has given us an edge.”
“Gave some of us sharp teeth,” added Mattie-Horse.
“Stand and deliver,” shouted a firm voice. A figure took possession of the road ahead, posing dramatic in moonlight and high boots. He held a pistol pointed upwards, prepared to shoot the moon as hostage.
“Gave some of us strange thirsts,” continued his brother. A figure ran from the trees to the right, grabbed the bridle, placed rapier-point to Mattie’s chest. A similar shadow moved beside Billy River.
Highwaymen. I put hand to the short sword, did not draw.
I looked behind. Chatterton’s horse stood riderless. A soft scream came to the left, from the trees. Cousin Chat at work, I decided. The man holding the road turned, aimed his gun, saw nothing to threaten. Mattie kicked his attacker in the face with force to send the man flying with a bone-snap of neck. I watched River-Billy reach down, lift his attacker one-handed so faces were on a level. The man struggled, River Billy’s jaws opened wide. The brigand holding the road before us looked every which way, fired his gun at the moon.
Lalena stood upright upon her horse, an acrobat at a fair. Dropped cloak, raised arms, and dived forwards as the man dropped his pistol, reached for his sword. His face held the same comical pop-eyed look of horror as the just-murdered moon.
Time to talk of the pit I spent three weeks within during the war, eating rats.
Chapter 19
On those who climb up, and those who burrow down.
The locals called it Le Despoir; The Pit of Despair. I intended the tale for some slow point of this narrative, say while chained in a dark cell. But telling of weeks spent in a well of corpses, makes slight escape from the dreary repetition of weeks in a dungeon.
The Blood Tartan: Quest of the Five Clans Page 14