“The Glocken was truly your father?” I asked. “Seemed more like to be your grandfather, with several ‘great’s tacked on.”
Penn shrugged, not liking the question. “Old Potiphar? Aye, in a sort of kind of way. Never had much to do with him. Uncle Zee put more work in my raising. Zee and I, we get along, for all he’s mad as a bee hive fed on gunpowder pollen. Uncle Zee has art. Old Potiphar just had work.”
Penn stopped, considered the lamp. Diminished in this sunshine. “Still, I shall miss the old grumpus. Ah, Master Gray, he knew wondrous much. He was a scholar of the old school.” Penn shook head, set down lamp. Turned to me.
“Now, sir, I shall guide you no further, for I’ve tasks of high import to attend. But if you are wise, you shall hear my good council first.”
“You enjoyed saying that, didn’t you?” I accused.
Penn grinned, doffed hat, bowing short frame to say ‘indeed’. Did he stand taller in the sunshine? How fast did clockwork children grow? How fast did any children grow? Mine were not conceived when I’d risen for the day. Half-grown when we’d first met. Now I stood in a dawn that might well shine on their worn gravestones, etched with ‘a long and happy life’. I shivered. At revelations of eternity? Or incipient madness? Did Time’s madness make me shiver? I held still, determined to defy the madness by refusing to shiver. I stood stock still in sunlight hundreds of years past my day. I was a ghost. My children were ghosts. My house would be a place of vines and broken stones, where lizards darted among the fallen leaves… I shivered. Penn clapped hands. I jumped, returned to Here and Now.
“First, sir. We stand in a bit of woods within the fair. Follow the path to the fair proper. At the first tree hollow you spy, dare reach in hand. There you will find what Time has seen fit to gift you on your journey.”
Fairy tale instructions. Excellent. I believed in such tales, needed their hopeful promise.
“Second, sir, look for both friends and foes in crowd and costume. I doubt the Espada walk far behind. They might well await you ahead.”
That sounded likely. Particularly if the old Glocken told them where he hid the bell. Penn went silent, till I prompted.
“Third?”
He shrugged. “Something my Da would say,” he confessed. “He never explained the riddle. But I’ll give it, just to make a third for the charm.” He cleared throat. “Oft, Time is a window. Other whiles, Time is a mirror. Decide in which you gaze.”
I considered. Mysterious, yes. Wise sounding even. A thing of meaning, if one did not inquire what was meant. I considered laughing. But the boy-laird’s face shone solemn. He meant me well, and worked to be tall as his man’s title deserved. So I bowed, one grave gentleman to another. Then turned and followed the path.
* * *
For the moment I had the path alone. A pleasant walk. Crowd sounds and music rising beyond the trees. The breeze wafted sharp with pine scents. Red-brown needles making a carpet for a king to covet. Hanging ornaments hung from the branches, glittering fruit of glass and tin. Figures sat to the sides of the bricked path. Vine-wrapped statues of old solemn kings, else fantastical carven animals. Not marble, but something white and un-veined. Plaster, perhaps. I stopped to study a row of mirrored spheres upon brass stems, magic crossing of glass and flower. Traced one with a finger. A work of art lacking seam, astonishing in its geometric perfection. Yet set here casual as a daisy in a field. My distorted reflection grinned like a goblin. I went on.
Thin ropes on regular stakes kept a nominal border to either side. A sign demanded ‘Please stay on the path’. I sighed to read it. Exact as the gardens at Kew. Each time you stepped in wonder towards some flower or bower, an officious angel would appear, declaring ‘Sirrah, please return to the path’.
I stopped. One lone oak stood amid the pines, branches twisting this way and that to grab what light the taller trees let slip past their evergreen greed. A dark hole in the trunk looked a beast’s mouth awaiting fool’s hand. I sighed, recalling Penn’s instruction. ‘At the first tree hollow you spy, dare reach in hand’.
One supposed the Lairds of the Clockmakers simply decided what they would have done, and later at their leisure gave lordly wave, declared to a servant ‘see that it so happened’. Easy enough to arrange details long after the adventure, when time’s doors and world’s peace permitted. Why could we all not order our lives thus?
I stepped over the rope barrier, walked to the tree. The hole was high; I’d have to reach in without looking in. Spadassin suspicions narrated all a trusting hand might find. A poisoned needle. A mysterious note. A mousetrap. Another hand. Or a velvet bag of emeralds. That last seemed the least likely. But I am no cynic. Several times in life I have reached into mystery and found treasure. I reached now.
“Sir, po-leese stay ahn the path,” admonished a voice. Well, of course.
I turned. There in the trees stood a man in matching shirt and trousers of dark blue. A black belt of strange tools set about his waist. He wore a round cap with brim shiny as jet.
“Left my things in this tree,” I explained.
He approached, taking his time. One of the tools at his belt was a truncheon, shiny black as his hat brim. A spot of tin on his shirt confirmed authority.
“Whad’ja leave?” asked the man. No great difficulty comprehending his speech. An accent less troublesome than French. “And why’dja put it thayre?”
I reached in, pulled forth what fingers found. A soft bundle I displayed to this watchman.
“Personal items a gentleman doesn’t wish pickpocketed,” I declared. “Nor aught I’d rejoice to see fall to the floor should I make the error of joining drink to dance.” Excellent explanation. Clear English, clear logic. I wondered what the bag held. Too light to hold coin.
The watchman frowned, measured me up, then down. I considered what he’d see. Just myself, a big sweaty citizen in feathered hat, common chain mail vest, rapier at side. Scuffed leather boots. Tailored pants, at least. His breeches looked fashioned to fit two fence posts.
The watchman was near tall as I, broad shouldered, a swag bag of a belly overlapping his belt. That strange tool belt fascinated me. Small cylinders of menace. A leather holster just at that side and angle I’d place sword. Pocket pistol? A pair of delicate steel manacles waiting prisoner.
He studied me as I him. “Are yah guest, or are yah staff?” he puzzled.
“I am a guest of the fair,” I declared. More truth than lie, thayre.
“Ri-ight,” he said, considering. “Well, y’all need to read thuh signs.” He spat. Not in insult, just brooding meditation. “Don’t no one nevah payh no ‘tention to them dang signs. Back on the path, po-leese.”
I returned to the path, continued with steps that declared I belonged in this sun, this shadow. The watchman remained behind, doubting my right to exist in this world. When I passed beyond his gaze and the path’s bend, I beheld a greater path, booths, tents and strolling crowds. The fair proper. A bench of painted wood offered itself. I sat, studied the far future.
The people of the future wore bright silk wings, and carved horns upon foreheads. Flower crowns with ribbons, and leather jerkins patched with tin medallion and feather. They carried swords at side, and babies upon backs. Glowing circles about their necks, and bits of rusty steel upon forearm and shins. They sported kilts and African scarves, sailor’s canvas pants and gentleman’s coats, priestly gowns and professorial cloaks. Their children danced, darted and whirled exact as children of earlier eras; only with faces painted with stars and flowers glittering with powdered gold and silver.
Beneath these costumes, the souls of the future wore bodies of all colors and dimensions. Skins pale as Irish colleens, else coffee-and-milk complexions of Mediterranean climes, else red-brown as the natives of my New Jersey. I saw skins blue-black as wet jet. Met eyes shaped as almonds, else slanted as Chinese cats, round and white as frighted horses. Fat bodies abounded, and impossibly tall creatures striding with giraffe steps among their shorter b
rethren. The future passing before me was a river representing every tributary of humanity. Just the fashioning of hair was a thing to make one gape. Locks of blue and green and pink, curled black tangles, else hair leached of all color to become moon-silver, or reddened to a sinister tint of blood. A fellow sauntered past with hair shaped into spikes, so that others must dart aside or be harpooned.
No choice but to throw back head and laugh. I sat in the worst place in the world to judge the future. For surely at this fair no one passing before me went about their daily business, nor wore their daily work clothes nor bore a face of daily thought. Well, I must see beyond costumes to the person within. A spadassin art, in truth.
And if I had perched upon some horse trough beside a busy street of this future time, watching the people stride and ride and idle by, I might have seen only what reminded of my own time, missed all that was truly new. Looked into the mirror, not out the window, as Penn warned. Perhaps this mad fair removed dross of daily context from the souls, making judgement of the reality possible.
Excepting I didn’t come to judge souls. I came for the daily dross. What taxes did the commons pay? What risk did a man run by leaping upon a bench and shouting ‘down with the king’? Who tilled the fields, and what share did they receive in the harvest? How safe were the streets by night? When wars were declared, what voice was given to those who’d do the fighting? How went the sunset, sunrise cycle of ten thousand souls to feed their own, while keeping from being fed upon by ten thousand others?
I focused upon one couple in the crowd, as a wolf might select one deer, ignoring the rest of the herd. Behold a young man pushing a cart with tiny wheels. A chair where a child sat goggling at fair and sky, same as I. His woman bore a circlet of paper and silk flowers upon her pinned hair. She wore trousers with the legs cut entire away. Plump brown legs, with a circle of ink about left ankle. A single cloth bound tight about breasts. Young marrieds, I decided. No rings upon fingers. No servant following to care for the babe. Too poor, perhaps. Unless in the future none served another, save in love? But in my heart I doubted. These were not the faces of Utopia.
The man’s face looked browned by sun, lined by care. He wore a sleeveless white cotton shirt, sweat darkened cloth beneath the arms. Tattered breeches of cotton serge, poorly tailored. He glanced at a booth selling sausage and beer, licked lips. Reached into pocket, frowning at what he found. The woman checked the babe. Wiping sweat from brow, pushing the falling circlet out her eyes. The babe began to fuss. She bent down, offered it rattles and a pink bottle.
Behold a young couple come to the fair, determined to enjoy themselves, escape the daily cares of work and parenthood, over-thin pockets.
Someone sat beside me, taking the far end of our bench. A fellow in patched and slashed leather jerkin, hat jangling with dangling silver ornaments, feathered bangles. Bright sword at side. He labored to pull off a shiny black boot, then shook it. Out tumbled a pebble. I eyed the man, the boot, the pebble. He looked a piratical dandy.
He replaced boot. Reached to pocket, drew forth something flat, black, long as his hand. Began to tap and poke away. It glowed with inner light. Surely this was an electricality. I leaned towards him, fascinated.
“Do you mind?” he asked, not looking at me.
“Apologies,” I sighed. Returned to the young couple. Well, they were arguing now. Not in shouts, but in curt exchange, eyes careful not to meet. They were tired, I realized. Circles under eyes spoke of nights without sleep, days without rest. Their daily life did not pass easy. And so today they’d vowed to have fun at the fair; and found it a hot trek through a loud crowd with a cranky child, past tents of over-priced beer.
‘Your boots are too high,” said the man beside me. He didn’t look up from his electricality as he spoke. Did he speak to me? I looked to my boots. They seemed correct height. Reaching to mid-calve, if you wish to know. Breech’s cuffs tucked inside. Entirely proper style. Well, for my time.
“Also your chain mail is made of steel rings too fine for anything before 1870, by which time no one has any interest in making chain mail. And your hat is a felt and leather abomination. No one ever wore such a hat. Not on stage or off camera. And your sword? By Excalibur, Anduril and Gram twice forged, what is that supposed to be?”
“A rapier?” I asked, doubting of a sudden.
“Nonsense,” snorted the man. “Too long, too much of an edge. What you have there is a ‘Spada Ropera’ mutated to saber length. Useless in a fight, for all the dents and stains you’ve banged into it with a brick. You’d be spending all day swinging it about.”
I wanted to argue. He gave no chance. “Look at that fellow there,” he growled. Pointed at a personage in long flat coat, frog lenses over his eyes, top hat as chimney for his head. “What the hell time is that supposed to be from?”
The goggled fellow caught this question. He answered with two upraised fingers. I smiled at these old friends. They’d greeted me in many a foreign land, no matter clime or time.
The young mother and father turned from one another, arms crossed. He stared at the beer stand. The woman bent down to the baby, offered it the same tired toy. The child had sticky tears; the woman bright shiny tears. Her man turned gaze upon them both. Then reached, gently adjusted the paper-flower circlet upon her hair. Setting it straight.
“No one keeps to period authenticity anymore,” sighed the person beside me. “Fairies and orcs are the least of it. I saw a Vulcan in star-fleet uniform. A vampire zombie in black cape carrying a bird cage. You don’t want to know what was in the cage. Viking Elves! Wizard adolescents! Do they even know what the word ‘renaissance’ means?”
“Means ‘rebirth’,” I offered. I knew what it meant. I had no idea what he meant. Nor cared. He was a tedious bore, a species beyond all space and time. I watched the young couple embrace. What had ended their quarrel? Some cue, some gesture I’d missed. Something subtle and wonderful, for sure. They went on, holding hands.
“Look, I’ll give you fifty bucks for that Spada Ropera,” said the piratical dandy.
I stood. Time to wander about. Explore the beer tent. Flee the piratical dandy bore. Follow Lalena, who’d just strode past, hair bright blue and green.
Chapter 28
The Knell that Summons Thee
A peculiarity of the family: any one might remind of all their kindred, when by mere description they held naught in common. Tall or short, snake-lithe or stilted as mechanical doll, fair of face or dark as storm shadow, each called to mind the last one met. Some ineffable, invisible quality bound them as citizens of a secret nation.
I considered this truth, and realized I could be describing all the crowd about me now. Who knew but the hidden clans of my time had overrun the earth, till now every stranger on the path was tied to me by blood and ancient marriage? A wondrous idea, that the peoples of the future had become family. Bound in love and quarrel through connections invisible to a clay-man revenant of the cold past.
Then again, perhaps the crowds of my own time had all along made a secret nation of brothers and sisters. And I’d needed to gaze out the window of the future before I saw it so, understanding my past. Perhaps all the magic of Lalena’s tribes lay in the mere awareness of bonds between all beings. These thoughts made me stare into each stranger’s face, wondering. Hellfire, anyone here could be my children’s children’s children.
A drunken fool in bishop’s robes passed by, spilling beer on my boots. I cursed him, losing the mystic joy of connection to humanity. He cursed back, losing whatever holy aura he’d owned. I snarled, he snarled. Then he backed away. Wise of him. A spadassin deprived of mystic connection is no soul to cross. I returned to observing Lalena.
I knew her for my wife, though she’d scissored half her locks away. A paint box left in rain had been poured upon the remaining strands, creating streaks of greens, pinks and blues. She wore leather bands about her breasts, and a ragged leather skirt that showed me enough thigh as to require our marriage in m
ore righteous climes, were we not married already. An axe in sheath rested upon her pretty back. I did not know the axe. Ah, but I knew the back, each separate bump of spine, that dimple just there where buttocks begin.
She looked a forest savage. And stood next to Kariel, costumed as fallen angel. The white dove wings now sparkling with red sequins, waving black ribbons. Farewell, chaste farm-girl dress. Kariel now sported tight red leather bands about her breasts, with matching scarlet skirt so short it revealed vines in gold glitter that bravely climbed her thighs, near reaching Mt. Venus before disappearing from view. A long pointed tail twitched from under the skirt. Final touch: two devil horns poking from out the sea waves of hair so oft carved by Chatterton upon table tops. My table tops, devil take him.
The two creatures bent heads together, whispering. Contriving strategy, no doubt. And if you think I rushed up to my wife, you know naught of rules in the field. When an ally is in disguise, or hiding in the trees, one does not wave and shout in greeting. No, I turned from these two knowing they had good reason for their whorish costuming, the idiocy of their behavior. For sure they had good reason.
I approached the beer booth, observed the steps of ceremony. Supplicants to Bacchus beseeched for beer, then tendered a prayer token. This was examined by the priestess, who returned it. The supplicant then departed the shrine, blessed with beer. The truly devout left with beer and sausage on a spike. I sighed, lacking the token of faith. Then thought of the bag left me by Penn, Laird of the Clockmakers.
Within I found a folded paper of exquisite printing. Attached to it a square note inscribed ‘this be your ticket’. A bronze key of sea-worn time, with note: ‘its a key’. As if I wouldn’t have known. Then two cards of flexible material. One astounded with an exquisite cameo of my face. The name and birth date beneath it. They had the year off by centuries, but the picture exactly captured my charming visage. A gummy note declared: this is you. False Utopian identification?
The Clockwork Tartan: Quest of the Five Clans Page 20