“Change comes to all, Laird Mac Mur. We of the red clan never feared the sun, no more than those of your blood worried to sit warm and dry by fire’s side. Are we not all of the true family? We are who we wish. But if it pleases you, know that of late we choose to take our fair share of sun’s light. It cannot lessen the share of others.”
Took a breath. “Cousins, be welcome in the Hall of Gathering.”
* * *
The folk of the family were most truly themselves when gathered together. Not a rule for other peoples. In that difference lies a key to Lalena’s race. In the company of their kindred, they preferred faces to masks.
For us of ordinary clay, reality runs screaming in the opposite direction. Baptisms, balls, feast days, weddings or wakes; these are ceremonies of stilted speech, cautious moves, polite nods, practiced laughs. With riot and resentment ever threatening to pour forth from the too-filled cup, the over-accumulation of memory.
Not that her family did not quarrel and fight, mock and deceive. They merely wore their real faces while doing so. As the play of the family went: We tumbled and tangled hearts and bodies, furious in our love. We feuded and laughed, each of us all the world to each.
I stood ignored, observing the delight the folk took in one another; the shy glances, the sly threats, the incomprehensible jests, interminable circling and embracing and standing back affronted. Proud-grinning Mac Sanglair, sea-deep Mac Mur, and mercurial Mac Tier… Watching, I knew myself a creature of clay sitting to table with porcelain princes. And by God, I have never felt so before, not in the presence of two Georges, three Cardinals, a gaggle of princelings and a dreary host of lord and ladyships.
Chatterton to the rafters again, playing the chanter from his pipes. Astride a beam, long legs dangling, piping soft melody down upon us like summer rain. Beside him perched the aberration, singing in time if not in words. A kind of mumbled purr of a song, thrumming down. In its song I caught sorrow for its lost kin, and joy in the gathering it beheld below. I understood that it wished to remain distant, because it knew itself separate, and yet it was happy, for it shared in the presence of family. Chatterton and it were much alike. Creatures apart, but not alone.
The Sea Clan Mac Mur came varied as the Mac Tier. Some near-tall as the old blind-man, others child-sized with features of adult mien. Some showed scaled patterns to skin, others flushed fair and pink, else dark as old sea-timber. Many wore webbing between fingers, as gloves for solemn service. Eyes large and dark, ears small and round. Yet one caught in those faces the common features of the family. As well, in quickness of move, sureness of step. Several bore swords, others knives. I judged them dangerous. Fair enough. I judged me dangerous.
The sea-folk gifted the table with foods and flowers, fish and oysters, green-bottled wines with no faintest touch of sea to the taste. The quiet vampiress Rowena fetched baskets of apples and pears from the unlikely valley beyond the castle, placed these before us with a laugh that shook the hall. First I’d heard her voice. I’d thought her a solemn silent governess to Lalena. She kept habit of eyeing me in warning: harm not the child or I eat you. Now she threw cap back, set hair free, and tugged a merman in scaled loincloth to swim the music. For swim they did; and if they looked beings of different worlds, the graceful match of their steps revealed two hearts set to a shared beat.
The Moon Clan lit a great fire in the hearth, therein set spits of mutton and chicken to send wafts of salted, peppered paradise through the hall. Weary of ship’s rations, I forgave their violent introduction. Mattie and Billy climbed stairs, returned with the prisoner of a great harpsichord. They bore it easy as an empty travel trunk. The blonder sat to the keys attempting Bach; the darker set to tune the ancient works within. Which by rights should make a clatter of dead notes and shouts. But I listened in amaze as they wove melody from the struggle. In impossible harmony to Chatterton’s rafter-piping.
Then came sound so subtle it took seconds to realize it already chilled the spine. There at the stairway-top stood the Minotaur, violin to his ox’s chin. He stood in his barn-animal oaf’s stance and pulled from out catgut and wood an angelic reply to mortal anguish, a celebration of each day’s joy. I stared open-mouthed. It could not be, that such meaning could come out such a brute.
When a choir of mer-folk began to sing, I shivered, and sheathed sword in surrender. I could not glare on guard in presence of such joy and beauty. I found a pewter cup last washed a century past, and poured the wine of the sea-people. Then I the mad outsider toasted their coming. My tongue feared the bitter tang of saltwater, found something closer to French hills than Atlantic waters. Burgundy, perhaps. Sea-wrack prize, else just wise purchase.
There came dancing, came feasting. Music and laughter, loud tales in different tongues. Soft song in layered harmony. Couples twirling, skirts swirling, partners laughing, toasts echoing. Lalena bustling up and down, kilt rippling with legs half-seized by the music. I recalled our wedding dance. Ha, I’d supposed her a clumsy girl, bearing woman’s breasts and buttocks like sacks of flour. Then we’d danced. I found in my arms a woman in full command of body and tempo. I sought her eyes now to say, let us wander away alone and continue our dance…
Alas, tonight she served Duty. To her clan, not her mate. She seized my hand neither for dance nor bed, but diplomacy. To smile by her side, pleasant consort nodding greeting to each separate newcomer. I sighed, acquiesced. It offered chance to relax, quaff wine, study people more interesting than Aldermen with tariff proposals, guild-elders proposing incomprehensible alliances; whiskey-drenched dukes poking a finger into my chest, explaining war and women.
A figure passed along the upper balcony. Light of feet; I caught no step. Hood covering hair, face turned away. But head tilted down. In thought, perhaps, else considering the dance below. A small hand finger-traced the balcony-railing as they passed. A woman, I decided. In strange cloak, disguising exact shape. Mac Tier? Did more lurk within the castle? Or more family. Perhaps entire clans would arrive, down from the sky, up from the earth. Out the very flames of the hearth. I looked to Lalena to ask. She engaged in fevered Gaelic with the Laird of the Mac Mur, with the Vixen interposing impassioned interjection. Polyglot show-offs.
No eye but mine noted the newcomer pass into halls beyond. So I gave a nod to all ignored by all, refilled my cup and followed after.
Chapter 8
What Wolves Won’t Do
We retraced the candled path of the funeral march. The guiding tapers now guttering low. I took out rapier, and with exact slash murdered each wick I passed. It made pleasant practice. Besides, I abhor the wasting of light. Snick, a flame died to the left. Snack, a flame perished to the right. The figure ahead took no notice. Pity. Imagine walking down a night-shadowed hall, realizing some trailing presence extinguished each candle with the twitch of blade. Frightening. Not that I wished to frighten. But after days playing the dull outsider, I felt rebellious. My turn to strike a pose. Perhaps I’d utter something cryptic. Who to say my blood held less magic than a race of shape-shifting, sea-dwelling, vampiric dream-walking masters of music, art and artifice?
Alas, the figure sensed my intent, stubbornly refused a glance back. I sighed, drained the wine-cup, reached to place it upon an ancient throne. In the seat hovered two eyes, emerald windows to bright hell. I cursed, dropped cup, leaped back.
The thing blinked once, slow. Not a bit alarmed. Well, it was a great cat. No aberration lost between forms, but the real thing. At least in appearance. Sitting pert, tail curled about feet, considering me. It gave the cup a sniff, shook head to say shame. For what? Excess of wine, or the lack thereof?
We considered one another. The creature sat so very dignified. At length I felt my silent stare gauche. “Good sir,” I said, bowing low, “whether we be in-laws or mere man and beast, I bid your whiskers welcome to my castle.” Fine words to a cat on a throne. I considered, added more. “As no doubt you bid me welcome to what you consider your castle, being, as we so name your kind, a c
at.”
In answer, the creature shuttered the hell-window eyes, then leaped into candle-snuffed dark. Gone. I took deep breath, attempting to clear my wine-muddled mind. Strong drink, that of the sea-folk. Or France anyway. I looked ahead. The mysterious figure I followed had passed into the courtyard, stood silhouetted by the doorway. I perceived she’d worn no cloak. She’d worn wings, folded close upon her back. Now in open air she opened them, as the awakened sleeper raises arms high to grasp the morning.
Chatterton’s angel, I thought. She hadn’t wings when we met before. Maybe she was a Mac Tier, shifting in and out of fantastical bird-form, as the mood and moon pleased her. Whatever her nature, I felt sure it was the same creature. The mysterious personage who’d delivered mysterious advice on my mysterious wedding day.
I hurried after, in cheerful desire to achieve rapprochement between Chatterton and his obsession. Poor star-crossed creatures. A few cups of wine, I become the romantic. Out the door into cold twilight, I looked about. Of course she was gone. I continued to the courtyard of roses and graves, rapier at ready. Not in fear of angels; but dusk-shadows of a haunted castle stirred round about. The mist rising from old graves looked to be reaching out hands.
Ahead on a slab of black stone sat a figure, wingless. No angel, but man armed with pistol. A flash-pan antique, large and heavy. Perfectly serviceable when pointed to one’s head, exactly where the figure placed it. His head, not mine.
Of course he heard me approach. At such time every sight and sound sharpens. Even for a man not sharing his humanity with his wolf. He heard and straightened, prepared to squeeze trigger.
Well, I have attended this play before. Men in war grow weary of waiting to be shot. They determine to get the ceremony over and done. I never found words that persuaded to give dawn another try. I doubt such words have yet been said.
Still, this was young Master Howl. Kin to the folk now rejoicing family bonds in the castle. I recalled the morning’s solemn grave-side grief. Vixen, and Lalena and the Doe. Even the aberration now finding consolation in song. Therefore did I flick rapier-tip to the flash pan of the gun. Instead of bang and a cry, came only click and a snap. Act of amazing swordsmanship performed, I stepped forward and kicked the thing from his grasp.
Howl leaped for my throat. As I expected. One can picture some virgin to human complexity waiting to be thanked. The spadassin knows better. I stepped aside, struck with fist as he passed. Useless, the creature came carved of muscle, bone and rage. He struck back, sent me tumbling.
He stood shivering, face reshaping to muzzle, eyes slanting, ears sharpening to spear-points. Threw back head and howled to shiver every sheep for twenty leagues. That satisfied, he extended hands, re-forming fingers to claws forged in fires of rage.
But by then I had found his pistol, re-cocked it and stood, brushing myself off. Howling is a long silly business. I suspect real wolves save it for the party after the fight. His green-fire eyes stared at the pistol, at me, at the pistol. I considered as well.
One can see the paradox pausing us both. I’d stopped him from shooting himself, so he was going to tear me to pieces, so I was going to shoot him? A deep bell-tone of irony rang into the night.
“You make no sense,” Howl declared. His muzzle gave no faintest slur of lupine accent. How was that possible? “You will kill me to prevent me from killing myself?”
Ah, but note he chose to talk, not leap. I recalled he’d wanted to discuss life and meaning in our earlier confrontation. The man was tormented, seeking escape in violence and philosophy. Now he extended both arms. “Shoot, then, outsider. The family will think it murder. My cousin will renounce you, my clan share pieces of your still-screaming self.”
“Hardly murder to shoot someone’s knee,” I pointed out. Many a black mood has been driven away by a sound dose of agony. Or so I’ve heard, I’ve heard. But I did not fire. In truth, I felt the person before me was too much a thing of wonder to damage.
How easy it is to assume magic in book or fireside tale. But to witness the reality shakes mind and soul. I stood before a man turned into the shadow of a wolf. Astonishing as a symphony shouting music down from clouds. This man was an artist, molding form and nature into chimeric dream. I had as little wish to hurt him as fire at the Pieta.
Therefore did I sheath rapier, lay pistol upon convenient headstone. Why? Well, the gun’s powder pan had spilled, leaving it a chunk of wood and iron. And rapier makes poor weapon against a creature designed for corps à corps. I had a knife close by. Ah, also I was half-drunk.
So I sat upon the tomb of black stone, recalling the dinner-feast I’d attended with others of Howl’s family. Flower, and Brick, Lucy Dog of Mystery, and the old sailor Light. Good people all. And then that conversation with Chatterton’s angel among the graves of Melrose… I looked about for her now. Only night, only stars, only headstones.
“Is there a preference of the family for graveyard settings?” I asked.
The man sighed, shivered, gave himself human face. I wondered did that come simple as smiling, or difficult as backwards somersault? Howl did not sit. He began to pace. When he spoke, it came fast and low, a breathless rush of words.
“Cemeteries, tombs, chapels, churches, castles, ruins, abandoned houses, the roofs of cathedrals, the edges of cliffs, crossroads, bridges, city gates, mountain tops, the tops of trees, the bottoms of mines, the inner caves of the sea. By the light of gibbous moon, witches’ bonfire, foxfire or firefly, storm-light, ship’s lantern, altar-candle, cottage rush light, else the dungeon’s sputtering torch… my people forever seek proper settings for laughter and murder, for dance, for words and shouts and songs.”
He paced, easing soul-ache by bleeding words. “You must have seen. We make a host of theatrical flies trapped in amber, contemplating ourselves through eternity. We cannot escape each watching each. Ah, I would be no wolf if I could choose. I’d be a common outsider of dull clay like, like you. One who never came within a thousand leagues of my accursed family.”
He waved hands to the night sky, brushing at the tangling cobwebs of starlight. Then kicked a gravestone. I kept face solemn, nodding outwardly, within applauding as he strode the stage declaiming against theatre. I realized the powder pan had not spilled. No, it never held powder. He’d not meant to kill himself, nor feared I’d shoot him. A performance for the self, the night, the graves.
Perhaps enacted regularly. Perhaps whenever he despaired he sought some place of death, enacted an ending. I recalled a Lieutenant in the war with a habit under fire. He’d put finger to temple in sign of pistol, drop thumb for hammer. The enacting of suicide as anodyne to the pain of life.
Granted the Lieutenant had eventually scoured the brains from his skull with a shotgun. No more enacting but the act itself. I did not wish Howl to follow that path. The world needed creatures of magic. Damnation, would I could take the entire family marching as an army of wonder into Londonish. Teaching guilds and Magisters and Aldermen that the boundaries of life were greater than coin-purse and social title…
“You!” shouted Howl, making me jump, reach for knife. Mere rhetoric, I saw and relaxed. He ceased pacing, pointed at me. “When Vixen was seized by the Abomination, you leaped to her rescue. And you’re not even of the blood. While I snapped teeth from safety like a fool. And Doe, Doe! Finished the creature. I’m not a wolf. I’m a child hiding his face when frightened.” He ceased pacing, put hands to face. Whispered to the night-roses, “And I am always frightened.”
“Of what?” I asked. One couldn’t help but wonder. “You could break the average man over your knee without bothering to don your fur coat.”
He kicked a stone. “Of life. Of death. Of things.”
“Things with tentacles?”
He shook his head. Now he whispered low, foregoing drama. “Of my father. The Laird of the Mac Tier. He grins at me and I shake. He snarls at me and I cower. My own Da.” Howl’s hands reached up. He forced them down.
Fathers. Not a subjec
t I knew well. I longed for the wine and fire and mutton and women within the castle. I knew them. “A sensible opinion,” I tried. “Vixen says your father is mad.”
Howl looked affronted at this slight to the creature that terrorized him. Naturally. Family is all about love and hate, pride and pique, loyalty and resentment. I was outsider not for lack of supernatural ability, but for shear incomprehension of these people’s tangled hearts.
“My Da,” he intoned, arms spread wide to proclaim, “is the most frightful man in the world. The most terrifying being born. He is beyond madness and sanity. Not even a Mac Sanglair can stand before him. The Abomination would flee at his coming.”
I sighed. Other men’s knots are so easy to solve. Particularly those of the young. It’s only our own tangles that achieve Gordian status. I considered Master Howl, his fears and strengths as I would a weapon on a shop-bench, guessing mettle and temper.
“What do you know of wolves?” I asked.
Howl took hands from face, puzzled at the fool question.
“Know? I know everything. How not? I become a wolf,” he declared. He returned to pacing graves. “It came hard at first. The change-fire melting flesh and bone and soul. Now it is effortless. I become winter’s wolf. I am white teeth, the night-bright eyes of the hunter. I swim a sea of scents. Speed and strength in leg and heart. My nails are knives. I move through shadows noiseless, seeking blood.” He stopped to consider the glory. “Know of wolves? I myself am Wolf.”
“Yes, but would a wolf attack a six-foot madness of green fire and tentacle?” I inquired, looking about. One hoped talk of Abominations did not draw the creatures. Howl ceased pacing, tilted maned-head in sign my question summed to insect-buzz. I parried the look, riposted.
“You know right well, Master Howl. No wolf would approach such a great uncanny creature. It would turn tail. Howling, as it were.”
The man’s face shifted to muzzle, returned to mouth, rose and fell in waves seeking balance between warring forms. The changing made me queasy. I looked up to the night-sky, not for inspiration but to settle my stomach. I beheld stars shining through a curtain of rippling fairy-glow: the Northern Lights. Behold why the family built a castle in a cold waste of sea. To have this eldritch curtain for private stage prop.
The Moon Tartan: Quest of the Five Clans Page 6