A hallway ending with a locked door. But keys jangled my pocket to counter every lock. How this night shone with favorable stars! Would make a wary man suspect fortune’s intent. Another stair, another locked door. I opened soft to see a large room of wealth and ornament. Surely Black’s private chamber. Fireplace purred, a great warm cat of flame. Before it stood Satan. I smiled in recognition. My once-friend Dealer, in scarlet tights and doublet, sporting a horned cap, silk mask. A red rope of a pointed tail. He stared at the painting above the mantel. Dealer always studied just so, hands at back, face thrust forwards into the storm-wind of art and style.
I entered the room, closing the door behind. Locked it. Satan turned, started. As actors should when Death takes stage, scythe at shoulder. But then he returned gaze to the painting. “Mister Streng,” he drawled. I understood. He gave Death a name, to declare form and limitation. Ah, but wherefore should he fear? Had he not traded his soul to live? Death came and stood beside Satan, shoulder to shoulder, and together they contemplated the portrait.
It was large, near life-size for the subject. A young girl on the path to womanhood, breasts still more pointed than the half-spheres of adult. One could tell by the round cheeks, plump thighs and sparse hairs to the groin, that but a year or two past she skipped rope, played chase on the green. Red burned her hair and alive, more living fire than the flame in the hearth, or the fires below the earth. Flames from hell, roaring up now, embracing me.
I stared at a young Elspeth. Well, Dealer had mocked me in my chains, telling me of this portrait. Declaring from the safety of the gaol hallway, how she’d been a spy for my enemies, and Black’s mistress first. And indeed her ghost had confessed to me in dream the truth to some of it. To some of it.
Granted, Black bore me such malice it were believable he’d commissioned this work just to mock my ghost. Why should he not? He owned a flowing river of misbegot wealth. The man must spend it on something, else piled coins would pour out his windows to the profit of the poor again. I searched for a mole near the navel. There, just where I’d oft played. I sighed. Poor El.
“Go away, Streng,” said Dealer. “You don’t know at what you leer.”
“No?” Death whispered.
“You see a naked girl,” sighed Dealer, thinking me a dull bully. Which I was. Just not the one he supposed. “You don’t understand what you see.” He sniffed. “The reality is invisible to you.”
Ah, here came a lecture upon Art. No bore’s droning, but genuine opinion. Dealer was a master of composition and sign. He delighted to explain, not in mere pride but in joy to share. Only the sheer generosity of that sharing ever wearied the ear, over-filled the ear’s cup. I felt a rush of love, rage and affection for my lost friend, just as I had when listening to Stephano’s lonely babble in the carriage.
“Oh?” Death whispered.
“No,” he affirmed. “This is a soul captured. Once it was light shining upon a young girl. Lying vulnerable upon rich sheets. Her ephemeral glow has been transposed to paint and canvas. Captured, and so a moment of the soul as well. Look at the eyes, man. They are wide open, pupils dark. Green windows showing desire, and fear of that desire. She is a girl-creature whose body has changed, shifted about her soul. She lays frightened of what she now is. Her breasts terrify her, so she thrusts them forwards. Her legs want, and in fear of that want she twists them restless about the sheets. Hair unbound, mouth unbound. Freed to be a naked vision of herself, she becomes a soul unbound. Behold a girl captured in light.”
Death tilted his head, considered this testimony. Rendered final judgement. “No.”
“Pffff,” said Dealer. Then, yielding to curiosity, “What then do you see, except something to fuck?”
Death gave reply. In verse of Blake, of course.
"Love seeketh only self to please,
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite."
Dealer had been standing at ease. Now he stiffened, ceased to breathe. Whereas the fire flickered brighter, suddenly interested. Or perhaps my eyes were of a sudden more inclined to flame. Certainly I felt flames rising through the floor, igniting what smoldered behind my eyes, within my heart. Fire; so close a cousin to desire. Clan and sept, to ire.
And yet Death stood at ease, fingers tapping a tune on his scythe. In no hurry, and his turn to declaim.
“I see a young girl,” said Death. “Stripped naked before a painter and her patron and god knows who else. Told to lie still in the bed where she is probably taken nightly, willing or no. Where you see object d’art, I see a person. You note her fear, but mistake the cause. She is already wise to her body and her desires. She was born with that wisdom, as flower to the sun. What she fears stands before the canvas, where you and I stand now. She fears the change of body turns her to an object of art, an object of rape, a thing of use to cruel hands and minds. Of naming as thing and whore and tool and spy and obsession, and no more be a person.”
Very slowly did Dealer turn to me. Ah, no. Turned to Death.
“Pierrot,” he whispered. Well, then he shared in that part of the play? One could guess his role. Black knew me well as any; but Dealer had the eye for detail. No doubt he’d been recruited to train the impostor. Fascinating lessons of ‘No, Gray always slurped his soup. Don’t walk so straight. Hunch forwards as a bear, two legs or four. And scratch your privates as you talk.’ I could have learned more from Dealer about the idea of myself, than from twenty mirrors.
I removed the mask, threw back the hood. Grinned. I’d need mirror to affirm I grinned so well as Death. Still, I’ve seen corpses enough to grasp the idea. I drew lips far back, presented teeth, eyes wide. Dealer broke for the door. Predictable. I grabbed his trailing tail, near pulling him from his pants. Then tripped him with the scythe handle. As he attempted to rise I kicked him flat again.
“That isn’t El’s soul, you twit,” I noted. I put aside the scythe, drew a handier knife. Dealer whimpered. But I reached up not down, to slice along the sides of the canvas. Dealer opened mouth to scream for guards to come rescue art. I pointed knife to his own mortal canvas; he silenced.
“Elspeth’s soul was never bound,” I declared, hoping it true. I returned to the picture. “And if you’d ever had the love of beauty enough to see her spirit, it would not be laying on damned pink sheets. It’d be in the kitchen singing the sun’s light, else when she sewed by the rain, fed scraps to stray dogs in the alley. Took a basket of bread and flowers to sad neighbors. Made Stephano feel he was a brother. Made me think myself man, no beast.”
With that, I peeled the canvas from the frame, rolled it to a scroll, fed it to the fire. The flames brightened to the red-gold of a colleen’s hair. Smoke rose, and I breathed in, hoping for scent of warm skin, kitchen soap. I coughed, Dealer cursed. I bent down, lifted him from the floor by his scarlet ruffles.
“Pierrot,” he repeated, but he didn’t believe.
When last we’d talked, I’d been chained to a wall. He’d kept his distance. Now we could be close. I put my face to his. “You wouldn’t enter my cell, so I’ve come to yours.” He paled at that. Not a fact any but he and I would know.
I shook him, though he trembled enough by his own. “Tell me, old friend. What does Black plot with my happy face? Why all this work to tarnish the name of the dead?”
He started to babble. I slapped him, so his devil’s mask flew aside. Revealing man’s eyes bulging in terror. A joy to see. El wouldn’t have approved. She yearned for me to turn eyes to Heaven, foreswear Earth’s strife. For which I’d burned her portrait first, lest her eyes behold from Heaven what I intended pouring upon the thirsty Earth.
She’d always returned a kind smile to Dealer’s flirtation. Said it was a lonely life, living among beautiful pictures. But it was what he chose. This was what he chose. I as well, I suppose. I shook Dealer again, for what pleasure remained. But now he’d collected himself.
“It isn�
��t about you,” Dealer hissed. Anger gave his voice strength. “It was never about you, you arrogant, posturing shite. Green and the Magisterium wanted a failed uprising, to shift power to civil courts. Black and the Aldermen just worked to be free of king’s law. When you died it set it all back. Then they happened on the Pierrot. They made a fable of your return, convinced the mad King to grant you pardon. Your double shall lead a weak uprising in the name of the New Charter. The King will be blamed for your pardon, the Charterists hung for treason. Magisterium and Aldermen’s Council sweep up the pieces, and royal prerogative and worker’s rights finish together.”
I wanted to argue. Of course it was about me. I am the Seraph. And yet, the business made more sense as plot against King and Law, than slight to Rayne Gray’s ghost. Humbling, but there it is. The last crackle of canvas settled to ash and smoke. What else to ask, before the inevitable dramatic interruption? “How did the Pierrot enter this grand conspiracy?”
Dealer took breath, recovering, considering. He eyed the door. He also foresaw inevitable interruption, drama and rescue. At least a chance to dart off-scene. Black would come, or Streng or guards or maids with mops. Until then, best chat with me.
“Black noticed Pierrot in a play. Thought he was you, at first. Though up close he’s older and thinner. Wan of face as a ghost.” Dealer looked aside. “Something wrong about that creature. Day by day he became you. More witchcraft than theatre-craft. It frighted everyone. Particularly Green.”
I could have shared recent frights of transformation, but declined. A shame. I would have delighted to share my recent adventures with this man. He’d have explained much of the meaning I’d overlooked. One can see the performance, yet miss the message. “What play was Pierrot in?” I asked. “What role?” No, I had no reason to ask. It was just something that interested me.
Dealer actually laughed. “You are the real Gray returned. We thought you torn apart by a mob. Waked you even, with honest toasts. Well, Pierrot had no leading role. Mere Cassio.”
“Julius Caesar?” I recalled the role, a bit of line. “Poor man. I know he would not be a wolf.”
“No, no, that is Cassius. Cassio, of Othello.” He took a breath, quoted, ‘To be now a sensible man, by and by a fool.”
“And presently a beast,” I recalled. We both stilled. Remembering nights when he’d come to dine. Inevitable but we’d pull out Shakespeare, choose our lines to recite by light of fire and lamp. What parts had we done last in friendship? Ah. Bits of Macbeth from me. Over-flourished Romeo from Dealer, ever an eye to the balcony of Juliette’s breasts. But what had Elspeth recited? I’d been drunk, could only recall my wonder that the words so moved her. I recalled tears in her eyes, shining by the captured light.
“There's rosemary,” I recalled her saying. “That's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies, that's for thoughts. There's fennel for you, and columbines. There's rue for you, and here's some for me…” How did the rest go? Why had it moved her so?
Dealer finished the quote. “O, you must wear your rue with a difference. There's a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they withered all.”
Dealer and I granted the shared memory its due of silence, neither of us giving glance to the fire, the girl lost within. Or freed within. At length I released his shirt. “You have an eye for detail, and for secrets. Where does Black keep his ledger books?”
He straightened his outraged horns, preened his insulted tail. “No idea.” He eyed the door. The moment of recalled friendship was over. For me, well over. Enough of the man.
I put a friendly hand to his shoulder, drew him close for dear friend. I pressed knife-point to his friend’s cheek, began to cut an ‘F’. Not for Friend but Fraud. As well it stood for False, and Failed. He lashed with his fists, making the F crooked. No fault of mine.
“Scream and I truly hurt you,” I remarked. He held still, blood streaming down his cheek. I pushed him away. “I’ve no time. You’ve no time. Trade. Your life, for Black’s books.”
Dealer staggered, took out handkerchief, mopped blood from face. He eyed doors and windows. Time past for guards to hear our struggle, rescue the brave connoisseur. Death growled. He flinched.
“How do I know you won’t kill me after?” he demanded.
“My word is good,” I pointed out. “You are the treacher here, Satan. Lest we forget.”
He spat at that. I sighed. Meet a man wearing your coat while riding your horse and jingling your coin purse. Now call him thief. Like enough he will bristle with outrage, cheeks reddening at the slander. How easily we accept the reality of ourselves, but not the honest naming.
Then he laughed. “An eye for detail and secrets? Best say, I’m not blind as some.” He waved the bloody handkerchief towards the mantel, where the ragged circle of canvas remained. Within the circle, a square panel inset with colored squares.
Well, he had a point. I had not noticed a cupboard hid behind the picture. Mind elsewhere, I suppose. Freeing Elspeth’s spirit, recalling the mole beside her navel. I put away knife, kept scythe handy lest he break for the door again. I approached. Six colored squares, each of a different color. Red, Gold, Yellow, Blue, Silver, Bronze.
Tedious. A puzzle box. No doubt when wrongly solved, it fired a pistol, rang a bell, released a tiger. As said, a prosperous villain can only spend so much of his money on oriental rugs and gold plates.
I nodded to Dealer. “Lead on, Pandora.”
Dealer mopped his bleeding cheek. “How would I know the trick? Do you suppose Black opens this before his guests and the chamber maid?”
That did seem doubtful. I stepped close, considering. Six squares separated from the panel. No doubt they moved when pushed inwards. A small handle to the side. Push the correct square, say ‘sesame’ and it opens sans tiger or gunshot.
I looked for scratches upon the squares, to tell me which were most touched. Nothing so easy. I sighed, reached to tap the gold. I prepared myself for tigers and pistol-shots.
“Oh, get out of the way, you clumsy bear,” sighed Dealer. Just the tone and phrase he’d used in days past, when I studied some addition to his inventory, attempting to judge form and color, age and composition. Meekly did I move my leonine self aside. He stepped before the fire, reached up, pushed the red square. It moved inwards. He did the same with yellow and blue. Then tugged the handle. The cabinet clicked open.
“Ha,” I laughed. “The paint colors that mix to Black.”
“Exactly,” said Dealer. He pulled open the panel, reached in, extracted a pistol. Turned to me. Death blinked. No, I blinked. Suddenly I was not Death, merely someone about to die. A position I’ve held before. Still, a reduction in rank. A deserved demotion for failing guard-duty.
“Rayne Gray,” drawled Dealer. “Our Seraph. Spadassin. Killer, butcher, bully. Self-styled hero to the downtrodden,” he recited, naming me names. I did not bristle at a one, nor ever will. “Do you know how weary I am of you?” I had no idea. I considered the pistol. French, double-barreled. Two cocks, two triggers, two shots. He aimed at my chest. Dealer’s hand shook, but not remarkably. We stood quite close. I watched his fingers twitch, anxious for tongue to finish formalities.
“I spent years enduring your ownership of the most precious thing of grace and beauty I have ever beheld,” he declaimed. Straightened his backbone to align it with honest rectitude, prior to my murder. “I endured, because we were friends.” He mopped the bleeding F on his cheek. “Good friends. And then in your idiot, childish, meaningless feud with Black you murdered her.”
Touching that he acknowledged past friendship. Holding the gun he had no reason to flatter. “Stephano killed Elspeth,” I told him. “I mentioned so, I believe.” Dealer took no note, his attention on himself. He was performing a scene writ to regain his mirror’s applause. A hard thing, to have flawed soul and honest eye.
“Liar,” he spat. “Murderer. You learned what everyone already knew. That she spied for Black. You realized she only e
ver tolerated your brute person to serve Black. So you cut her down. It’s what you do, butcher.” Well, he required me to be a beast. It justified his betrayal, his spite, his coveting. No doubt he’d practiced these words putting on his devil costume.
“Is there nothing left here but hate?” I asked. And yes, I spoke aloud to us both. For even as I spoke, I watched the steadying of the pistol, the narrowing of the eyes. “We were friends.” My final appeal to Blake.
“I grew angry with my friend,
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.”
He shook head. “All love I had left, you just burned in front of me.” He thrust the pistol forwards, pulled upon triggers.
“The cocks are only half-set,” I explained. “You must thumb them fully back.” He stared down at the mechanism, thumbs fumbling. Smiled as one ‘clicked’ full back. I swung the scythe. With rapier drawn I might have sliced surgically across his wrist. He might have lost the hand. But I held no scalpel, only a farm-tool for cutting swaths of grain.
I’ve killed with saber and axe. Never beheaded a friend before. Not a perfect cut. Ragged towards the end. Past bone the slice slowed. But once begun, I did not feel it right to stop. All said, that was a tool of excellent edge. I watched the neck fountain as the body collapsed. I’d seen that before. A living man’s a liquid thing. We are founts set to run at proper time. The head thumped, rolled, came to rest as any round object weary of rolling. F now branded the cheek for Fin.
Ah, Dealer. I looked down and trembled. Was I become such a beast? Whatever words anger shouted, my heart had hoped at act’s end the last lines would be of pardon. And it would, but for gun-click and scythe and moment’s decision. F would have been Forgive. Him for me, me for him. And last and best, he’d forgive himself, then I’d do same for me.
The Moon Tartan: Quest of the Five Clans Page 17