The Moon Tartan: Quest of the Five Clans Read online

  Centuries ago a mysterious family of mad geniuses split into five clans; feuding, hiding, hoarding their secrets of fighting and art, magic and science. Now at the dawn of the mechanical 19th century, only the five clans united can hold back the blood-red tide of industrial apocalypse.

  Unless they dive into it laughing. I did say 'mad'.

  Quest of the Five Clans

  Book 2: the Moon Tartan

  Raymond St. Elmo, 2018

  V2.0

  ‘To be now a sensible man, by and by a fool and presently a beast! Oh, strange! Every inordinate cup is unblessed, and the ingredient is a devil.’

  Othello, Act 2, Scene 3

  Chapter 1

  In which the Hero is Surprised by Himself

  I returned to the city to kill a man. Not a thing to boast. I dislike violence. As does Heaven, one hears. Though sky and earth tolerate each day’s spilled blood. Perhaps they sigh up there, for what must be down here. So also, I.

  But had I returned? I walked familiar streets and doubted. Someone industrious had erected a grand imitation, complete with actors playing favorite roles before stage-settings of house and store, church and stall. I fought an urge to kick a tenement wall, send the theatre façade toppling backwards. I considered choosing a door at random, rushing within… I’d find myself in empty rooms showing bare closets, unfinished walls. I’d startle actors lounging in cheap costume of merchant and soldier, beggar and priest, discussing how they played some difficult role requiring accent and motif.

  Nonsense, I know. The city always seems false. One of its truest characteristics. It is a construct meant to give the idea of something beyond summation of mud, marble and brick. The name is irrelevant. Lud, Londinum, Llundain. Those comic stage-villains the Vikings called it Lundenwic. I think of it as Londonish; that is to say: the city not itself but something like itself.

  Consider the Great Cathedral. A gathering of gargoyles, a lacework of arches. Stone and colored glass melding harmonious as the music that pipe-thunders within, ebbing like breath into gentle chant, rising up again to thunder. Each cathedral part a master-work joining in math-perfect dance: statuary and symbology, theology, poetry, music and light. Observe how the pillars and stone buttresses take deep breathes, then lift high the beautiful dome. A covered-dish for a holy feast offered up to the table of Heaven. One sees the ambition of each separate part to reach something greater than mere pieces joined.

  And yet, loiter the pigeon-shat cathedral steps and behold a jumble of parts grasping for a heaven that remains mere sky. The dome reaches the upper layer of city-smoke, no higher. Enter the ornate doors, wander the lace-work of chapel-caverns cluttered with statues standing guard for the epitaphed dead. Every wall, every floor set with plaques to give name to dust and bone, squirreled behind and beneath the stone.

  The total stands as sign to the idea of a holy mountain, never becoming the thing itself. And just so, the city of Londonish. Behold the idea of a great metropolis, a crossroads of peoples and commerce, waves and roads leading to markets and waysides. Boulevards of grand design, alleys of dim and dangerous mystery. Palaces, mansions, ministries, grand houses, row-houses, hovels and warehouses and whorehouses, taverns and shop upon shop upon shop, markets, wharfs, garrisons, churches, chapels, gardens and rivers glinting with sunlight, swords, silver buckles and dead fish. Stage props for the dramatic production: Capital of Empire.

  Now walk the High Street and mark the faces of passersby. Patently, these are players on a stage, called together to portray some story that puzzles them as much as you. Study each fish-monger, scissor-grinder, self-important messenger, drunken idler, farm-wife come to buy, farm-boy come to gawk. One gives these faces the benefit of doubt, when one is kind. They must be more than they seem. They do the same for you; taking face and clothes not for measures of your soul, mere cloth wrapping flesh, flesh wrapping the truth within.

  Just so, I walk today wrapped in disguise. I fled this city a condemned traitor. I returned as Italian sailor, swiftly transmogrifying to Irish tinker, then on to my present disguise. I do not hide my face from mirror or conscience. I know the soul beyond the glass. But at the moment I hide my face from Londonish.

  But if I am one thing feigning another, while eyeing the impersonation of a great city, should I not suppose my fellow men may do the same? Of course, these can’t all be spadassins under proscription. Merciful God, the street would erupt in blood. Still, the world’s a wide stage with plentiful parts to play. Everyone has a script. Enemies, foes, fears for which a mask must be prepared, a semblance presented to hide the face of truth.

  You yawn, think me philosophical. But for a spadassin under proscription this is daily toil and bread. I grant each man a doubt to identity, knowing any may be other than what they seem. That slack-jawed farm-boy may be a French spy. The pox-faced scissor-grinder an agent for the Magisterium. Why does the self-important messenger keep passing, face hid beneath such a wide mad hat? Does the fish-monger reach into her basket for pistol, instead of herring? Face, clothes, basket and bearing, smile and eyes may be true signs of the soul within. Or again, may conceal a deadly truth.

  Consider that burly dandy with wild hair. He lounges on the cathedral steps, enjoying the day. Note his well-tailored but scruffy waste-coat, cotton breeches tucked into fresh-scuffed boots. Mark the tilted hat, peacock-feather cocked. His slight rapier, such a delicate weapon for a man designed by nature to be an axe-wielding bear.

  Passersby smile at his jovial enjoyment of stone and sun and pigeon. Some look twice, seeing a face they know: the spadassin Rayne Gray. These nod their heads in approval, else scowl and hurry on. He makes no mind of either opinion, scratches his broken nose in thoughts that make him grin. A dog passes; snarls. Gray shrugs in amiable live-and-let-live.

  What a picture he makes. A dangerous man, yet soul undimmed by the scars on hand and face. He watches the world with no desire but to share all the sun-lit day. He is not Rayne Gray. But he is impressively Rayne-Grayish.

  In point of fact I am Rayne Gray. Spadassin, wild hair, broken nose, etc. Though at the moment I am disguised. As the self-important messenger, if you wondered. And I feel entirely displeased with the day, the sunshine and this cheap-jack stage-play fraud sitting on the cathedral steps with my face. An idea of me, but not me. No philosophical point but personal insult. I am the thing itself. He is mere semblance. Not the thing itself, only something like the thing.

  So also, the great grand city of Londonish.

  I had returned to kill a man. In disguise, I being an outlaw considered dead. A convenient status when one wishes to commit what is technically a crime. Well, not technically. Homicide is clearly against the law. Excepting only war, execution, duels or when the particular Caine is of sufficiently higher social rank than the unfortunate Abel.

  But plans shift, in war and vengeance. Contemplating this man who ostentatiously adopted my face and persona, I decided I stood on the edge of a trap. Time to pull back, consider.

  No one shouted at this creature, though clearly they thought him me. The supposition of my death must be outdated. As well, the proscription and death sentence. Clearly I could now sit in public and smile at all, when only months before I was in chains, crowds shouting for my evisceration or vindication, in accord with the moment’s mood. Someone had been busy with pardons and soothing words. Alderman Black and Magister Green, of course. But why?

  I must be meant to stare astonished, then march up the cathedral steps in outrage. Demand his name, assert with thumps to the chest that I was no actor but the reality. A fascinating trap. I would have rushed forwards, once. When I was six or seven.

  No; I will
watch till the man grows bored. Wanders away to pee in an alley, or report failure to his employers. Patience. The real Rayne Gray (which is me) once waited in a pitch-dark basement with a deadly foe. Each listening for the other. We held silent all the night, backs to wall, ears pricked for steps, for shifts of weight, for snores. At last the lesser man sighed; at which point I ran him through. Patience is more than virtue. It is a hunter’s license.

  We would see who was hunter here; and who the prey. If this fellow with my face shows greater patience, I’ll find myself a new name, award him mine.

  In what may be a long wait, I should narrate something else. Hmm. I was trapped in a well of corpses once. But that story is unpleasant. No, while waiting, I shall tell of my recent honeymoon in Scotland. Which was entirely pleasant.

  Chapter 2

  In Defense of a Stone

  My new wife sat astride my lap, naked as pearl deprived of oyster. There was indeed something pearl-like to her skin. A satin shimmer felt with finger as much as eye. A fairy glimmer running across chin, down the valley south of the throat, over the hills of breasts and far away, but not long ago. No, where touch of her went, there was now. And still is; and still is.

  “It’s entirely mad,” I observed. “Does it have a name?”

  Her cat-like look of petted pleasure gave way to surprise. “Why on earth would I give it a name?”

  I shook my head. “I mean the monstrous big castle on the rock outside the ship. You must have noticed. It looks set to fall upon us.”

  “Oh, that,” she said. “Ah, it would never take to a name. The spirit of the oldest ones lie heavy upon it. I suppose we call it “Àite a 'chruinneachaidh.”

  I’d ceased falling for these family traps. “Which means ‘Big Castle on a Rock at the Edge of Nowhere’,” I declared. Someone stood just outside the door, had done so a full minute. They lurked silent enough; but ears will learn to tell the measure of weight upon a creaking deck. My ears, at least.

  Lalena shook her head. “Just ‘Place of Gathering’.” She glanced to the door as well. “Best we be up, then, or they will be playing pipes to drive us out again.” With a sigh and a glimmer, she stood. “Out, man. I must dress.”

  I stared. “What? You’re naked as sheared lamb now. What nicety is offended that I behold you dress?”

  She crossed arms before breasts. “My Da’s mother taught me so. A proper lady shall proudly undress before her man. But he is not to see her dress for the day.”

  Almost, I laughed. It seemed a child’s play-rule. But she stood so serious, sharing this womanly secret. A rule folded away in the hope-chest passed from mother to daughter in ancient line. Now brought out for the ceremonies of married life. Unfair to think Lalena a child playing tea-party. Behold a grown woman, pondering the bounds and customs of sleeping with her mate. A sacred ritual to be performed in solemn wonder. Therefore did I dress myself, and kiss her brow, her lips, the black-button tips of her breasts, and sigh, and move to the door, rapier out.

  No one waited outside the door. Well, they had been there. I disliked this narrow passage to the deck. It held the foreboding shadow of back-alleys where old bricks whisper murder. I stooped, grasped something glistening in a puddle of sea-water. A ring of iron keys. I weighed them in my hands, studied wet prints leading up the steps. Clearly, someone took a dip in the sea, prior to lurking at our door, leaving a present of keys. Made no sense. Ergo: family nonsense.

  I pictured different sea-clans of the family clambering over the ship-railing. To welcome us, challenge us, or play some unfathomable prank. During a respite from bed, we had stood at the railing, watching the sea-waves. Watching seals dive and surface. Lalena told me of the selkies. Seal-people who could take human form as they wished. Cousins from afar, she believed. They hadn’t attended the wedding. But they would be curious about us. The family were always curious about family. Gossiping beasts.

  Perhaps a selkie or three had clambered aboard to spy upon the newlyweds. It was bother enough keeping the dry-land cousins from knocking, asking if we required food, drink, air. Smirking creatures. One night they’d played bagpipes outside the door. I’d chased them away naked, sword in hand, determined to kill. Wrong of me, I know. I should have spoken maturely: Yes, good people, Lalena and I are having conjugal relations. We are newlyweds. Had no one ever married in the damned clan before?

  I pictured Lalena dressing below. What mystery there? Just undressing in reverse. The shift first. Under-petticoat. Regular petticoat. Chemise. Stockings. Why not stockings first? Picture Lalena naked before the mirror, posed in stockings. I did so. The image turned me back to the cabin. I stopped myself by main force, taking cold breaths of salt air. My wife deserved her privacy. Probably she applied magic potions to ankle and thigh, recited secret cantrips passed down from Eve.

  I stood on deck, stared up at the great stone box of a castle. Sea-gulls circled it, astonished as I. What mad creatures build a fort to defend this waste of cold vapor? My new kinsmen, of course. This castle, our wedding present. We could not sell nor trade it for a home someplace sane. It looked livable as a cave north of hell. It loomed over the sea, the ship and the me, as grand symbol of the present lunacy of my life.

  I smelled coffee from the galley. The very aroma of sanity. Even mad vampiric highlanders acknowledge coffee, though they often burn it. Well, they cooked for themselves, and cleaned. No servants on board, nor a single common sailor. I inquired why, first I beheld the Lady of the Clan herself emptying a chamber pot.

  “Servant and king, each to each,” said Lalena, shaking the stinking porcelain over the sea-railing. It sounded a quote, perhaps from their Play of Lost Glory. “A disgrace should family ever live in servitude to family, save in love.”

  “A servant need not be kin,” I pointed out.

  She smiled sadly, letting long teeth show. She leaned close, whispered. “We would want to eat them, dearest.” Well, of course. My new family.

  Sanity and coffee to the right. To the left glistened the mysterious trail of wet footsteps. I sighed. If I ignored the mystery, it would leap out upon me, while I slept or pissed or drank coffee in peace. I followed the prints to the gang-plank. No one on watch. Well, crew and passengers were mostly vampiric highlanders. They’d smile in delight to find a sea-brigand creeping upon them. Breakfast, served warm. As well, the ship sat at anchor in a cliff-walled harbor beside a rock five-hundred miles north of where the rest of the world lived. A guard was superfluous. Excepting for who left these tracks.

  The plank-bridge led to a long wooden dock, waves splashing weak beneath rough timbers. A few boards missing, some slyly loose. The water-prints traveled halfway, then ended. I stopped, peered over the edge. Deep water, not yet sunlit. Cold for sure. Did I see a face staring up just beneath the surface? I jangled the ring of keys in my hand. A string of kelp twined the largest key. I plucked it off, let it drop.

  I pictured these keys lying on the sea-floor, till webbed fingers grasped them, delivered them to the door of my cabin. A mad wedding present from watery in-laws, perhaps.

  I pictured the same webbed hands reaching up through the boards, pulling me down to the dark cold sea, embracing their beloved new relative as he drowned. I whirled to look behind and beneath, near toppling myself into the water. The sea gulls whirled, laughing at my antics.

  I continued, careful of loose boards and webbed hands, and so came safe to shore. I stood before a flat work-area lined with sheds built of ship-timber. A road led in jagged back-and-forth up to the castle. Gulls crying, wind blowing, but no sound of voice. Alone for the first time in weeks. It felt good. I wandered on.

  Events kept moving me farther from where I wished to be. By right of duty and vengeance, blood and law I should be in the capital. Important battles were taking place. I had a small fortune to recover from my former valet Stephano. I had accounts to settle with the Magisterium, the Aldermen’s Guild. With Green and Dealer. And a debt to collect in coin of heart-beat and life’s blood from Alder
man Black. That name stood to the fore in my ledger: payment due.

  But I was outlawed, house burned, accounts closed. Presumed dead. Going back would be a mad game of lurking in shadows, watching my enemies, avoiding the eye of guards and spies. I would do fine, of course. I’d fight in style, and survive astonishing odds, and be declared alive again. And so doubly abhorred. The mad arsonist-killer returned with the spring pox. I’d become a symbol of social change designed by bankers asking the dissatisfied: would you side with this blood-thirsty animal?

  I slashed air with rapier. I was spadassin, not blood-thirsty beast. I know the difference. The knowing did not suffice. I played a good courtier; making speeches of eloquence that astounded those considering my bear-like person. I understood votes and proxies, goads and bribes, faction and finesse. But these were cut and edge, point and guard of political fencing. In that fighting art I was no master. Such as Black and Green ruled the field.

  The old ones of the family. They were wise to scoff at convention, at restriction. They defied chains of definition. “We are from where we wish,” said Flower. “We go where we wish,” agreed Light. “And we are who we wish,” Brick finished.

  Why couldn’t everyone live so free? I wondered. It only required one be mad, be pocketless, nameless, and homeless. Here I stood on a mad rock in the sea. It had no name, made no home, and put nothing within my empty pocket. There could be nothing to eat upon it. When ship’s stores gave out we’d fish or boil our boots. My vampiric in-laws would gather about the innocent lamb they’d adopted... Best make this a short visit.

  I stopped, wiped sweat from brow, stared up the worn steps of the castle. A rusty iron portcullis barred the way. But a side path led to a great door set smooth within dark stone. A sally port, they called them, in days of armor suits and battering rams, boiling oil and flaming arrows. Rollicking times, no doubt.