The Clockwork 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 4: the Clockwork Tartan

  Raymond St. Elmo, 2019

  “Oh! Do not attack me with your watch.

  A watch is always too fast or too slow.

  I cannot be dictated to by a watch.”

  Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

  Chapter 1

  Unfortunate Incident in Local Tavern

  I stand in the doorway, my obituary in pocket. A torn scrap of tomorrow’s newsprint declaring this dull place, this sunny day, for my death. But what hour? Doesn’t say. Perhaps the press won’t think it matters. Annoying. It matters to me. Who knows the hour of their death? Not I, only the date and address. Might not come till evening. Best sit, order a beer.

  But I hesitate. Not a time for drawing sword, rushing forwards. First let’s scout the room for likely causes of death. The news scrap is inexact. A fatal fight, parties nameless. Well, I’m damned hard to kill. Self-pride demands a troupe of armored musketeers. A sinister sword-master in cloak and mask. A dragon holding pistols. Make it two dragons, with cannon. My mirror holds high opinion of itself.

  Instead of dragons or dragoons, I behold dawn sifting through grimy windows, brightening air stiff with stench of sawdust, beer, piss, sausage, tallow, tobacco and all possible wafts from workers ending shift on dock and factory floor. A polished oak counter rests upon dark barrels. Rougher tables and benches set about. A woman at the bar stands washing mugs, an old man yawns by the hearth. The fresh-lit fire winds smoke with sunbeams, weaving light into silver cloth.

  A scene of peace. Yet the hair on the back of my neck rises. For only the second time in my life. And I have walked hell-floors of battle where dead mouths gape in silent scream. Stepped into night-alleys where hands readied knives and murder. Ran lost in a forest of France, wolf-eyes gathering in the shadows. I felt no chill of omen then. Yet today I stand in the sunlit door of a common tavern, and destiny’s cold breath caresses my spine.

  This place… it stands exact as seventeen years past. Too exact. Damnation upon the nation but years must change a tavern as they change a man. I check each landmark. The cast-iron cat upon the counter, contemplating the rust upon upraised paw. The tattered regiment banner upon the left wall. A fly-specked portrait of the George-Before-Last above the hearth, tilted to match the royal state of mind. Narrow stairs leading to rooms above, for patrons disinclined to risk night streets prowled by press-gangs and cut-throats. If I look left, I shall see five paste-board cards nailed to the wall. Slowly do I turn, to face four aces and the king of spades. A near-unbeatable hand.

  “Goin’ in or no?” growls a voice behind. My assassin, perhaps. I consider wheeling with dagger drawn. But I block the door. Manners rebukes. Caution shouts. Caution and Manners argue, the tedious fools. Meanwhile Curiosity seizes command, pushes me into the room to stand goggling like a kitten on the High Street. Past me thumps a leather-smocked dockworker, smelling of cattle-shit and man-sweat. Near tall as I, if of fewer stone. He grumphs as he passes. Not a challenge to fight, just a warning not to block my fellow man from bar and beer. Entirely right of him. Rubicon’s bridge in flames, I tread further. Stopping at mid-point between hearth, bar and door.

  I have not stood in Keeper’s Tavern in near two decades. Not since the watch dragged me out for spilling blood, just here. My first kill, as it happens. A fearsome night ending glorious. Perhaps you understand. Foe at my feet, horrified whispers and admiring stares, my thirteen year old self trembling triumphant, knife raised high. That sort of moment. The man tumbled upon knees as though to pray; gurgling out the opened throat. His eyes widening to see past the swift falling night. What had been his name? Something French. The magistrate admonished me for taking the life of one… Francois Lejean, or thereabouts. Sentenced me to enlist in the war. Ironic. I kill a Frenchman in fair fight, and scowling English Justice packs me off to slay more French.

  Perhaps Lejean felt death’s chill touch as he crossed the threshold. Perhaps those fright-wide eyes screamed regret not to have harkened to intuition’s whisper. But no, he’d been a confident ass. Swaggered. Not a man to consider mortal uncertainty. Granted, I also am a confident ass. I swagger fine, as I feel the urge. But I solemnly consider mortality, and humbly acknowledge uncertainty. For all that I just voluntarily entered a stage scripted for my death-scene. At least I hesitated at the curtain.

  And once here, it earns mere yawn. Yes, the tavern looks, stinks the same. What else to expect? That it change as I had changed? Grown bigger, more scarred and wiser? Could a tavern grow wise? Why not, it was a living thing. It had hearth for heart, beer for blood. Song for breath, custom-chatter for thought. Exact as I. Ah, but I’d married. Could a tavern marry? Perhaps with the bank down the street. They’d make a pleasant couple. Better match than with the noisome tannery or the clownish bakery.

  A red taint to the sawdust at my feet, just where Lejean knelt. I scrape with a boot-tip, revealing planks stained dark and red-wet. Spilled wine, no doubt. I kick the sawdust back, refusing to shiver. I consider the room. Few customers, no dragons; no killers excepting my cheerful self. Unless one drops from above. I look to the rafters. They form a dusty cross-roads of shadowed beams. Constricted for a man, but my boy-self oft perched there in off-hours. I’d needed a place to read where the barmaid Griselda could not harangue how impure poetry ruined my eyes, blighted my soul.

  I spy something peeking down. No assassin, but the corner of a book. It rests upon a beam, no doubt just where I’d left it years past. What title? What had I last read in that cat-perch, a boy afire with poetry and play script? Something classic, full of thunder and declamation. I consider Milton, Dante, and Shakespeare. Then consider my news scrap obituary and sigh. Entirely lacking thunder.

  ‘- violent death of the Notorious Local Radical. Ironically, he perished in the very establishment where first he shed mortal blood. How shall any eye fail to see stern Providence’s hand, when one who so long defied Heaven’s Established Order is brought to Judgement upon the day of his own birth, the day of his sovereign’s passing, upon the same cursed ground where he first slew another? The responsible party -”

  No more than that. Not even my name. It could well refer to some other, lesser rabble-rouser. The age’s factories breeds workers thirsting for justice as the sun conceives maggots in a dead dog. And ‘his sovereign’s passing’? The current George sat the throne mad but hale. No doubt Death made appointment for both the useless king and some peasant pamphleteer famed for blocking doors to churches and guildhalls. But not this dull tavern, not this quiet morn. And thus not my appointment. Excellent. I am not a man of morbid inclination. I wouldn’t have stepped within a league of the place, but that that I knew the menace were best faced. Your slier dogs and dangers only bite as you turn your back. There comes a click at my back and I turn, knife drawn easy as blink.

  To meet at last something new. No killer, but a large elaborate clock upon the mantle. Hands at ten past eight, granting the round glass face a sly grin. It perches as a squatting goblin, welcoming me. How very convenient; how very ominous.

  The clockwork clicks again. Within, a bell chimes. Why? The hands are not at the hour. But the metal note ripples through the room, chilling as winter rain. Shivering spine and spirit. Comes a third click, and a door in the clock base opens
. Out marches a little mechanical man, legs and arms in stilted walk. He holds a knife in one hand, same as I. The manikin whirrs and buzzes, then bends, doffs tiny hat to the room. To me. I do not return the bow. I gape, a yokel open-mouthed before the Lord Mayor.

  Ceremony of greeting completed, the clock man turns and buzzes his exit. The door snaps shut. I put knife away. Then do my own buzzing turn, to consider the room, the stain, the obituary, the clock. No further argument. Today’s appointment is mine.

  Chapter 2

  Previous Unfortunate Incident in Local Tavern

  Lest any call me reckless, I sit back to wall in a far corner. As tavern boy, my favorite customer used to sit just here. Major Dark, blind and content to be. Or so he claimed. A man makes the best of a hard bed, if he be true soldier. The Major insisted he’d seen over-much of life. Preferred singing martial ballads into a tankard. And truly, those war songs echoed fine within warm tavern, for all the lack of bloody battle.

  I sit, contemplating Death and Breakfast. While awaiting the first, might as well enjoy the second. I shall order coffee, eggs and bacon. Not as last meal. I intend to live. Alas, the tavern service is nowhere to be seen. Only the woman at the bar, who avoids my gaze. I spy no bright-eyed table boy, no slatternly tavern wench. Scout the room as I will, I can see no breakfast, no death. But I can see seventeen years past when I killed a man just there.

  “That devil is back,” whispered Griselda.

  Which? I wondered. We were a dockside tavern, popular with lesser devils as the larder with rats. By nights, anyway. I looked up from scrubbing plates in the wash barrel, considered the room. Some quiet folk sitting alone; or rather sharing ale with ghosts of the heart. A few boisterous tables where gamers argued farthing stakes. A woman by the hearth strumming Spanish lute, two sailors sweetly crooning lyrics to make a whore gasp. No devils there, but proper paying customers.

  Ah, there at the door stood the announced Satan. In red and black of rich family livery. Lejean, a groom who fancied himself fighter enough to walk amongst clerk-smocks and work leathers, while dressed in the horse-colors of wealth.

  The fellow had taken to our tavern. Liked to saunter in, man a table, find fault with the beer, the faces of other customers. Soon or late he’d flush his quarry out with eye or insult. Words would pass, then feints and dodges. Dance done, the groom would beat his prey to the floor, deliberate as whipping tethered horses. Impressive to those circled about; but I thought him sly in choosing opponents. The man hunted the proper stagger of wine, else the eye-hint, sweat-glint of fear. But last week it had not been any trade of fists. I’d watched from the rafters, Milton’s war in Heaven put aside. The war below suited me better.

  Instead of using his suitable fists, the dockman pulled knife. Lejean grinned, did the same. A quick draw of blade, no doubt practiced twice daily before mirror. They circled, dancing jabs and feints. The dock worker stood bigger. But he could imagine nothing to do with a knife but wave it about. From above the mortal battle I’d frowned, shaken head in judgement. The dock worker feared to strike. But Lejean did not. He leaped, arm raised absurdly high, then slashed.

  The dockman had screamed. No business of shouting. No, that was animal noise from a creature suddenly opened, all the world’s pain rushing in. A long red rip now ran across his shirt from collar-bone to stomach. Lejean stepped back, knife high to say done, an artist lifting his brush, painting now complete.

  I’d reviewed the portrait in my mind, all the week since. There was naught to note in their moves. What fascinated were the twitches of the eyes, the scowling and grinning mouths, the brows shifting twixt signals of alarm, hate and fear. That upraised knife at completion…

  “He’s here to kill tonight,” prophesied Griselda. “He’s taken to the taste of blood.”

  Like enough. As one, we looked to our master. Keeper kept truncheon close for just such troublers. I’d seen him leap into a riot of drunks, satisfying as terrier upon rats. But tonight Keeper sighed, squinting to sight the foe by candle’s light.

  “Aye, he’s trouble,” decided Keeper. “But his masters are worse. If I kick their dog, they’ll bite me back. Give him ale with no water. Gris, you keep beyond his reach. Ray, you serve. And mind you avoid his eye.”

  Some customers considered the newcomer, emptied their mugs and left. Made me angry. The fool cost us coin. Why didn’t Keeper walk up to the man, grab his scruff and toss him to the street? Who gave a fig for rich house livery? Not I. I brought Lejean his ale, set it before him with a hint of a thump of mug to table.

  He laughed. Then lashed out hand and slapped me. I fell back, all but stumbling onto my ass. He picked up the ale, tossed it after me. I observed it coming, but did not think to dodge.

  “Now fetch another mug, set it down proper,” grinned the man.

  Talk fell silent. The lute strumming ceased; the sailors ended chorus in mid-obscenity. I recovered, wiping ale from my face. At thirteen, cuffings and slaps meant naught. Keeper handed them out regular as priests gave wafers; so also Griselda, my aunts, my sweetheart Emerald, her baker father and half the regular custom of the tavern. Far as I knew it was the right of any elder to box my head, my ears.

  But Lejean’s blow shook me. So also his grin. Shook with emotion that was neither anger nor fear. I recall each separate symptom. A dizziness, as though I’d downed the drink that dripped from me. A vibration in hands and legs, setting me atremble. Heart racing, tongue gone dry as paper…

  It was desire, of course. Not to bugger the ugly fool. No, something far more intimate. I lusted to fight and kill him. In truth, I’d set the mug just so to anger him. It was flirtation. Not towards a bedding, but a burial. Our eyes touched. My gaze spoke of longing, sure as flowers to a new love. Lejean scowled; feeling something suddenly rather wrong with the night.

  “Get, boy,” he growled.

  And from out his corner, Major Dark laughed. My teacher in holding bread knife in hypothetical duel; balancing walking cane for sword. My professor who year upon year patiently lectured me in balance and breath, lunge and parry. Instructor in all theory of death, whether seeking it or giving it as gift…

  Seventeen years ago, but I see the room then. Our past lies behind, the future just ahead. Yet we only behold time passed. The future is unseen. We must be walking backwards. Explains how we so often arrive where we do not wish. I don’t wish to be in Keeper’s tavern, but here I sit, looking back. Blind to what comes next, for all the obituary in my pocket.

  Chapter 3

  Things Unearthed, Things Unsaid

  With the burning of my house came the fall of the courtyard oak. From out the roots came the bronze puzzle-box. From out the box sprang… our first quarrel.

  Cousin Zee opened the box. Lalena and a crowd of her relations stood watching, enjoying Zee’s determination to solve the riddle of suns and moons inset upon the box. And solve he did. Stars defeated, he emptied the contents upon my study desk. Out should have spilled treasure worthy of the moment. Gold coins owed to Roman troops long redeployed to Elysium. Or else emeralds, rubies and diamonds bright as angel eyes in cathedral glass. Why not a bronze bird to fly about the room, singing secrets of the gods?

  What tumbled forth: comic rubbish. A penny whistle of stained tin. Two wooden buttons linked by strands of hair. A gold locket, dented as though chewed by a rat. A seashell dusty for lack of ocean. A scrap of newspaper wrapping a ring scratched as a whore’s ass. A bronze key, age-green and lost for lack of lock. We laughed in wry disappointment. And yet of a sudden my wife trembled. I followed her gaze to the penny whistle. Stained in shade of black a soldier knows right well.

  Chatterton Espada reached long arm, drew forth the two buttons wound with hair. He said nothing, merely pocketed the item. Then turned, left the room. Saying naught with word nor eye. But his relatives were quick to make path for him.

  Now others reached for some item from the box, claiming some bit of trash as though it held grave message for their soul alone. The ball of pa
per wrapping gold band, I declared mine. Happy to so do. I’d lost this very ring in a Harlequin pantomime months past. Welcomed it back upon my finger, reading with casual eye the news scrap. Dull words, describing anonymous death.

  * * *

  And so that night Lalena and I held First Quarrel. A ceremony of marriage, for sure. Like shy kiss, wedding toast, the exchange of vow, the first tangle of bodies and blankets upon the common bed. The Burning Quarrel is a milestone that couples must pass on the road.

  We prepared for night, for sleep. For amorous distraction, I trusted. Months apart from my bride, I would have lived joined to her all the day long were it practical. Perhaps on a bed with wheels, drawn about the house and town. Lacks dignity, I suppose. Bah; put curtains on the bed and roll us away.

  “What lay in that paper bit out the puzzle box?” asked Lalena, crossing arms behind to unfasten dress. A fascinating business, to maneuver button and cloth in reverse, unseeing. More difficult than fencing from the floor.

  “My lost ring, of course,” I answered, sitting on the bed, tugging away a boot. I observed how her dress fell, cloth caressing skin and chemise in farewell for the night, leaving long hair to waterfall down shoulder blades, fringes tracing buttocks.

  “Yes, my soul,” she sighed. “But what was writ upon the paper?”

  I reached out to her yellow strands, perhaps to stroke, else to tug. Though she faced away she stepped aside, dodged my touch. What a spadassin she’d make. I shrugged, made a show of tugging in thought at another boot, then breeches. Stood, fetched nightshirt from wardrobe. Returned to find her beneath coverlet, propped on pillow. Lamp-shine painted half a portrait of whites and pinks. Shadows sculpted the darker half. I climbed into bed, lay myself beside her darker self.

  “Well?” she asked.