“What?” I shouted. “You Scott chit. I have been keeping you from being eaten.”
“By what?” asked the child, excited at the declaration.
“Yes, by what?” demanded the Scott chit.
I hesitated. Bears? Dragons? Cousins in costume dress, more like. I could give no answer but an exasperated growl. The dog wagged tail, understanding.
“Ah,” said the child kindly. “Well, this is Lucy. She’s a girl dog but pretends she’s a boy. Watch. Lucy, pee!”
The dog dropped the ball and sighed. Gave us a look that said much of love and patience. Then lifted a hind leg, held it high. The child laughed madly. Lucy rolled her eyes, descended leg. The child move up to the fence, peered over at us. “What are your names?” she demanded.
I dug into fog to remember. “Ray Mershon.” How had I forgot? I could not help but follow with a courtly bow. The child laughed, twirled, offered a child’s mimic of curtsy.
I turned to my companion, realizing I did not know her name. Strange, I had not thought to ask. She crossed arms the tighter, till she looked to be binding herself prisoner. “I am Lady Elena,” she admitted. The red mouth struggled mightily to repress a smile. The nose twitched in rebellion. Forestalling a snort, Lady Elena put hands to skirt, performed a curtesy graceful and proper enow to please a Queen.
The child opened eyes wide. “Are you a princess?”
She smiled, shook head. Her hair did not care a fig how wind thought it should ripple. That hair reigned in a kingdom a thousand leagues away, queen of its own airs.
“I am the daughter of the laird of the Mac Sanglair,” she declared. “That’s title enough, and more than I like.”
The girl considered. “The shadow men were here earlier. They are pirate princes. They say they’ll take me and Lucy to be pirates too. I shall be a pirate captain.” She and Lucy exchanged pleased grins. Lady Elena frowned.
A rumble of thunder. I glanced about. It sounded false, clanging iron feigning honest storm. Cannon fire? I stared down the lane from whence we’d come. The mist teased, showing this piece, hiding that part, never revealing the whole. I suddenly feared what the fog hid upon the road.
“We’d best go,” I declared. I grasped Lady Elena’s dainty hand again.
I expected her to argue. It’s what girls do. She’d grab her hand back, then box my ears for touching it. But no. She studied me, then down the road.
“Aye, we are off,” she declared. “God keep you, child, and your wise dog.”
We hurried on, storm playing at our heels. Shadows became near night. Every so often something scurried in shadows to left or right. Were figures following through the trees? Else the shadows of branches, waving in the growing wind. A bridge revealed itself ahead, as though a beast leaped upon the road. It waited for us to cross. Ominous as a gibbet. The girl stopped. I continued a step, near tripped when she kept my hand fast.
“’Tis no good following the forward path,” she said, loud over the rising wind. “They wait ahead. Best strike our own way.”
Before I could argue she pulled me into the pasture to the right. Free hand holding dress hem to keep feet free. We didn’t go far. Someone awaited us in the field. A figure, arms out to bar the way. We approached in cautious steps. A scarecrow, of a sort. In place of the usual straw bag, an animal’s severed head. Wind shook the figure, setting arms to wave in warning. Of course. Farther on would be the Goat’s Cave.
“Not this way,” I shouted. I tugged the girl back towards the road again. We crossed, entered the woods. Darker yet, but less shout of wind. The storm retreated to the tops of the trees, a river of wind roaring above us.
“Don’t run,” admonished the girl. “Else something will want to run after. Walk, and talk, and keep your heart quiet.”
Dream logic. Sensible, this being dream. I gathered breath, inhaling storm wind and wet leaves, earth mold, fresh greenery. I like woods. My heart calmed. About us stood oaks, trunks wrinkled as the faces of old men. We continued with calmer steps that crackled dry leaves, dead sticks.
“We might find your bear here abouts,” I remarked, hoping to see her shiver or giggle. The girl only sniffed, tossed hair.
“You might find your vampire,” she replied. Adding in afterthought. “I’m getting hungry.”
“Me, too.” I sighed. I never had enough to eat. I paid for meals at Keeper’s tavern. At home, my mad maiden aunts ate private. They believed boys did not need food any more than sleep. I’d mastered going down stairs and halls without creaking a floor board, persuading the kitchen locks to open by argument of a bent spoon.
A great tree branch fell, a giant’s hand swatting the ground beside us. We jumped, darted, stopped. Looked at each other’s frighted faces, settled ourselves laughing. The girl’s hair rippled for a pale flag, wild and mad. Of a sudden I shivered, as though I walked with something to fear. Had she not chattered of her mad family? And she the queen of the asylum.
As I studied her, she turned to consider me. Did she also fear? I caught the way she trembled, darted eyes searching for some path of escape. Well, she walked alone with a boy in the woods. No doubt she heard her governess’s voice in the wind, warning not to play with boys. Not to stain her dress
“I work in a tavern,” I announced. “I can speak French. Read it anyway.”
“Tell us of your tavern,” ordered Lady Elena.
“There’s an old soldier who comes nightly,” I informed girl, wind and woods. ”He took some hit to the head. Blind now. But he’s teaching me to fight with knife and blade, in trade for ale.” I hesitated. Best ask. “Does that sound loon? To be taught fighting by a blind man?”
The girl considered. “Not at all, if he knows his craft.”
I nodded pleased. The sight of me posing with bread knife or walking stick while a blind man lectured on battle stance and balance, checking my grasp on hilt and handle with his gnarly hands, brought out laughs at the tavern.
“Major Dark knows all to do with blades,” I assured her. ” Wrote a book for the army. God’s ruth. Taught by Spaniards and Frenchmen and even a Chinese. Everything from grasping a hilt to parrying a pike. When to slash, when to stab, when to kick.” I made motions with hands and foot, to illustrate these important concepts.
“Sounds frightful,” declared the girl. Then sighed. “But I’ve never been to a tavern.”
I wondered if she’d ever been kissed. At least by any but wrinkly aunt lips, dusty uncle mouths. I had a sweetheart. Emerald, a baker’s daughter. We’d meet in her father’s stable. Once she sat half naked upon my lap. She sat and instructed me to rescue my master Keeper from a fire we’d set. In gratitude he’d adopt me, bequeathing his tavern. I’d then sell it, buy a ship and take a cargo of cats to the West Indies where they had no cats, only rats and gold. Fortune made, I’d return home, we’d live in a castle throwing grand parties for royalty who’d eventually adopt us, placing me in line to ruling the empire which we’d expand by murder and bloody war.
During her planning for our conquest of the world. I’d removed her cloak, then her coat, unbuttoned her dress, lowered a chemise, an undershirt and yet another undershirt. At last unearthing two breasts pale and pointed as her father’s daintiest sugar loafs. She continued to narrate conquest while I searched for the rest of the girl.
When her father came in she’d reached the submission of South America. I’d reached two petticoats, yet fingers felt only more bolts of cloth. I was attempting intimacy with a milliner’s closet. Her father sighed, flailed a floury fist I could have blocked. Instead I rolled with the blow, fled out the door.
His fault. Fool thing for a baker to name his daughter Emerald. Christened a sensible Mary or Nancy she’d have boundaries to her visions and a limit to her wardrobe.
“What are you thinking?” asked Lady Elena. I wondered if she’d made the ‘ladyship’ up. Probably. What difference did names make in this dark wood? Not that it seemed so dark. We approached light.
“What of you?”
I asked. “Do you spend your days in dance with mad cousins?”
I’d hoped to spark her nose-laugh cannons with the question. Came only sigh.
“I live with Grandmere in a stuffy dark dusty dreary weary bleary teary house in Edinburgh. I spend my days in my room asleep. By nights I am tutored. By dull people who make music and history and poetry and even dance into dead things. Can you imagine the harpsicord played as an instrument of boredom?”
I couldn’t imagine it not, but didn’t want to say. And had I not Master Clive for tutor, I’d suppose Milton and Dante to be dull. The girl brooded, then bent head to mine, whispered confession.
“Oft by night, I slip out.” Admission made in tone of dark and triumphant horror. Her eyes shone bright at the truth, her teeth sharp and sugar white.
I smiled. We shared that joy. Londonish was a wonder by night. The shadowed streets and mist-rotted alleys, the loud taverns, the cat-haunted roof tops. The damp, the fires, the hand bells of watchman, the high bells of churches. Beggars, madmen and the lonely wandering silent, muttering to themselves. Faces lurking in doorways like wolves between trees, measuring you for a meal. The sudden shouts, the laughs, the barking dogs, festive crowds and the clink-clank of bottle and blade. I imagined walking the Londonish night, finding this blue silk lady-thing shivering, eyes wide at the city’s dangers. I’d guide her safe back to a governess’s scolding, taking kiss and caress in pay. Pity that Edinburgh lay north beyond miles and borders. Not likely she’d wander so far as my streets.
“Sunlight ahead,” declared my companion. Voice sad to note it. I grinned. So she preferred my company in these dark close quarters? I considered stopping, turning to her. Putting lips to hers. She’d blush, stutter of God and Grandmothers. Then grasp me tight…
We reached the wood’s end. Beyond waited green fields, no longer shrouded in mist and storm. Behold the frontier lands of sanity, fronting this mad wood. Forgoing kisses, I prepared to step into the day lit world. The girl held back. I tugged. She tugged with equal force, near pulled me off my feet.
“Grandmere says a girl should not walk in open sun,”
“Shucks to your grandmother, girl,” I declared. I pulled harder, but she budged no more than the oaks about us.
The girl dismissed my hand from her service, crossed arms. “You would not speak so to her face,” scoffed the girl. “You’d turn tale and run, boy.”
“From your grandmother?” I asked. The idea amused. I feared no old beldam. Even my mad aunts with their broomstick cudgel. I looked towards the sunlit fields. Green and warm. Back to the girl. She stood at shadow’s end, white teeth biting blood-red lips. Eyes blue and wide and empty as the day-sky she feared. I near fell into those eyes. I held out the dismissed hand.
“I’m sorry I spoke so,” I declared. “Don’t be cross. Come. It, it will be alright.” It seemed of infinite importance that it be so. If she would come but a step farther.
She shook head, unsure. Bother all girls! I stepped into the sunlight, to show it empty of aught but warmth and light. The sun blasted my eyes with warm agony. I listened behind for the girl’s steps. Nothing. I turned, peering into the shadows, eyes near closed by light-burned tears.
Gone.
Chapter 11
Watch my Back, he told the Griffin
I rested on the floor of dark ocean, lightless, sightless. Someone chatted close by. An old man, voice cracked by years till it sounded a crow’s caw. He spoke conversationally, continuing words begun before world’s first dawn.
“They dislike exact naming,” declared the voice. “They keep no exact form. Rootless, homeless, they wander the world separate from the earth as shadows of clouds passing across the fields. Outsiders can only know them by doubtful and diverse signs.”
“Could one not just ask?” sighed a second voice. A young woman’s sigh, soft and dissatisfied with system.
“What shall you ask?” inquired the bird voice. I pictured a raven cocking his head, black eye amused. “Pardon, good sir or madam or tree in the forest, star in the sky, shadow in the night, beast or man, but are you of secret family? Nameless, rootless, free as cloud shadow passing?”
“Hmm,” said the woman. “Yes, I see the difficulty.”
“As well,” brooded the Raven, “In this world dwell minds and hearts one should not lightly question concerning identity.” He paused, no doubt to preen feathers.
“Now. Concerning the folk. The first you meet will remind of the next, though they differ as day to night. Every true face of the family recalls all their kindred. No matter the form or age or coloring, each hints of a common blood, a secret heart. You will observe an air of antiquity, a hint of shores beyond this world. Their young seem old and wise as mountains, the adults wild, impulsive, at times childlike.”
“You as well?”
“I am oft quite wild, even abandoned,” solemnly assured the Raven. “A true member of the family lives in permanent fever. Homeless as the wind, restless as the sea wave. Eye and hand, body and spirit ever yearning to be in motion. Even in dream they wander, quarrel, build, sing, love, aspire.”
“Noticed that,” agreed the woman. “Creatures won’t sit still.”
“Wind’s children, Flame’s brethren,” sighed the Raven. “How shall they rest?” The bird paced back and forth, jabbing shiny beak to emphasize points. “Another sign. They are forever posing, whether dramatic, tragic, pathetic or comic. Mysterious or menacing, portraying the villain, the hero, the lunatic. The king, the queen, the tower, the fool, the priest. You will find them just so, stage-framed by dark caves or burning forests, at the top of rising sea waves or the crashing surf. Sitting upon the tombs of old kings, singing atop moonlit towers. Perched in the branches of your wiser, older trees.”
“How easy, then. One merely seeks out strange folk in absurd places, playing the lunatic.”
“You mock, but understand they act so in love, knowing their kindred watch. The proud things will not yawn in dull corners. They must sit enthroned, all the world their stage, else the pride of their blood be slighted.”
“Pride,” sighed the woman. And both she and the bird voice were silent at that fatal word. At length the Raven resumed lecture.
“The clay folk of the mundane world walk straight lines. They seek the quickest path to pass beyond their fellows. But those of the family forever wander in circles. And each circle’s center is all their kindred. The creatures orbit one another like stars, planets and moons, each burning in desire to so encompass all.”
“Why, just so do my people dance,” declared the woman, pleased at last. “We circle wing tip just touching wing tip. Brother to the left, sister to the right, in unending love, endless light.”
* * *
“Welcome back,” declared Professor Zeit-Teufel.
I opened eyes, expecting black ocean, a preening raven, a winged girl.
“From where?” I asked.
“What a strange question,” he replied, pushing me a mug. I sniffed. Ale. I declined, it being offered by a stranger. Old spadassin habit. If I keep the habit then I live to be old spadassin. Also I dislike ale. There are whiskeys to risk all for. But ale?
Had I slept? I found myself awake at a table, lantern lit. About us rows of dusty exhibits, benches of puppets. The basement Hall of Wonders, still. Somehow I expected a forest in New Jersey, else a castle on the moon. I checked the clock set into the man’s towering hat. A quarter past three. I had been here scarce two hours. If I trusted hat and clock, eyes and memory. I did not.
Beside Teufel sat the boy Penn. No impossible automaton child now. The light of kerosene reality revealed a mawkish child in oversize coat, beat down top-hat. Next to him stood a tall woman with wild hair, winding scarves. The snake woman of the Convent Garden act. She grinned for a pirate or a queen, speculating what I might do to amuse her. I scowled. I’d demand shilling before the least entertaining. From behind her peeked the white haired snake girl. Eyes of amber, coolly measuring me. Mother and daught
er for sure.
“My master’s question is sensible,” declared a voice. “Where is he? The answer being: he sits half dazed in the basement of lunatics.”
Well, behold my valet Phineas, on guard beside my chair. How had he tracked me here through fog? I gave him cold look, lest I seem a puzzled idiot. My look said ‘I expect a proper servant to magically appear at these events. You’re late’.
“Welcome back from near death, Master Gray,” intoned Phineas. “These aforementioned lunatics set some mechanical beast rampaging, knocking shelves upon you.”
I put hand to head. Still in place. Someone’s head, at least. I hoped it mine. But suppose it another’s? Perhaps Dealer’s. It ached enough to have been dragon kicked. Yet no blood, no wounds. How should shelves and dragons fall, knock me stunned yet leave no bruise? I considered my valet, his smoke-tinted lenses, and doubted. Same lenses as those of Zeit-Teufel. Same spirit of mischief. The two might be brothers. Waspish thin, with smiles that said ‘I know what I may not say’. Same smile upon the scarf-wrapped snake woman. A badge of conspiracy more sure than tinted lenses.
A strange assembly to wake to. Yet something lacked; something more important than conspiring, smiling lunatics. I pushed chair back, stood. Phineas moved to assist. I put hand to rapier hilt. He stepped back, as one who knows his master. Raised palms, chiding.
“Master Gray, there is a matter of import waiting at the house.”
I waved that away. Import? No, distraction. An opponent stamping a foot before the sudden lunge. I do not fall for such.
“Something is missing,” I declared. How often I said that of late. I turned an angry face to those at the table. “Something,” I insisted. Not a one asked what. No, they waited to see me pour what I felt into words. And so lose the truth of what I felt.
I seized a lamp, turned and strode into the labyrinth of sleeping wonders. Phineas followed behind, muttering. He was not a mutterer. Something truly worried the man. It could wait.
What had passed here? I recalled fire and shadows. Bah. I’ve memories of fire and shadow to fill a warehouse. Something more important was lost. I studied the shapes and forms around me, hinting of things hidden, shrouded, forgot. I stopped at a monstrosity lurking beneath a sheet. Pulled the cloth away. Behold a creature of impossible form. Lion’s body, head and wings like unto an eagle’s. A griffin, then. The glass eyes filmy with dust. I reached, wiped each eye clear. Better. The creature looked awake now. Beak at the ready.
The Harlequin Tartan: Quest of the Five Clans Page 9
