She did not stir at my approach. Only her hair moved, long tendrils of yellow drifting above her head as she sank into insanity’s dark waters. For scepter she held a man’s arm, twisted bone protruding. She considered the pale stiff fingers, the slow red drip.
“This was Dottore’s,” she remarked. “I never met him in life till tonight. But oft in dream we walked sunlit hills, taking counsel together. A kindly soul, for a Decoursey. Delighting in advice.” She considered. “Never good advice. He expounded upon life and love, knowing naught of either. All his wisdom lay in sounding wise, intoning wise, gesturing wise. What a deep wonder was just his voice.”
“Lalena,” I said. “It is me.”
“And yet,” she continued, thoughtful, tapping chin with Dottore’s forefinger, “He was Harlequin. My sideways cousins disdain to speak plain. He once told me, ‘Umbrea sperantibus, Lilly Ann. All things come to those who wait’. A weary lie. I waited upon the night shore long, long, and naught came but sea wind and sea wave, in, out, in, out. Whispering lost, left, lost, left.”
“My love,” I whispered, “I meant to return.”
She made no sign she heard. Waved the arm as baton to conduct the tide within her ocean’s memory. “Yet consider Dottore’s garbled Latin,” she continued. “In truth it said something quite different: ‘Shadows come to those who wait.’ As they do, they do. So very wise you were in secret, dear Dottore.” She considered the hand, frowned upon it. “Ah, no, wait. This is Capitano’s limb. My mistake.” She tossed the bloody thing to the floor.
“Lalena!” I shouted. At last the throne turned eyes upon me. Her sky-blue eyes, day’s gift to night’s child. Shining now with candle light and fever. She looked, and smiled, teeth long and white as December’s icicles. Red-smeared mouth and chin, the sticky face of a child caught thieving from the jam-jar.
“My Lord Fulgurous,” she said. “I should have expected. Come to make complaint of our slaughtered kin?” She put hand to mouth, holding back naughty smile. Then straightened, sat serious, imperious, all solemnity and stone. “Question them in dream or hell my lord, you shall find they sought to bind me to their will. I loved them, Fulgurous. My cousins Dottore, Capitano, Bellroche were artists of dream, striding the mountains and valleys of the mind, commanding thought’s wind.” Of a sudden she put hands to head, moaned. “But why, why should they summon such storms within me? How could they serve their heart kin so?”
Fulgurous? I wondered. Damnation, the helmet confused her. I reached to pull it off, then hesitated. Without it, would I fall to the enspelling again? Perhaps I would stare about, puzzled what I did in a tomb with corpses and a mad vampire. Inevitable but I would leap upon her with the butcher’s blade. Exact as the Harlequin intended. I left the helmet on.
“Lalena, it is me,” I said. “Rayne. Your husband.” It sounded doubtful. I scarce believed it myself. She leaned forwards, red breasts bobbing. Propped elbows on knees, chin upon hand. Peering at me puzzled. I stared into her night-filled eyes, beheld dark caves of rage and sorrow. I cannot say what she saw in mine. Labor reform laws and bank notes, no doubt.
She sniffed. “You smell of fresh blood,” she observed.
“I meant to return to you,” I insisted. “I meant to ride and sail and run across border and sea, through castle doors and into your arms, just to hold you tight. Remember our kiss upon the bridge? When we walked the Market of Dreams? Remember our wedding night. My fingers could not fathom the fastenings of your dress.”
“Ah, my dress,” she laughed. “Do you like it?” She stood and twirled her naked form, and when she circled round to face me again she wore a mask of fury.
“I lived as child in a dark house for a thousand years, my lord. Each day when I slept the shadow surgeons came and ripped the heart from my chest.” She ran a hand across her left breast, tracing lines in the wet blood.
“Then Father and Grandmere would fill the hole left behind. Fill it with whatever trash came to hand. Spiders and poems, knives and hot coals, snakes and needles. And last sew it closed with a dead man’s hair, tell me to run off, be a good girl.” She shook her head, then smiled wicked, whispered a secret to me. “Sometimes, I was not.”
We stood there silent, while she recalled her childhood, I recalled our first meeting. She’d been in a similar state upon a burning roof. I’d charmed her by being near mad myself, too preoccupied to fear vampires or flames. Could I so charm her again? I might recite love poems. Invite her to dance. The thought made me laugh.
“The laughter of Fulgurous is our thunder,” sighed Lalena. Putting hands to hips, jutting breasts forwards. Licking blood from lips, eyeing me in consideration whether I served the throne best as counselor, entertainment or meal.
“I am Rayne your husband, not Fulgurous your damned dusty ancestor,” I said. “I have returned to you past madness, dead men and bronze dragons, tigers and wolves.” I should have brought flowers… Then recalled I had. Alas, tucked safe beneath my breast plate. No reaching them now. I settled for a verse of Blake.
“Never seek to tell thy love,
Love that never told can be.
For the gentle wind does move
Silently, invisibly.”
Lalena blinked at that. Considering. “Yes,” she decided at last. “Yes. I think I see. It’s like this. You can’t tell of love to those you love. Not in words. Words poison, trap, confuse, lessen. You must say it so like this.” She threw back her head and screamed.
It was a long scream. It filled the chamber, shook the candle flames, bounced from the dark stone walls, buffeting me. Her hair radiated outwards, each thread of pollen-yellow a separate string thrumming with that awful chord. I stepped backwards in fear, stumbled over a body, swung the butcher-blade at shadows. I still held the butcher blade? Put it aside, I ordered myself. But did not obey.
Lalena stood from the throne. Proud, legs set wide to show the soft world between. Raised her hands before her face, fascinated by their bloody stain.
“Yes. Yes. Now I recall. There was a time I found my heart,” she said to her red fingers. “There was a time. A place. A rock. There was a heart! Not my heart, nor any heart of family. Oh, but a dear heart. And there was an ocean. I recall its happy splash. It lay a great blue-glass table fit to feast all the world, and upon the table sat the great cake of a rock and upon that rock waited the castle and within the castle a room and within the room a bed and within the bed, ah, there lay all the world ‘neath blanket. I close eyes now and feel the sheets, the pillows, the beat of that other heart; pressed so to mine. But I open eyes and see only graves, dust, fire, blood, shit, stone, smoke, bone, walls, night, faces, shadow, spiders, lies. Why do I stand here alone, not with that other heart?”
She fell to her knees, long hair collapsing about her for a cloak. “Am I dead, Fulgurous?”
Enough. I threw the butcher-blade aside. She peered from out the curtain of her hair, watched the blade clatter against the stones. Cocked head, so very bird-like. Her face beneath the smeared blood showing gaunt, weary.
“Lady Lilly Ann Elena Mac Sanglair,” I said, and bowed. “I am Rayne Gray.”
She nodded in formal return, adding tilt to the motion to say ‘how interesting’. I struggled to remove the breast plate. Difficult as a wedding dress. She watched as it fell to the ground. Then came the greaves, the leggings, all the clattering parts. Till I stood in breeches, cotton shirt. The tomb-cold air setting me to shiver. Last I put hands to dragon-helm.
“When I lose this, I may forget,” I told Lalena, told myself. “So, my lady, you must remember for us both. I am Rayne your husband. The sad man you rescued from gaol. Rescued from himself. You gave me chance to love and be loved. Even without your name and face, still I loved you. My world shaped your absence to form your face. I live as broken piece of what once I joined. But you never lost me, Lalena. Recall my love. Not my name. Recall my love. I gave my hand upon our wedding day. My life, my body, my heart tight within that hand. All the gift a beggar had to
give, or can ever give.”
I pulled away the helmet. Tossed it aside, awaiting what would come. Lalena rose to her feet, her move deliberate, the first steps of a dance. We stood so, studying one another. What a silent place is stone tomb in dead night, attended by shadow and corpse. At last Lalena took breath, sighing deep. She poked at the armor with a foot. Reached down, found the crumpled flowers.
“Why, here’s flower of remembrance,” she said, voice of quiet wonder. “Pray you love, remember.” Sniffed the blossoms. Sighed, let them drop, one by one, to the wet floor. “Sweet fragrance.” She pushed back hair, smiled prettily. “Yet in truth, I love better the smell of your blood.” She leaped upon me, red mouth wide, white teeth bared.
I tumbled backwards, fell to the corpse-strewn floor. She sat atop, pressing me down teeth snapping for my neck. My coward hand reached for the butcher-blade, touched handle, then halted. I would not use that upon her, not even to live. She put teeth to my throat as I struggled to push her, hand slipping on wet flesh till I grasped her breast. She bit into my neck and I cried out, hand caressing the black button nipple. Well, it was habit. She jerked her head back as if struck, stared down at me, long hair a wild bed curtain sheltering us both.
Her hips pressed into my groin. I pushed up, not to throw her off, but to meet her thrust. I raised my other hand to her red chin, tracing a line up the jaw to her ear. She shivered, then white teeth snapped at the finger. But her eyes widened, astonished. Again I pressed my hips upwards into hers. She returned the motion.
“Oh,” she whispered, eyes now blinking. I moved hand to the other breast, touching, raising the dark thimble-nipples upon each. I began reciting words recalled long months before, when she first came to my room, vampiric virgin...
“Come to my bed as shy girl or devouring Maenad, whichever you please,” I recalled. “And if you devour, then I will be your most faithful meal.”
She grabbed the finger tracing her ear, pulled it to her mouth, bit to break skin, seep blood. Eyeing me as she did, defying me to struggle. With my free hand I traced below her breasts, down her smooth tummy to the fine hairs below. She shivered, moaned.
“But if you would please me first, my lady, then come to my bed as bride,” I whispered. ”We will lie face to face, heart to heart. And then we shall feast together, life to life, each upon each.”
Of a sudden she released my hand, bent down, pressed lips not to my throat but my mouth. The wind of her breath was hot and bloody, and she moaned into me, our hips rocking. At last I pushed her off, or else she tumbled me over. Now I lay upon her. Hands scrambled at my belt, pulling away breeches with awkward tugs that set me laughing, her growling. Freed and erect, I pushed myself at her while she raised legs high in welcome. Within her, now my turn to growl, her turn to laugh…
All words vanished. Dream noises, meaningless upon awakening. Names, story, faces disappeared. Bespelled again, perhaps, but not to loss. Behold our own spell, for our own joy. Joined together again, each a part of the whole, and the whole being a living, laughing thing for which naming was triviality, dust, shadow, nothing.
Chapter 24
In Defense of Old Coats
“Where went the light?” asked Lalena, She lay atop me, head resting upon my chest. I stroked her mad hair, petting it. I could see nothing, but my fingers traced, telling each separate strand all my love.
“I suppose the candles died,” I replied. “Rest in peace. We have been here awhile. Who knows day or year?”
“Hmm. We lie sealed in a windowless tomb,” pointed out my practical wife. “Air is failing. We shall die ourselves.” She yawned, I yawned, unconcerned. She pressed face into me, made a happy sound.
“Suitable place for our bones to lie, at least.” I observed.
“Not for mine,” Lalena growled. “I don’t want to see another tomb, grave, epitaph, memorial, mausoleum, coffin, sepulture, headstone or sarcophagus again. Not a grain of grave dirt nor twig of bone so long as I live.” She considered, then added, “And longer.”
I sighed. “Then I suppose we should rise. Just as well. Things on the floor here are fast ripening. I don’t want to think what I’ve been using for pillow.”
But we continued to lie in one another’s arms, content.
“What will greet us outside the door?” I wondered. “Will it be old foes returned, or new enemy forces gathered? Shape-shifters, time-travelers, necromancers, dream-walkers, blood-drinkers not that that last is wrong in humanitarian moderation.” I weighed my in-laws for the most fearsome and horrific. “Bagpipers?”
“Ach, no telling,” she sighed. Attempting to curl all her body into the pit of my arm. Impossible, of course. And yet a pleasant challenge. “Most like all will rush in at once, friend and foe alike shoving to reach the center of the stage. Pffff. Dramatic vain tomnoddies.”
And lo, a vision came unto me of all Lalena’s kindred marching upon us. Pipers to the fore, leading parade of mincing Harlequins, slouching vampirics, lumbering animal folk, perhaps some sea people bearing strange sea wines, singing eldritch song. While my wife and I stood bloody and naked, the center of attention, accepting welcomes, thanks, congratulations for surviving the latest idiot masquerade of family.
“Let us arise and run fast away,” I proposed.
She must have beheld the same terrible vision. “Yes, let’s.”
I stumbled in the dark, found what clothes remained for me, though damp and soiled. Lalena refused to leave naked; likewise refused to take clothes of the dead.
“I would not shame to wear the dress and pattern of any clan, even the damned bloody accursed Decoursey,” she affirmed. “But it were dishonor to them and me alike, to leave them so.”
I held different view of looting the vanquished, but did not press. It risked raising the quarrel of my French officer’s coat. I found the chamber door, pulled it open. A burst of weak light, fresh air greeted me. I peeked into the hall beyond…
Behold my valet Phineas, standing pert and ready against the far wall. Arms folded, eyes shielded behind tinted glass. Upon the floor lay two piles of folded linen. Clean dress for Lalena. A bowl, a pitcher of water. So help me, there rested a steaming silver pitcher. Coffee smells drifted, more enticing to my desire than blood to my wife.
At my appearance, Phineas straightened. He reached into vest, brought forth his great watch, considered the time. Shook head in reproof of his master’s late rising.
“You’re a Zeit-Teufel, are you not, Mephisto?” I growled.
Phineas put away the time piece, bowed in assent.
“You swore you had naught to do with enspelling my mind,” I growled deeper. “I suppose you placed that guilt upon your cousins?”
The man hesitated. Sighed. Removed his devil lenses to reveal wide crystal eyes, wet and boyish. “I was constrained by rules exact as the Code Duello, Master Gray. Revealing the truth would have served you less than the note through your window. And yet freed your enemies to do further harm.”
I believed. Still, I weighed beating him, insulting him, dismissing him. Yet… if the Harlequin had conspired to challenge me, in his family’s mad way Phineas had stood as second in the duel.
“Fine. Out of here,” I said. “Mrs. Gray wants privacy. Go guard the outer door from all your accursed relations.”
Exit Phineas, smiling.
* * *
I sat in the outer hall, weak morning shining through the leaded glass skylights. Watching my wife dip towel to water bowl, wipe thigh and chest, face and breast. She felt my gaze and blushed, looked away. I wondered how many years it took man and wife, till such sight grew common as a yawn. Years, I hoped. And yet I longed to reach that perfected sum of days, when heart grew used to heart, body to body. When all the sight and feel and taste of another became something trusted as any part of one’s self.
We walked out from Black’s great dead stone box, blinking in dawn’s shine. Walked morning paths, dew-wet, bird-choired. Through the green cemetery, winding towards the gat
e. Every so often our hands would reach, trace along the arm or shoulder of the other, testing that indeed we walked so. Eyes would turn, meet, then glance away overcome. Behind us, Phineas trudged and sulked, bearing the armor and butcher-blade. Now that I knew my valet for mad in-law and not respectable servant, I felt disinterested in sharing the burden of labor.
“Should I keep that mad claptrap?” I asked. “It saved my life. But perhaps it were best to leave behind. It broods ominous as storm cloud.”
“Ach, that would do little,” said Lalena. “Tis a thing of dream, and goes where it will.”
Ahead appeared a figure rushing up the path. I sighed, reached for rapier. But held back. Behold Magister Green, and so help me he carried a brace of pistols, proud as a pirate. I stepped before Lalena, holding hand up in sign of peace. She laughed, pulled me back to face the danger beside her.
“I’m protecting you, woman,” I complained.
“And a sweet dear man I name you for it,” she said. “But do so twice and I’ll toss you into the trees. Or over them, boyo.”
“You wouldn’t speak that way if I wore my French officer’s coat,” I said. I don’t know why I said it. It just wanted said.
She turned upon me swift as serpent. “Still harping on that dirty piece of war-cloth? You great bloody nit of a bear. I don’t care a fig what idiot insult to civilization and the dignity of my clan you choose, for all that a decent man’s clothing waits patient for you to rise above southron beggar rags.”
Green cleared throat, uncertain whether to aim pistol or offer opinion on coats. He considered Lalena, turned to the risen sun, back to Lalena. Blinked upon our clasped hands. Shook head confounded.
“Is this the enspelling charm of the vampiric succubus?” he asked. “Or just new romance?”
“Neither and both,” I affirmed. “Master Green, I present to you Mrs. Rayne Gray, the very Lady Lilly-Ann Elena Mac Sanglair herself.” She turned sweet smile upon him, gave graceful curtsy. Green had no choice but put away pistols, bow in reply. We all continued together towards the cemetery gate. Phineas shadowing behind, clattering steel bells.
The Harlequin Tartan: Quest of the Five Clans Page 21
