The Blood Tartan: Quest of the Five Clans

by Raymond St. Elmo

  “Oh,” she whispered surprised. The dreadful certainty came that she had never had a man do so before. How else, being what she was? Not that I knew what she was. I knew she was young, mercurial, and capable of ripping armed men to pieces. Who would be kissing her breasts?

  I considered all paths this could lead, no different than I had done in duel and war. I decided, and sighed, and pushed her gently back. Painful, but I stood, then drew her to stand before me. Her night dress hung about her waist; I sighed to draw it up over the smooth curve of her belly, the white baby-faces of her breasts.

  A look of anger, of disappointment, of relief. She turned aside. “You despise me,” she accused the wall. “You think I am a wanton thing running naked, blood-spattered as a maenad in a Bacchanalia.”

  “I do not,” I affirmed. I was not familiar with Bacchanalias and Maenads. Something about hillsides and wine, mad-women and sacrifice. No, I just thought she was a vampire. I did not say so.

  She stamped a foot. “If there is to be blood, do you expect me to wear my best dress? Do you know how awful it feels to stand in clothes soaked in blood?”

  “Yes.”

  She stared, started to argue, stopped. She considered me. When she spoke it was in whisper. “Do you have any idea how frightening you are?”

  My turn to consider me. I knew myself for a cheerful fellow, of kind heart and easy ways. And yet, I have measured out my life by the dead lying before me. Men, mostly. Some few women. No children. At least, none slain by my hand. Not that men and women were not children, wandering lost in grownup form. A blue ball with white stars.

  I considered how as we had just embraced, I moved my foot to push the sword in reach. Should killing be required instead of kissing. Such was my nature. And by that nature I was more the monster here. Elspeth had come to my bed just so. Shy, offering herself in trust I was a good man. By God, she should have run. Let the court of the sky recall her livid face, turned up to cathedral stones.

  “What I am, lady, is a blood-soaked man, weary and lonely. What you are, is a young woman in my bedroom.”

  She pouted, pale eyebrows slanted V for Vexed. Oh God, she prepared to reveal she was a woman of the world. She would stamp, speak in what she considered naughty words. She’d begin to weep, letting the night-dress fall... I put a finger to her lips, shook my head to forestall the sortie. Her eyes opened astounded at the gesture.

  “Sweet Lalena, I owe you life and freedom. All I can return is a heart. God knows, it belongs to no one now but who will have it. So I offer it to you. Come to my bed as shy girl or devouring Maenad, whichever you please. We will lie face to face, heart to heart. And if you devour, then I will be your most faithful meal. But if you would please me first, my lady, then come to my bed as bride. And then we shall feast together, life to life, each upon each.” I stopped, wondering what the devil I had just said. Took a breath. “Marry me, Lalena.”

  She broke for the door. It stood locked, the key on the floor. She tugged upon the handle. The stout oak ripped from the frame with a scream of astounded wood. Then she fled, out and away.

  There followed shouting in the hall, wondering at the noise. Chatterton peered around the broken door-frame, owl-eyed astonished. It occurred to me that I had yet to hear him speak. But I had several times now pushed aside that dreamy disinterest. Perhaps all the story of my life, was simply to make that man pay attention.

  I sighed. Not the first time a girl retreated from my advance. First to rip away the door, at least. What a romantic I’d become. And yet, always that eye to survival. If heat of desire had come to naked act? Well, I had just spent the previous night ahorse, after long weeks crouched in chains. I could no more have pleased a woman tonight than tear an oak door from its frame.

  We sat in the common room, while the horses were saddled. Lalena remained upstairs out of sight. Servant-girls bustled up and down, in and out, casting outraged looks my way. Some female drama occurred above. Once could guess their assumption. The poor child broke free of my animal embrace, my oaken door.

  Billy River and Mattie-Horse shared table with me, drinking beer easy as heart’s blood. Chatterton leaned shoulder to the chimney, arms folded, eyes distant. The stance of a man who says ‘I have no part in any fight here, but may yet choose a part’. Now seemed the right time to inquire why I had been rescued, unless I’d been kidnapped? And where were we going, who’d pay for the inn-door, and why were soldiers not upon our backs? Sensible questions, for a collection of personages to whom ‘sense’ was a humming vibration from the moon.

  Billy River cleared throat and intoned with church-warden solemnity: “Master Gray, as the men present to defend the honor of the clan, it is our solemn duty to protect the person and chastity of our dear cousin, the very lady of the clan herself, Lilly-Ann Elena Mac Sanglair.”

  Mattie-Horse exploded in beer and laughter, spouting both across the table, up his throat, out his nose. His brother struggled mightily to maintain a face more solemn.

  “Therefore, sir, it is our sacred duty to ask your intentions towards our cousin?”

  I studied my wrists, scabbed and scarred from chains. I considered that yesterday I had sat in a dark cell. And four months before, I lay in bed a man content with his whiskey, his house, the world beyond the wall and the girl upon the pillow.

  Now I sat at a table a homeless outlaw in borrowed clothes, while two vampiric highlanders inquired whether my intentions were honorable to a creature who slew men naked as a blood-mad Eve.

  I felt no urge to join the laughter. I did not mock Lady Lilly-Ann Elena. Lalena. What I’d asked her, I asked sincerely. True, it was the sincerity of a man thinking in battle-field heart-beats. The soldier’s mind seeking the next step across the field. I, Rayne Gray, Seraph, was reduced. Home lost, fortune lost, position lost. Love lost. Friends lost. World lost.

  Something about Lalena drew me. She lived as I did. Lost in blood, lost in the need to love and be loved. She might be mad, might yet tear my throat. But she was no thing to mock. So I drew my sword, laid it across the table, hand lightly upon the hilt. Chatterton whistled slightly. Billie River sat back. The smile faded sunset-slow from the face of Mattie-Horse.

  “There is no jest in my words to your cousin,” I said. “And no dishonor in my intent. I owe her my life twice over. If she will have me, she may.”

  Billy River grinned, showing teeth to please a tiger’s mirror. “No need to put your back up, boyo. She’s no wee lass you can take under your arm.”

  “That’s not where he intends to take her,” scoffed Mattie Horse.

  “She gave me no answer, Master Horse,” I replied. “But whether she says yea, nay or go to hell, you would be wise to speak of the lady with more respect.”

  I was going to die in a moment. But I have been about to die so many moments, across so many nights, I’ve ceased to believe the trumpet will ever blow. Exactly the thought of every man I’ve killed. So I stared at the man or the monster, whatever he chose to be, till he flushed and stood. Such familiar territory, I stood already.

  “I’m thinking I might be thirsting for something thicker than beer,” growled Mattie Horse. Monster it was then. He flexed the fingers of each hand, preparing to play a complex tune upon the strings of my person.

  I considered the sword. Short and heavy, a dead guard’s work-tool. Well, I have fought with a dead-man’s leg-bone. The memory of Dante’s solemn scowl poking up from the muck of the corpse-pit came to mind, and I laughed.

  Mattie Horse recoiled, slapped by the sound. Billy River stood. Chatterton continued to prop the chimney, a study in nonchalance. I watched Horse shift balance. A normal foe would circle the table, a strong one overturn it. He meant to leap it. He’d count on speed to move past my blade, strength to overcome with a strike to my neck.

  I decided one could best fight these creatures by considering them not as the opponent, but the blade. You didn’t follow with your eye. A sword is too fast. You followed what it intended. I would str
ike where he meant to be, not where I last saw him.

  Chatterton spoke. First I’d heard his voice. Rather high, fitting his young years. Words in Gaelic, I did not know their meaning. It sounded a bored, slouching observation fit to his drowsy demeanor. Yet the words made both Billy River and Mattie Horse turn in astonishment.

  “What are you fools at?” asked Lalena. She stood at the door, cloaked, adjusting gloves. Her eyes rubbed red. Mattie Horse said something, same moment Billy River began a quick babble. Both stopped, tried again, obviously working to make their separate testimonies concur.

  Lalena stared from me to her cousins. Then took a breath that sucked the air from the room, and volcano’ed a Gaelic eruption to flatten mountains and boil seas, turn forests to ash, send grown men huddling under tables. River-Billy and Mattie-Horse endured, maintaining the dignity of not throwing hands over head in protection.

  Time for strategic withdrawal. I smiled, sheathed sword, exited. Chatterton, my rival in instinct for survival, was out the door before me. Exact as when we fled a burning warehouse.

  Outside waited the setting sun, the stable-boy inspecting the horses. I patted the face of the mare I’d ridden last night, showing it I’d bathed. I eyed Chatterton without being obvious, as I assumed he’d have the courtesy to observe me. But no, he stood blinking sleepily at the sunset. Paying my person and sword no more attention than the back of the moon.

  “What did you say to your cousins?” I asked.

  He didn’t turn when he answered. He delivered his words to the sky, as had Flower. Clearly a family trait, as much as shape of ear or tooth.

  “Ach. I was watching you think, as you waited for him to come at you.”

  Absurd statement. At least I thought it was. I wondered if he saw that I thought his statement absurd. If he did, then of course it wasn’t absurd.

  “And?”

  “Hmm. I told him I’d seen him fight, and I’d seen you fight. I informed my dear cousin Mathew that if he didn’t find some way out quick, you’d kill him dead.”

  Chapter 21

  Questions by night, by right, by moonlight

  We rode ever northwards. Clearly, our goal the border. Mattie Horse turned every so often, gifting me a look that whispered ‘we continue discussions beyond the presence of ladies’. Lalena rode ahead, Chatterton behind. I centered the parade as imprisoned guest again.

  “Where do we travel?” I asked the night. The night responded not.

  “Scotland, I suppose,” I answered for the night. “And why do I go to Scotland with these creatures?”

  “We’re going to eat you for dinner?” offered Mattie Horse.

  Billy River sighed. “Is it not enough we rescued you from durance vile? At fearsome risk to our very lives and freedom? Can you not show a bit of gratitude, to accompany us a bit of lonely road?”

  A fair question, that gave no answer to my fair question. I tried another.

  “Accompany where?”

  “Melrose Abbey,” said a voice that made me jump. Chatterton’s.

  Melrose. Some famous church-ruin across the border. Fitting haunt for cats and mad Scots. “Why there, other than dramatic atmosphere?”

  Billy River and Mattie Horse growled. The subject vexed both. Mattie spoke first.

  “Tis a compromise with the other clans. Of late they prefer to meet on holy ground. As if we of the red tartan could not partake of the Lord’s blessed service without smoke pouring out our asses.”

  Mattie Horse snorted. “Speak no blasphemy upon the road, brother. No, it’s that tomb they say is hidden thereabouts. Of the most dread wizard Michael Scott himself, the old git. Threatens to be fatal to such as us. Not that our bones are less family than his dusty own.”

  Wizard. Tomb. Fatal. Excellent. I made a note to myself. Back to wall? Seek wizard’s tomb.

  “And what does your family intend at Melrose?”

  “A gathering,” sighed Chatterton’s voice. “A revel, as it were.”

  I pictured a crowd of kilt-clad lunatics, fangs in grin, pointed-ears twitching, greeting guests with pinches to test ripeness, riddles to test madness, and friendly claps on the back to send him flying. I imagined wandering among such creatures, a mundane and sane intruder. The innocent non-initiate, puzzling at mad speech on the buying of cat-tails, the taming of dragons, the naming of sand-grains. No, I would politely decline to attend, whether as dinner guest or dinner course.

  I informed the night. “I have important business south, in the city.”

  “Being hung?” asked Mattie Horse. “Ach, we could do that here.” He studied a passing tree.

  “I heard I was to be pardoned.”

  “And possibly you were to be. But man, you are dead. Tis no mortal king who extends pardon past such point.”

  That was news. Not that I was dead, I knew I lived. Knew for a fact. Here I am. But here, not there. I could picture them, there, in error for the truth, here.

  “They think me dead?”

  Billy River laughed. “We might appear free and easy, breaking into city garrisons, but it’s no game to play fox and hound with all the King’s soldiery twixt there and the border. No, we made sure to let them think you posthumous, Master Gray. They blame an angry mob, the eyes of frightened guards for all they found and heard.”

  That explained our lack of pursuit. “How did I die?” What a strange question. Not a question one often asks. I hope.

  “Torn to bits in your cell, as it happens,” sighed Mattie Horse happily. “Hands and feet still dangling in the irons. A sad end for the sheriff.”

  “Seraph,” I corrected. I supposed one of the dead guards served for parts. Though it left the question as to what happened to him. Unless there was further shuffling of pieces. Slaughtered guards. My fault? I denied it. I was not responsible for the acts of these mad creatures. But dead or alive, my duty was to return to the south.

  “This week we mean to propose legislation before the full Magisterium and Council of Aldermen, to grant the right of representation to every man of the kingdom.” I stated this to the night, the farm fields, my horse. The horse ears twitched in minor interest. That was something.

  “Did you now?” asked Billy River, yawning. “Was that what the hanging and shouting, the fighting and conflagrations were about?”

  “More or less.”

  “The clans studiously avoid politics,” avowed Mattie Horse. “Tis a scourge worse than drink for the convivial liver of the family.”

  “Politics?” I asked. No. I spat. “It’s not about politics. It’s about lives and justice. How men and women walk under the sun, sleep in their beds. Free, or in chains.” Jeering smile from Mattie, kinder scoff from Billy.

  Rebellion. Time to confront my rescuer-hostess. I would thank her for life and horse, then turn back to the city. I rode up beside Lalena’s. No doubt she’d been listening. She promptly spurred her beast, trotting farther ahead, meaning I do not care to keep your company. I kicked heels, my steed whinnying in complete approval. Lalena turned toward me. Shadowed in hood and night I could see no face. She spurred her horse to a gallop. I did the same.

  We raced side by side, leaving the others behind, near leaving the moon behind. Wind threw back Lalena’s hood, freeing her hair to ripple a battle-flag for a cavalry of mad girls. Cool rushing night-wind, scents of farm fields and woods, a smell of river. I let the air flow about me, washing away the last dregs of stone-cell despair from eyes and lungs and soul.

  I caught a sound under the waving tree-branches, beyond the scudding clouds, over the rumble-tumble of the horse’s hooves. Laughter. Mine, and the girl beside me. Laughing in joy of sudden release, laughing for each other’s joy. And then to better hear the other, we no longer raced, but rode beside one another, pacing to match the night-wind.

  We slowed to a trot, the horses gasping like lovers in satisfaction. Ahead waited a wide river, the stone arcs of a bridge. Clop, clop, went the hooves. What a music horse-hooves make on wooden planks. A magic of the
water beneath, the rhythm of the stride. One should compose to it. I could imagine Flower’s family so doing. ‘Symphony #7, For Horse and Wooden Planking’.

  I crossed looks with Lalena. She glanced away. Now she would turn distant again, pretending I’d seduced her into a gallop. I dismounted, groaning lightly, slightly, and led my horse down to the bank to drink. A good beast, black mare with white main. I patted it in thanks, wondered if the family gave them names. Perhaps Mattie-Horse called his animal ‘Billy River’. It would suit the family tradition.

  Lalena dismounted, followed with her ride. She tugged her hood back over her face, twisted her head inside dissatisfied. Finally pushed it down again, shaking hair free. It promptly settled straight across shoulders and back. It had no ability to tangle. No, each strand paralleled the rest, perfect as some geometric ideal of hair.

  So very pretty in the moonlight.

  I needed to walk before my leg-muscles locked. I hobbled the horse, limped back onto the bridge, leaned out over a low stone railing, contemplated flowing water. The act felt familiar. I recalled doing so months past, on High-Street. To be, or not, I’d declaimed. And here I stood, still being. And now here came Lalena, to be, beside me, adopting my pose of contemplating a river as existence and not repetition.

  We stood thus, each measuring the pace of the breath of the other. I rested on my arms, hands over the water. She did the same. We watched each other’s hands, two knife-fighters gauging intent. Absurd.

  “Tell me about your Elspeth,” she said, same moment I asked “Why did you rescue me?” Our words tangled, our gazes crossed, returned to the river. Cloud reflections boated across the water, blurred children of a reality above and indifferent to the things of earth.