The Blood Tartan: Quest of the Five Clans

by Raymond St. Elmo

  I sipped my beer, nodding. “I can see it might.”

  We drank in silence. The face carved on the table between us, stared up, unfathomable, incomprehensible, unreachable. And so, seeming infinitely wise.

  “Who is she?” I asked.

  Chatterton sighed. He picked up the dagger and I was half around the table without spilling a drop. He ignored that lack of faith on my part, began to work the wood about the shoulders of the drawing. Then he stood, finished his drink, and left the tavern.

  I stared down at the carved table-top. I realized he had not finished his work in the warehouse, before flame and fencing had interrupted. At last I beheld the picture, complete.

  I stared at a rough carving of a young woman, heart-faced, framed by locks of hair; eyes gazing from under wryly arched brows. As before. And now behind her rose two wings, feathered, wide, reaching out and over to seize the angelic air.

  Chapter 24

  What Night hath brought together

  Dusk, and we returned to the abbey in solemn procession. Burning brands high, bagpipes keening ‘Greensleeves’. I walked at the fore, my least favorite position in a battle-charge. I prefer the middle, off-center to the right.

  Nightfall revealed a Melrose no longer sleepy stone-and-grass skeleton, but new-fleshed in soul-shivering wonder. Candles and lanterns of colored glass, set about as drinks of light, strung above for fairy stars. Companies of the family entered in lines of bright-colored cloth, wove with symbols to hint the nature of the wearers.

  In marched clans identified by woven patterns of suns and stars, hammers and clocks, or hinting textures of fur and earth, green leaves for a forest folk, ears pointed as Brick’s. Fresh lines of family entered the revel in stately march, their sign and pattern writ as much upon their faces as their clothes.

  Tartans of Blood, which I knew, which tonight I wore. It chafed my knees. Here came other and different folk, common descendants of the nameless family before. I saw kilts of silver thread interwove with pale blue, to make a shadow of the Moon. The faces of these folk were no more animal than mine. But then, mine is said to reveal an animal mind.

  Still it was not the clans that most captured the eye, but the individuals who stood alone for their own species, their own ideal, wandering the world as representative from a reality belonging to none but them.

  Behold the original Masked Ball, I thought. And scarce a mask in sight. No, here were the living faces the mask-makers sought, staring at blank canvas, longing to summon some spirit of carnival dream from out the parts of glass and gilt, feather and silk.

  Those spirits walked here, and had no need of mask. Theirs the faces costumes sought to seem. Here the slanted eyes, the tiger mouths, the elongated noses, the forest whiskers and skins of gold and nacre and bronze, sold in copy from Venice to Orleans. Here were ears of faun and fox, sea-shell wonders of porcelain turn, ears decorating twists of mane and fur and twining locks, simple child braids, coiled wonders of strands dyed in colors without name.

  I wandered this fever-ball, knowing why these creatures scoffed at names. They wore the faces of the things themselves. That king in ermine was Man. His dance partner in skins, tailed and pawed, was Animal herself. Fire and Earth danced to gypsy fiddle, while Life, Death, and Love clapped hands, kept time. That woman in deep green was the Sea, swaying to music by her lonesome, in and out, in and out, sea-foam hair trailing. Beside her, watching her, wanting her, stood the Knight in Ancient Armor, centering a capering trio in orange-cloth that were candle-flames come to dance.

  The clans of the folk posed and feasted amid ancient ruins of arch and marble, before art graced by master hands, perfected by moonlight… and turned it to gray stage prop. The beauty of the ruins became background fog to the wonder of the folk themselves. Ah, these people could have strode into a fish market, made it the center of the world, the turning point of the stars.

  And yet, I walked among them, smiled, nodded, and knew them also for ruin. Just as the Abbey, these figures carried the sorrow of something long shattered. Lost. Gathered together they did not regain the missing glory, but revealed it. Like ragged holes in velvet robes, like missing faces from the ancient statuary, like these broken arches reaching to indifferent sky. For all the turning throng, the night-world about the party loomed greater, wider. Here gathered a small remainder of a magic nation, huddled in vivid conversation, wild dance, faery music, sending out laughter so that no ear might catch the night silence, the free and empty wind beyond the festive lights.

  In the beginning, so proud to be us… the night-sky stars, the storm wind, the winter geese-folk flying free, free. I wondered if Flower and Brick, Lucy, Dog of Mystery, Light the Ancient Mariner might make dramatic entry. Impossible. They wandered the distant city, nameless, homeless, pocketless. Proud and free, to starve and freeze.

  In such thought I sat to my wedding banquet, far table-end from my bride-to-be. She turned to me at times, and I could not read her eyes. So I watched, as I have in farm-fields where the latest harvest was men’s lives. So I listened, as I have in dark alleys, counting the step of foot, the hiss of intended murder.

  “How clean and shiny you’ve become,” declared a voice in my ear, a hand on my shoulder. I turned to a young thing leaning behind my chair, displaying white dandelion hair, wild eyes, curves of a bodice set with silk, kilt decorated with laced patterns of serpent scales. I recalled the face, the hair, guessed the ciochan.

  “Cousin Coils?” I asked. I checked lower, fascinated. Two pretty bare feet, poking out the hem.

  She laughed, twirled upon these new-found objects. “Excellent name. I declare myself christened for the night. Will you dance?”

  We stood to so do, while the table laughed and teased my bride-to-be.

  Coils leaned her white hair close to mine. “What are you doing, you idiot?” she hissed.

  Had I trod her sometime-feet? Impossible, I am a perfect dancer.

  “Are you trading your life for a vampire tumble?” she whispered. “Run from here.”

  We made fast steps under the fairy lanterns. Fiddles and oboes, quick music for light hearts, light feet. Prelude to death? Perhaps. I put hand to Cousin Coil’s waist, twirled her about, made a bow.

  “Thank you,” I said, and shook my head. Naught else to say. No retreat now, but continue the charge through the field. I took my chair again. Women led Lalena away, to dress her for the service. Her gaze distant, despairing, walking to a shroud not a wedding dress. She tendered me no look, no smile. I wondered which she feared, the wedding or the wedding bed?

  My table partner had changed. Mattie Horse sat in place of a dowager of the Fire Tartan. She’d smelled of smoke, as one would expect. She intimidated. A head taller, she’d loomed, spoke of her wedding night delivering the naughty words in French. My French is excellent as my dancing. I’d burned in embarrassment.

  I eyed Mattie, wondering what he intended. Not bed-advice, I prayed. He feigned drunkenness. As did I. People kept passing me full cups, a thing a spadassin must expect but never accept.

  I measured a man of the Blood Tartan some seats down. A great black-maned creature with nose near heroic as mine. He’d scouted me all evening without meeting eyes. When Lalena left, he sat up, no longer under his lady’s eye. Now he considered a spot of wine upon his finger. He intended to kill me. I pick up on these things. One does or dies.

  “Listen now,” whispered Mattie Horse soft. “I didna take to you quick, but you make a fine madman in red. So I’ve saddled your horse, with some compensation in her pack. Tis back of the inn. Wander away to piss on some saint’s bones, then show your heels down the road.”

  “True,” I laughed happily, clapping him upon the back. “A good woman’s like a fine new book. Best opened in bed.”

  He growled his canines. I shrugged. Long teeth were in season tonight. Might as well threaten me with a nose. The black-haired fellow down the table stood, cup raised as though to make a toast. Voices stilled, while he studied his cup�
� then overturned it, let it pour to the grass. There were curses, murmurs. First the table, then all the party went quiet.

  “I shall not drink to my poor family mixing with a sad bit of dog-meat rescued from a southern gutter,” he growled loud, in apology to the ground. “It would put shame to our blood worse than spilled wine.”

  “Then of course, a new book is like a bride,” I continued to Mattie, ignoring the speaker. Mattie scowled at me, then at the man, then back at me.

  “How so?” he demanded.

  I stood, stretched. “Let me kill this fellow first, and then I’ll tell you.” Sheer, mere theatre. I had absolutely no idea why a new book was like a bride.

  I walked to a clear space between tables, drew sword and waited. The man goggled in fury, deprived of a hundred dramatic lines he’d prepared. His kindred circled, telling him to sober up, calm down, cease insulting a guest who’d be dead by dawn anyway.

  I tapped the ground before me, kindly showing him where to stand. In response he roared, pushed aside the peacemakers, who never push back so well as to stop the entertainment. I’ve noticed this. Voices of reason and restraint give a good try, and then get on with watching the fun.

  I expected him to rush me, nails and teeth extended. Well, the man was not so hurried as that. There came arguing, as there does. He demanded we fight hand to hand, fang to fang. Chatterton politely offered him his rapier, which the man impolitely declined. In the end a circle was formed, and I allowed my dagger.

  So the time had come. My first fight with a vampire. I felt the usual worry. Suppose I was not up to the act? I’d gathered what hints I could. Billie River explained how the true children of the cold brides considered it unfitting to use other than what God gave them. Also unnecessary. Chatterton had added, in mere afterthought, that none of the Mac Sanglair were worth a damn in swordplay. That told me much, as he knew it would. The Mac Sanglair relied on talent, not training. I wondered if Lalena had ever slept with a man.

  “Chatterton had no interest in my hand or person,” she’d said. I was glad of that. Not that I’d begrudge her previous lovers. But I wouldn’t be having a best man who slept with my bride. I held the knife loosely before me, and my challenger made a few dance steps to the side in the traditional circling. Then he lost interest and leaped.

  I put knife not where he was, but where my throat had been. He grasped the blade, I rolled past, turned. A dangerous thing to have speed greater than one’s training. His case, not mine. He stood astonished, holding out a hand sliced from fingertip to wrist, fountaining blood.

  Why was a bride like a new book? Other than virginity. Would I read Lalena’s body, page to page, touching, enjoying? A pleasant thought. Picture a book that grows aroused as the eyes caress the words… but a vampiric book, aroused, would turn and devour the reader. The man moved so fast I did not see him cross the distance between. But I did not expect to see. I thought of him as the blade, not the opponent. You don’t see where a blade is, you must know where it intends. He did not see mine until he held me by the neck, looked down to his opened gut.

  His hand would have squeezed my throat for wet clay, but his grasp was slick with blood. He dropped me, bent over hands to belly and I beat both fists down upon the back of his head. Did that work with vampires? What caresses would arouse Lalena? The usual? Suppose we lay in bed dissatisfied, each speaking a language of touch foreign to the other?

  I kicked a knee to the man’s face and he fell, same as any other. No, it felt a bit different. The kilt chafed the knee. I stood, holding a bloody knife in a circle of his cousins, wondering whether this would satisfy, or be aperitif to a dark feast. Some cheering, some curses, much muttering of surprise. The music started, the man was carried off to die in peace or make full recovery. I had only rumor for how fast these creatures healed. Perhaps his cousins drank him dry in the shadows. I didn’t know his fate nor his name.

  I sat beside Billy River, allowed myself a sip of wine.

  “So why is a new book like a bride?” growled the man.

  “Why, if they are any good, they shall keep you up the night,” I declared.

  A bell rang, my rabbit-heart leaped. We stood. The red clan formed a gauntlet. I and Chatterton walking between. My hands were sweating. I would be taking Lalena’s hand and I had damp palms like a boy exploring a girl’s undershirt. Madness. I considered the horse Mattie spoke of, back of the inn. I could dash through the crowd, make my way down the road…

  Here stood a priest dragooned from bed, waiting Bible in hand, while vampires and faeries and folk of air and earth and stranger elements observed, whispering reverent or amused. Bagpipes, keening soft for once, and oboes, and then a line of ladies from the side joined us, and I walked next a eerie veiled personage in white, bouquet in hand. The hands shook, a pale petal fell.

  I should be in the city, my mind told my mind. I had business there. A grand set of laws to see passed, to set the coming century upon a path of freedom and progress. What the hell was I doing in a Scott morality play?

  Was this about Elspeth? I wondered. Did I seek Death by Marriage, in punishment for never taking her as love, merely lover? It was beside Elspeth I should stand, before priest, God and witness. Not a mad creature of blood and night.

  She might call you the same, replied my mind. Mad creature of blood and night. I stood as striker to myself, and all but carved ‘C’ for coward upon my soul. Do this thing because it is fitting, said the voice. She is alone, lost, in need to be needed. So also, you. Together you may be complete. Can that not count as the beginning of love?

  The priest looked to me, expecting some reply. Could he hear my unvoiced words? But perhaps he knew the words of doubt, regular guests to a marriage service. The crowd waited silent. Lalena stood a veiled statue, cold marble, motionless. Waiting my reply. What had been said? I looked about in panic to the crowd, met the eye of Cousin Coils.

  ‘You do,’ she mouthed.

  “I do,” I gasped.

  So also she, the veil-shrouded creature next to me. More readings, more words, some blessings, a borrowed ring. Some cheers, some music, and I turned and lifted lace, beheld the face of my bride.

  So very pale, and the eyes looking to mine were the gaze one sees on the new recruits first going to battle. Young eyes accepting that all hope is lost, and all life is over, and all fears complete, and nothing now is left but to run forwards to what end awaits in the fire.

  My face her mirror, for sure. So we gave one another what comfort we could, with a kiss. Cold lips, but growing warmer with a touch. Soft form beneath my hands, pressing light, then tighter. The kiss became less a gift of comfort, more a touch of fire. The crowd laughed, I pulled back to gaze into eyes turning swift from fear to hot desire.

  Chapter 25

  If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright…

  After the blessing, after the toasts, some few cheers. I shook hands, counted more sad and worried faces than grins, than leers. The Mac Sanglair were no unkind people, wished no stranger casual harm. Nor did their cousin clans. I saw eyes advising me to Cinderella-run, leaving neither shoe nor backward glance. I smiled in reply, and held Lalena’s hand in mine, afraid to grasp too tight in our first dance, afraid to let go.

  Lilly-Ann Elena Mac Sanglair was all clumsy girl on dance feet. She stood stiff, would not meet my eyes. Or was she now Mrs. Gray? Dull name. Perhaps I should take hers, she being the Lady of the Clan. Well, she was crying now. I turned her, held her close so that few would see. She pressed face to my chest, wiping eyes upon my white ruffled shirt. A lace thing, perfect for tears.

  She raised her head again and smiled, still not meeting eyes, and we whirled as the music went, and I found she my bride a dancer past measure, and that all her girl-slouching was mere attitude, for when her heart beat and her eyes shone she was a true creature of her ancient family, a wind-thing free and gifted, every breath and step a counter to nameless music deeper than what echoed out from pipe and string.

  One bell,
then two, a third. Three in the morning; and time for bed.

  A pavilion-tent set against a mausoleum, for our marriage chamber. We walked hand in hand, she holding the train of her wedding dress across an arm. A path of lantern lights and well-wishers. I stopped.

  “Well?” asked Lalena, softly. She trembled, did not look to me. She expected a bow, an apology and a quick farewell. I took a while to answer. Why I had paused seemed trivial, put to words.

  “The path has been swept.”

  Now she granted a quick glance for my wandering mind. I smiled, shrugged, we went on. At the entrance she almost went first. But I held her back, then scooped her up.

  Those watching, laughed. I turned to look annoyed. There was Billy River arms folded, leaning against a stone angel, arms folded. Devil and Angel, highly amused. Mattie Horse stood worried. I gave them all an eye, a jerk of the head meant to say ‘clear this lot out, and keep out yourselves’. And carried my bride into the tent.

  Within waited candles, flame waving welcome. Rugs upon the stone floor, a bridal chest, a table of presents. And a great four-poster bed set with garlands of mistletoe and roses. I placed the girl down. No, I placed my bride down. Thoughts rioted in defiance of order. I needed to return south. There were meetings of committee. Speeches to make. Throats to cut. I turned and kissed my wife. I had not so much as a house or horse to my name. But I had a wife. Not the first man in such position.

  I played my fingers awhile in the fields of sanity which were the ordered strands of her hair. Not gold. No, these were pale yellow, strings to an instrument not yet invented. When they were set in some undiscovered frame then the separate strands would be strummed by angels, satisfied to find at last a medium to suit their message. Till then her hair was mine, to be kissed, leading lower to her invisible brows, her visible, tastable lips.

  That went on awhile, then she pushed away as my fingers failed to find the least fastening to her dress. Well, they had never unwrapped a bride before. She stood laughing in panic, then took my hand and led to the table of wedding presents.