The Blood Tartan: Quest of the Five Clans

by Raymond St. Elmo

  We pushed and prodded at trash and treasure. A box of silver buttons, a bag of golden spoons. A tin container painted with jungle blooms, within which waited a sea-shell so delicate in its folds it seemed an orchid itself. I recalled the Market of Dreams, and wondered. A great yellow parchment in gothic Gaelic, granting us title to a rock in the North Sea. I studied it, shivered with imagined chilblains. The north held endless little islands, dismal haunts of storm and wave. I searched for a warmer gift. Socks, perhaps. Or the grant of a chateau in France.

  A great long box of dark wood. Upon the surface were strange scratches, the tracks of birds. Within waited a hammer, the head wide as my hand, the shaft long as my leg.

  “What in the world?” I asked. “A tradition of your people? Do you symbolize marriage with mining?”

  Lalena stared a while at the scratches upon the box, tracing them with a finger. “From Uncle,” she declared. “And there is no point in asking what he means. He is too wise to be understood, and too mad to second guess.”

  I found a tied bit of canvas, opened it to let a single shilling fall. My turn to study in silence, tracing a finger over the scratch across the face of George.

  “And this for you, from me,” said Lalena last. She offered a box, which I took, and opened, revealing a dagger long and thin as a moment of true decision.

  “Hmm,” I said, and put it aside. I held out my hand. “This, for you. My hand. And life. And body. No more presents now, except each to each.”

  She crossed arms. “I am not going to bed with you, Rayne Gray, less you have that knife under your pillow.”

  “Woman,” I chided. “Would you speak so to your lord and master? In bed with you.”

  “Lord and …?” she stared affronted. “You idiot southern,” and slipped into Gaelic. While I slipped behind her, to hold her close, and examine the fastenings of that chaste white fortress of a dress.

  And when the fortress fell, and she stood before me, pale and surrendered, then I surrendered as well, and she tugged away kilt and shirt, and peace was declared, and I picked her up and placed her upon the bed, and myself upon her, and she turned pink in the candlelight, and her eyes black as cats huddled in holes, and I traced the names of flowers and stars and beasts across her skin with my fingers, in sign that names had no meaning, only the things themselves.

  And her hands took me, and placed me within, in sign that she was a part of something that joined to another, as did I, and so joined we two lost creatures regained a glory that was not a thing of parts, but the whole. And the glory came as a quickening of breath and heart-beat, a reach of fingers touching, tracing in wonder.

  And I lay above her and within, her legs wrapping tight, pulling me deeper, and I leaned down and rained kissed upon breast and nose and lips, and at last, at last I saw the ordered mind of her hair lose its composure, and each strand twisted and turned in frantic desire, while her eyes grew empty and mad as the night sky, and pink mouth opened wide with white teeth that clamped upon my throat.

  The knife, I thought, and could have reached it. For even in desire my cold soul had thought to place the box in reach of the bed. All my life’s purpose has been forever bent to one goal, to survive.

  It seemed now a weak and idiot purpose, to live, to breathe. Bah. I let my life rush away as it wished, as blood or seed, for I had no more use for any of it, and wondered why I ever had.

  I stood on a road straight as a line drawn to divide the world, narrowly fenced. It rose and fell across valleys and hills, crossed woods and towns, at last to rise above the horizon instead of sink below. About me hung shadowed sky, a cold wind, and I shivered, wondering what brought me out before storm.

  A woman strode the road ahead, bearing a pilgrim’s walking stick. Her hair blew in the wind, a flag sewn of red silk come unraveled.

  “Elspeth?” I called.

  She turned, and smiled, but did not slow her step. So I hurried after, barefoot, glad to see she wore sensible boots upon the road.

  “Married, are you now?” she asked, wry as ever. The tone used catching me sampling some pastry meant for dinner.

  Married… I tried to recall. I looked down to myself, found I wore nothing but a night-shirt and a long red scarf wrapped tight about my throat. The scarf felt warm, the ends trailing damp down my chest.

  “It should have been you,” I told her.

  “I’d have said no to your face, boyo,” she laughed. Not what I expected, yet somehow not surprising.

  “Why? Too dainty to wed a gentleman-bear?”

  She shook her head. “Ah, Master Gray. Rayne. You’re a kindly sort. I’ve always known. But innocent when you should be wise, careless where you need walk eyes open. Astonishes a soul to think you outlived me.”

  Ah. We walked on down the road together. I tried to see the end of it. A glow in the distance. A city of gold, perhaps. It came to me then. The Celestial City, at the end of the Pilgrim’s Progress.

  “This comes from teaching a girl to read,” I sighed.

  She laughed, thumped the road with her staff, near crushing my toes. “To the City indeed I’m bound. A prince waits me there, if he will have me, and I have promise that he will. But you great nit, you never taught me to read. I knew my letters before I first bled.”

  “What?” I thundered. So did the sky. The wind blew the flaps of wet red scarf in my face. “Why pretend you couldn’t read? Why ask me to teach you?”

  “Oh, angels,” sighed the girl. “Help the poor pudding-head. Why do you think? So to sit next you, eyes adoring, while you stared down my dress.”

  I stopped. The question so hard to ask by sunlight, came no easier by storm. She turned, saw my face, and a look of pity widened her eyes, as if they beheld the butcher’s kicked dog. I suppose they did. She too stopped, and so at last we considered at one another on the road.

  “Did you betray me?” I asked. “Did you spy for Black?”

  She stood straight, staff beside her to declare a stand. Face pale as when I found her dead. “Listen now, Rayne Gray, for I am as bound to speak the truth as you are to hear it.”

  She gathered breath, shook wind from hair and continued. “I was a house-girl caught up in lords’ affairs. Spyings and beddings, and promises of a glorious future, with threats of a dreadful end. I lived in more fear and shame in a week, man, than you did in a year of war. And giddy dreams, too, for I was just a servant-maid, and yet I rode in secret carriages, bore letters in cypher, spoke to personages whose cooks would not have let me pass their kitchen door.”

  “Ah.” My heart never sank so low in its life-long drum-beat. The red scarf flapped, too weary to keep time with the storm-wind.

  She stamped her foot. “I said listen. I never did naught that I knew would bring you harm nor shame, Rayne Gray. I was of your house, and if I knew Jeremy Black first, that was the destruction from which I turned when I began this path.” She thumped the road with her staff. “This path, upon which I am bound. It went through your house and your bed, Master Gray. I won’t deny my shame. I took advantage of your innocence. But never think I worked against you. I was faithful as mortal heart and body is ever allowed to be.”

  The wind blew so, I had no strength to shout against it. A longing came to follow the road. Far ahead the storm-shadow ended, and fields of sunlight waited. I took a step, but a hand grabbed my shoulder.

  I turned, reaching for what weapon a night-shirt might have. None, nor needed any. I faced Lalena. She wore the tartan of her clan, and a red circlet about her blond hair, keeping it sane and ordered. But she shivered in the cold wind. I put an arm about her.

  Elspeth laughed, not for me. “He’s become the courtly one. With me it was ‘come lass, to bed and legs up.”

  I stared astonished. “You never spoke so in my house, Elspeth O’Claire.”

  She laughed long and sad. “Oh be sure but I did. In Irish. I was forever praising your –“

  “We must go,” said Lalena. “You’re blue with cold.” She fumbled
at the scarf around my throat, but the wet knot would not loosen.

  “Farewell, Master Rayne,” said Elspeth. She looked to Lalena, who met her gaze, arm tight about me. “God keep you, Lady Sanglair.” She made a curtsy, and then turned and strode on into storm and the Pilgrim’s Path.

  “We need to get out of this,” shouted Lalena.

  A dog barked. There is only one True Dog in dreams, it seems. Lucy come up from the city. She circled us, then sat in the road and barked. She barked up a wind, as sailors are said to whistle them. It whirled the dust of the road about us till we huddled, all ends unseen.

  "I hear horses,” whispered Lalena. No, shouted. I heard faint as whisper. I struggled to stand, the scarf grown longer, now tangling arms and hands. A carriage rode up, horses swerving to the side before they ran us down. A door opened. Lalena helped me in, red scarf tangling feet.

  Within was peace from the wind, and her Uncle Birdman, sitting straight, a book upon his lap. He closed it with a snap! Leaned forwards, gave his niece a chaste peck on the cheek. I sat in relief, weary past measure. The carriage rattled. I couldn’t recall a carriage in Pilgrim’s Progress. It seemed cheating. I did not object.

  “What an awful scarf,” observed the Birdman. “A wedding present, I suppose.”

  He cocked head to side, studied me with one eye, shiny as a beetle’s back. Then reached into a pocket of his frock coat, produced scissors. He leaned forwards, snipped at the cloth about my throat. The scarf fell away in damp pieces.

  “Better,” he decided. “I trust you found my wedding present?”

  I tried to recall. “A hammer?”

  “A miner’s mattock, technically. Hammer will do. It is so you can open yet another present, left you both some centuries back.”

  I exchanged looks with Lalena. She shook her head, meaning she had no more idea than I. She looked beautiful in the red circlet. I wanted to take her back to bed, undress her of all but the circlet. Wedding presents that waited centuries could wait another day.

  The carriage stopped, Uncle reached across and opened the door beside me. He took my hand, gave it a congratulatory shake, and flung me out the door and onto the bed of the tent.

  “Rayne,” said Lalena. “Wake. Wake. Please.” She held me to her naked breasts again. Blood-splashed again. My blood. I felt at my throat. Strips of her wedding dress lay tightly bound, so I could barely breathe.

  She dripped tears. “I’m sorry, my love. You should have used the knife.”

  I lay across the bed. No death-dream, but my near-death wedding bed. I blinked at the folds of the tent-top, struggled to sit.

  “Rest,” she whispered.

  “Dress,” I croaked. Throat hurt. “No wife of mine is running naked in the night.”

  “What? Where are we going?” she asked confounded.

  “The place cousin Chatterton’s angel showed me,” I explained. Well, that was an explanation, in its way. I struggled into pants, forgoing kilt. I gathered up the hammer. Dropped it. Too weak. Lalena donned night dress. Her hair hung straight as lines in Euclid’s dreams of beauty.

  She grasped the hammer lightly in little hands. Hands still smeared red. Mouth still smeared red. Eyes still black, dark and mad. But the hair declared her sane again. I must trust the lines of her hair.

  I considered the night, and my life, and took my rapier in hand. Not too dizzy to carry that. Together we left our wedding tent. Outside the sounds of distant partying. The nearer lamps had burned low or out, but the stars shone. Hours yet till dawn. Where to go from here?

  Ahead, a small figure broomed away at the path. Well of course. “This way,” I said, and we walked through the ruins, owl-haunted, mist-swept, star-decked. The ground made a cold wet floor to bare feet, but woke me from the torpor of before.

  We came before the ruins of Melrose, walked through headstones of nameless dead, no less real for loss of name. I lost sight of the sweeping figure, but recalled the dull red beehive just beyond…

  Where a small crowd waited. Billy River at the front. He stood with a drawn sword, which surprised. Beside him stood his half-brother Mattie, carrying a stout axe. Others of the family tartan stood behind them, some bearing arms, some raising lanterns, all showing fangs.

  “You will stop there, Rayne Gray,” said Billy River. “We know what you intend. And ‘tis a poor recompense you pay those who loosed you from chains.”

  I struggled to recall his full name, failed. No matter. It’d have no more power over him, than what he declared himself to be. “Billy River, I swear before the bones of this church, the wife by my side, and by all my heart, I mean no harm to you or yours.”

  Mattie Horse laughed. Not as a horse laughs, but a man undeceived, slightly drunk. “You come with a great hammer –“

  “A mattock,” I corrected.

  “A great bloody mattock to the wizard’s tomb, to open it for what will put end to the Mac Sanglair.”

  I considered. I’d woken in a fever to put the parts together. Chatterton’s mystery girl had shown me the place, Lalena’s uncle had given me the hammer. But what was it all about?

  A girl laughed from out the dark. Atop the bee-hive tomb. She swayed, dancing, hands raised to stars as if to seize. She who’d led me here. Perhaps had declared my path since I first met her in the city.

  “Billy River, who is buried here?” I demanded.

  The man turned to stare at the mad girl, swaying on top the tomb. “So the old ones of the family are at the back of this.”

  The girl laughed. Somewhere, a dog barked.

  “Well, we knew it so. Will they never be at peace with the changing world?”

  “Never,” declared Flower. She twirled, nearly tumbled. “Never, never.”

  Billy River sighed. “Master Gray, know that here lies the mortal remains of Michael Scot, kin to our kin, and ‘tis a shame such a man would lay a snare for his children’s children centuries after his passing.”

  I considered. “I am told the family cherishes its own, beyond purse and land and life. Surely that runs true for an old wizard, as it does for you tonight. Master William, I feel that what waits within is not meant for your harm.”

  “And how will you know, you mad southern dog, till the damned thing is opened?” shouted Mattie Horse.

  “I won’t,” I admitted. “Nor will you. But the oldest of your family have placed something here. I feel they brought me from the city, ran me in circles, just to stand tonight with this hammer, this mattock, and swing.”

  “Sounds like them,” muttered someone. A dog barked agreement.

  Lalena looked from me to mattock she carried. “Oh,” she said, as if a long riddle were sudden clear. Whatever the answer she saw, she did not move away, but stood the nearer to me.

  “But it is for the Mac Sanglair to decide,” I added, dropping my rapier. “I will not raise a hand to a one of you.” What a peaceable thing to say to a crowd of armed vampirics, and so very wise. I could scarce raise hand to scratch my nose.

  A cold wind blew, same as in the dream. Lalena pressed herself against me. Same as in the dream. There was silence among the crowd before us, then whispers. I smiled. It is one thing to face a threat. Another to face a challenge. Particularly for the proud. So proud a thing, to be us.

  “Oh hell, let’s see what the old wizard left for the wedding,” sighed Billy River, and then laughed. “It would put shame on the family, not to open a wedding present. Particularly with all these Sinclairs and Courseys and cousin-clatter looking on.”

  I looked, and indeed a good many of the wedding-guest clans had gathered about.

  Lalena handed me the mattock. I groaned at the weight, not wishing to shame my bride by dropping it before the onlookers. I went to the bee-hive construction, stood before it.

  “Break it, break it, break it,” chanted Flower.

  I took a breath, gathered what strength remained that did not require my blood, and swung. It took three tries.

  At the first, there came a splash
of dust. Bricks flew in, crumbled away. Those crowding close jumped back, prepared to flee a rush of dragon fire. At the second strike, a light shone out to make us blink. Yet not blinding. Not dragon fire nor angry holy glow. Here was warmth and sight, the light of life and day, the opposite of cold night. Strengthened, I swung with greater force, knocking the last of the bricks from a large section of the side.

  Out poured daylight. Not shining through a window, but entering through the door to replace the night about us. We stood in full day’s light. From the Mac Sanglair came screams, curses, prayers, all of which slowed and silenced as the daylight shone, ordinary and wonderful a thing as grass or wind or breath. There came no burning, no turning to dust. No, this outpouring offered itself for our seeing. Behold the light of a quiet day, a thousand years past.

  I looked to Lalena, who blinked sleepy. She did not melt nor burn, for all her life confined to night. I studied the Mac Sanglair, who stood stunned, hands open, fingers tracing the warmth, the glow of a sun that meant them no more harm that a summer wind. I wondered how many years the clan had fled the day, because they feared it hated them. Name a man vampire, and sunlight is his enemy, blood his drink. Such is the power of words to chain.

  I collapsed on the grass, leaned against the remains of the wizard’s tomb. I watched Lalena in the sunshine, tripping in her night-dress, touching stones and grass with a look of wonder, touching the faces of her cousins, laughing.

  “Yes, I owe you a shilling,” I said, before Flower could say it. She sat beside me, mimicking my pose of exhaustion. Or perhaps she was exhausted? No, just mocking. The Dog of Mystery joined us, panting with excitement. Her eyes laughed so wise, I was sure she must be secret family after all.

  Brick perched upon a headstone, reciting words in thought to himself, or to his sun-gazing family, or to the bones beneath us all.

  "In the beginning, so proud to be us. Measured by our eyes and no other. Peers we were each to each, and cared nothing for princes waiting at the door. The least of our blood was royalty in the measure of our love. All others, plaything people. We were the lords of table and battle and bed, of book and dance and secret chant. Nameless, except such names we took to wear as crowns of summer laurel. We were the night-sky stars, the storm wind, the winter geese-folk flying free, free."