The Clockwork Tartan: Quest of the Five Clans

by Raymond St. Elmo

  “Now if I only knew where she got coin for a carriage,” I told the dog. “Or how a girl sweeping street corners for a half-farthing obtains a queen’s dress. My wisdom would be complete.”

  “Ach, you gave her all a bag of jewels in that bank you robbed,” reminded Brick, not turning to address me. “She tired of dropping them off the bridge. Sold ‘em, bought all kinds of things. A kitten. A kite. That gun she waved about at the cemetery where we’ll be being bandits. That fool dress the snaky things shook her from. Ha.”

  Flower turned, aimed a kick. He dodged aside, peering into the distance as though the kick had come from some menace far ahead. For all the lack of wind, the light of the lamp flickered, setting his shadow dancing and twisting for a second flame.

  Jewels? For a moment I puzzled. Then nodded in recollection. When we’d raided the treasure box of the Harlequin pretender. I’d tossed The Demoiselle a bag of diamonds. Sounds extravagant now. At the time it’d been of no consequence. Useless treasure, when life and sanity were at stake. That’d been the start of a bloody night of murder. A pouch of shiny pebbles had meant nothing.

  Brick stopped before a door, held lamp high. Flower leaned broom against wall, tugged the door open. The two creatures peered into the dark, consulted one another, then turned to me. My next magic journey awaited.

  It came absurdly slow to my mind, that if Brick knew of the diamonds and bandits and princess dress, then he knew all else. As did Flower. All my mystic prophecy had been to tell them of ancient history. Served me right, to think I’d ever take them by surprise, ever have the last word. Not with these.

  The two stared at me, eyes wide, expressionless. A wind began to sweep down the hall, setting the girl’s hair tossing. The flame of the lantern trembled, sending the boy’s shadow dancing. A shiver took me, as though I stood before creatures infinite in wisdom, unfathomable in purpose. For all that I’d have passed either beggar-child on the street without a glance. Maybe tossed a farthing, wished them well. These two, what were they? ‘We are who we wish to be’, went the long slow song of their nameless existence. What did that even mean? I looked to the dog Lucy. She knew things, and was wise to be a dog.

  Lucy gave me a look. Wise, knowing, and wordless. We exchanged mystic knowledge with our eyes. We agreed the world was mad, exactly so made. Left it at that. She wagged tail. I shrugged, gave a nod and crossed the doorway.

  Chapter 22

  Letters from a House on the Street of Time

  I stood in Magister Green’s office. Unlit, excepting twilight through glazed windows. Evening. No one present. But that would do. At first I’d thought to find some magic door to the private chambers of the King himself. Appear at his bedside, perhaps. I’d present him charter and pen, press him to sign. Reflection measured that an unwise strategy. The King lay old, mad and well-guarded. Who’d believe later in the royal scribble?

  No, if the Charter were to be signed properly, it’d need more formal procedure. My ally Magister Green had access to the privy chambers of that courtly dance. If I could get word to him but a week or two before, he’d find way to gain royal signature and stamp of George in official manner. We’d learn after the royal funeral, how the kindly tyrant fulfilled the Hopes of Freedom for the nation, then passed on to a glorious reward.

  If Green had been in his office, I’d have explained the lunacy. The man would have believed. He’d seen enough strange things of late. But I dared not track him across city and time. I’d find myself in my own nursery chamber, else a charnel pit of France. A note left upon Green’s desk must do. As Kariel once informed me atop a cathedral: a body will believe a mysterious note, when they’d scoff at the same words said to their face.

  I went to Green’s desk. Cluttered as always. Found parchment, steel quill. Pushed aside several papers lying about… and stopped to snoop. Well, I am a spadassin. I cannot be blamed for spying. Particularly when one of the items before me is in my own writing.

  To: Vertumnus Green

  The torture has extended across the day. I am excluded not just from her room, but the entire floor, confined to pacing, cursing, sitting, pacing, drinking, pacing. Through the house I hear Lalena give howls, moans, shouts. I rush up the stairs to her rescue, only to meet a shield-wall of family females, fangs bared in sign I’d best retreat to man’s land downstairs.

  Chatterton has fled the house, the traitor. He’d back a friend facing dragons, yawn at hosts of devils firing cannon. But childbirth sends him running down the street? I’d match his pace for retreat, were it not my wife left howling on the battle front. Furst came by with his own family doctor. A dust-covered brute-handed horse-handling cigar-stenched medico who presided over the death of Furst’s wife in childbirth some years past. I declined the offer of assistance. They stood on the doorstep awed by the pandemonium within; and did not insist to enter.

  Lalena is throwing things. The house echoes with the thumps, gasps and growls. I believe it to be people she is throwing. Had I turned the case over to Furst’s horse-and-woman doctor, the noises would have been more entertaining.

  God damn it. This is my fault. I lay with my wife. She caught child as she’d catch cold. Childbirth is a pox. Now she suffers, I sip brandy. If she lives, will she ever want to lay with me again? Why the hell-fire would she? By god if men had to writhe howling through such agony for a night’s pleasure we’d all stay virgin and the race would extinguish.

  I am tempted to rush up the stairs, tell my wife all she meant to me. Bah. She’d slap me for the idiot drama, and I’d deserve it. I used to smile at the recruits scribbling last words to family and friends before battle. Too late for sending. You’d find those letters in coat-pockets of the dead when you searched for tobacco and powder. Blood-damp, wrinkled, unaddressed. Cruel last words of love, best never sent. Why the hell-fire pass your fear on to friends and family? Such letters can give no comfort. Final words are for one’s own ears. If one ever had something of meaning to say to another, it is said before battle’s eve.

  There goes a window. If you cannot read this, know that my hand trembles. Ink splatters everywhere. No doubt as blood does above. You were kind to inquire. And twice wise to do so by messenger. I am no fit company for friends. Will let you know the battle’s outcome. If you cannot hear the progress from your own house.

  Later, my friend.

  Gray

  I backed from the desk as if it were a sleeping dragon. Stopped in the center of that quiet room and shivered, studying the window glow of evening light as though it were a poisoned cup. How many years from the future did it shine? None. For light, it is always today and now. I was the unnatural creature here, escaped from my proper time. Unnatural as a ghost. No, by Lucifer. Unnatural as childbirth. Nothing in the world is more unreal, cruel and bloody than birth.

  I had to find Lalena. I moved towards the door. I’d rush to my house, push all aside, demanding to see my wife. If she slept I’d sleep beside her. If she screamed in pain I’d scream with her. If she hissed at me in hate for being her death, I’d grasp her hand and entirely approve. So went my thoughts, my feet, till I stopped mid-step, mid-thought.

  The letter must be a day or more old. What was to come had now passed. Suppose I ran mad eyed through the city, pushing all aside. At last to my own gate, then up the portico steps to stand panting, staring at a black wreath upon the door? While within the house, solemn faced servants tiptoed, preparing the funeral meal. Perhaps my later self would answer my pounding knock. He’d stand on the threshold face haggard, eyes red, studying the man he’d been.

  “And then he’ll grin,” I told the empty room. “I know the fellow. There’ll be no quiet talking, no sharing of comfort ‘twixt us. He’ll put her death upon me. He’ll welcome the distraction of someone to blame, to fight. He’ll draw sword and lunge for my heart. I’ll have to kill the grieving fool on his own doorstep.”

  But what of the bedchamber with the three nameless girls? Surely that promised all would yet be well. Assuming they
were the children of Lalena and Rayne to come. Assuming they were not mere dream of what might have been. Time is a trickster, determined as a Harlequin to make one see what one wished, till the grim jest stands revealed. The puzzle box opens to reveal we know naught of past or future, nor the present mirror. How confident I’d been that a clever fellow could find way to cheat his obituary. Oracles delight in deceiving us, as we dream of defying them.

  I sighed. I’d wanted to journey one week into the past. Here I stood years in the future, on the field of a battle I had no strength to fight. Best dart back into Time’s maze again. I looked for the magic portal. Gone, of course. Shy things, your magic doors. But beyond the ordinary office door came the sound of voices, the rattle of keys. Guards drawn by my noisy soliloquy. Should I care? I was a friend of Green’s. I’d explain I’d come into his office from the past through a magic door.

  Years of training assumed command. Green’s secret exit would do. Pity I hadn’t known of it when I broke the window that day. I now rushed to the wall beside the fireplace, placed hands against paneling till it gave with a satisfying ‘click’. Stepped within. Stood in the dark. I do that more often than you.

  I felt about with hands and feet. Stone walls. The hall of Time again? But no, cautious feet found steps downwards. The air grew musty. This led beneath the Magisterium. I’d have to find another time door. The rule seemed to be, the things appeared when you didn’t want one. I did want one. I’d have to wander about till I didn’t.

  I followed a spiral stair. Descending into damp weighted with decay. The familiar death and mold vapor of the catacombs beneath the living streets of Londonish. Logical exit for a secret passage. Bit dramatic for a pragmatist like Green. I slowed my progress, spying lamp light.

  Came to a dirty passageway. Flower, Lucy and Brick knelt on the floor beside the lamp. Brick held his hand before the flame, twisted fingers to cast the shadow of a dog upon the wall. He sent it barking and leaping about. Flower laughed. Lucy cocked head, more judgmental. Brick added fingers, creating the silhouette of a long-eared creature. A rabbit. Lucy wagged tail.

  “Wrong door,” I complained. “I need to reach last week.” They looked up. Then Flower and Lucy turned to Brick, as chooser of the doors. He looked panicked, put hands behind back, hiding all shadows.

  “It was going to last week somewhen or thereabouts in the way,” he insisted.

  “Try again,” suggested Flower. “Sometimes a body has to walk in and out and in till you’ve arrived.” She put her tiny hands before the lamp, twisted fingers to cast the shadow of a tangle of fingers. She twisted them about, swore at the result of meaningless shapes. Not her specialty, it seemed. Brick sniffed. He pulled a straw from her broom, twisted fingers, and behold a shadow man prancing about, waving straw-shadow rapier.

  Bah. I growled, turned and went back up the stairs. I am wealthy, famous, a feared burglar assassin and a political force. Yet find myself under orders from mad beggar kinder. I growled all the way up the mountain steps. At the summit I pushed against the secret panel, peered into Green’s chamber again.

  Behold a room full of smoke and shouts. Day’s light through a fresh-shattered window. A tangle of guards beat upon a huddled figure in robes. Magister Green, coughing and swearing at the men for assuming he was the sly Seraph in disguise. Meanwhile the real Seraph slipped out the door and away. I observed this scene in appreciation, as one would. Then sighed, closed the panel, descended the stairs again.

  Brick knelt beside the lamp, hands casting the shadow of a cannon. Excellent likeness of a six pounder French caisson. How did he do the wheels? Flower held straws pulled from her broom, bent and twisted to man shapes. She made them rush about before the cannon, while Brick whispered ‘boom, crash, boom’. Lucy sniffed at the war on the wall, fascinated.

  “Too far back,” I complained.

  “Third time’s the charm,” declared Flower, not even looking up. She led her straw men in a glorious charge upon the cannon. “Boom,” whispered Brick. “Boom. Crash. Splode.” The straw men collapsed like straw men. Exactly like.

  I sighed, began the ascent of the mountain again. My legs ached. I needed rest and sleep. And a meal. Three meals. What had the Lamp Maiden said in the hall? ‘Running from hour to hour, there’s never chance for you travelers in the hall to take bite nor rest.’

  And Lalena had warned of madness if one did not find one’s way out the maze of Time. I shook head at that. What did her kind know of madness? The whole lot were already insane. Only the sane know of insanity. Same as only a man awake understands what it is to dream. I wondered if I dreamt now.

  I pushed open the secret panel at the stair top. Behold a dim and empty office again. No guards, no Green. No Seraph, saving my present self. I stepped in looking for signs of the day, the year. Found a fresh candle, lit it in the red embers of the fireplace. Searched the desk, finding letters, memos, a journal. Nothing later than ten days before I entered the tavern, obituary in hand. This would do.

  “Third time, charm,” I decided. I sank myself into Green’s pillowed chair. Excellent throne to assume. I leaned back like a fat magister. Yes. This was the way to fight. Ring bell, summon servants. Send them on deadly missions, impossible quests, running up and down stairs. I blinked eyes, closed them for a second’s respite... Opened them in alarm. I don’t sleep on guard duty. Seen too many French guards napping just so. Receiving a cut throat for their mistake. I stood again. Found parchment and ink. What to write? How did one instruct the past to correct its mistakes?

  “Green. The King will die of ague in a week’s time. You must move him to sign the Charter before all is lost. Do NOT attempt to contact me concerning this matter. I won’t yet know of it.” There. That expressed the facts. It was lunatic, but factual. What could I say to move the man to accept mad factuality?

  “The scythe must strike this one last barrier to Progress.” That might do. A mad sentence serving as proof of the message’s sanity. A hint of what only he and I knew; that he’d used a costume scythe to strike Pierrot Decoursey, the mad Harlequin impersonating me.

  Should I leave the note upon the desk? That risked being tidied away. Too many plays turn tragic for the mislaid letter. I took knife, apologized to the teak and impaled the paper with a vandalizing thump. As Kariel said, a soul takes a message seriously when delivered with drama. Still it was wrong. I picked up the pen, scribbled ‘Post Script: apologies for your desktop’.

  A wine bottle on the desk caught my eye. No vintage of madness, this, but. French claret. I retrieved the pen, scribbled ‘Post post-script. Owe you for bottle. Gray’.

  Time to leave. By which path? Dramatic hidden passage, or mundane office door? To return to the mad children casting shadows in the catacombs, would be to dive into some new dance of their theatre. Whereas, calm exit out the regular door promised no theatre at all. The guards of the Magisterium knew me well enough not to make over fuss to find me wandering within. I could walk out, find an inn, spend a week resting in obscurity till the day of my obituary came round again.

  Sleep. That would be a wonder. Any longer in the maze of Time and I’d collapse. Else go mad. I did not want to go mad. A sense of sanity is my rod and staff. They comfort me. I moved to the office door, pulled it open. Studied the dark of the magisterium halls. Excellent. I knew the way by dark. I tiptoed out and promptly found myself returned to the war.

  Chapter 23

  War, Interrupted

  I declare my childhood glorious. It held all a boy could crave. Wild streets and loud taverns, piles of books, excellent friends, fascinating adventures. Whereas my wife admits no slightest girlhood taste of joy. When pressed, she sketches a portrait of entombment in a lifeless home. The cruel grandmother glowering, the stern father growling. Only once in her recollections did I catch a glimpse of aught else. We lay abed, talking of music.

  When Lalena was ten, she demonstrated a harpsicord piece for her father. A Bach fantasia she played low and solemn. He listened in silenc
e. Then ordered her to rise, fetch coat. He did not speak. He harnessed horses, drove a rattling carriage along rocky night roads. No servants, no grandmother. Lalena bounced about inside, wondering where they went and why. Would he abandon her in a forest for murdering the time? Else he’d travel till dawn, then throw her into an empty field for the sky-beast sun to devour. The unforgiving sun that destroyed her kind with the kiss of light.

  But the carriage came to the night sea, halted upon the stony shore. There her father hobbled horses, bade Lalena follow. They stumbled and clambered up a high rock, stood gazing upon all the northern ocean. White-maned waves charged the land, broke against stone, retreated, rallied for another charge. Across the sky a mountain range of storm marched towards them, summoned by their presence; else by their common blood. The Laird of the Mac Sanglair raised hands, nodding to sky, to wave, to lightning. And then he began to conduct. Waving arms, clenching fingers, he petted and stroked the wind, shaping the crash of thunder, the roar of waves. He stood before the sea storm leading the tempest to the tempo and time of Bach’s Fantasia. Young Lalena stood shivering, drenched, frightened, amazed; holding tight to her father.

  To hear the words, it sounded a cold horror of a night. But in the telling her eyes shone. She stared into the past smiling in wonder. Not at sea and thunder, not in amaze at madness. But that she had, for that one night of childhood, someone to hold on to lest the storm blow her away.

  * * *

  I stepped from a pleasant city office into an army latrine. There was no mistaking the quality and quantity of soldierly excrement. Waves of overpowering shit charged my nose and chest, overran my soul. A shouting, screaming stench that trumpeted ‘welcome back to war’.

  I dropped the bottle of claret. It shattered. The bottle’s death should have perfumed the air with the ghostly fragrance of perished wine. It did not. There was no room in the air for aught but shit. I staggered and gagged towards a dim glow of escape. At last reaching evening twilight, gasping air less thick than mephitic cloth. I stared at the world eyes still burning, watched men and horses turning a dirt road to a wheel-slashed slough. Military tents to the right. Wooden buildings to the left. Some shouting, some singing, much cursing in several tongues. I stood outside a stone barn commandeered for army latrine. Did I know this particular time and place? I thought so.