The Clockwork Tartan: Quest of the Five Clans

by Raymond St. Elmo

  There was a way to be sure, but it lay within. I took a deep breath, held it, returned to the underworld of demonic stench. Pushing at the fetid vapors with my hands, as though walking through layers of unclean curtains. Far within, by the third seat, carved deep into the wall. ‘Mershon is a shit’.

  I retreated again to air and light. Welcomed myself to the war. Recalling this small town on the Belgian coast. The Walloons had fled, leaving it a disorganized army post of English, Spanish and Germans. Plenty of civilians wandering about. Careful to keep from the path and wrath of soldiery.

  I sighed, trudged down the tree-shadowed road. Knowing exactly what I would encounter round the bend. I was become my own prophet, declaring what mystery came next in life. And so I stopped before an oak in the town center, unsurprised to see it fruited with hanged men. The corpses swayed with the evening wind. French spies, fresh hung. ‘Fresh’ by the calendar of this evening light. For me they were devoured by sun and crow more than a decade passed. Not a sight I wished to recall. Not a day I wished to remember…

  Ah, I’d been the fierce young striker, doing his duty. Moving about the crowd during the execution, ears pricked to political dispute, military insubordination. Whispers of pity went silent as folk sighted my eagle feather. Exactly the point of the eagle feather. But when the commander pronounced ‘to death’, a man spat loud and deliberate at my boots.

  Had it been a townsman I might have knocked him down, let it slide. But the fellow was a horse trooper. ‘Cavalry’ sounds nobler than he looked. Near tall as me, and not frighted by my serious smile. He growled how the condemned were unlucky papists judged by murdering protestants. Not their fault for serving whichever army marched into town. No doubt he had the truth of things. Just the wrong time and place for the truth. He stood in a crowd of protestant English and Lutheran Germans aided by Papist Irish, Catholic Spanish. Arguments upon the supremacy of Rome to Canterbury were sparks to powder, inciting riot and mutiny.

  I was wondrous fast in those days. Well, I am fast now. But enthusiasm sped me along. As well, opponents saw my young face, large body and predicted no skill, no finesse. They assumed I’d ball fists and club away, a troll swinging a tree trunk. I watched the man balance feet. Waited till he struck, then blocked, broke his arm. He screamed. The entire crowd turned from the still kicking men to consider us. I drew knife, bent over the fellow. He stared up defeated, frightened. In the end I decided not to mark him. His friends dragged him away. Always good to have friends.

  That scream had come mere hours past, by this sun’s light. But long years by my reckoning. And here the dead still dangled? Poor men. I felt urge to cut them down, apologize. I did not. I turned and walked on. Ahead the sunset showed a cannon-tumbled belfry. The town church, converted to army mess and tavern. Best stay away, I advised myself. I had no papers, no explanation of who I was. If I drew attention I might hang for a spy alongside those fellows. But the savory wafts of sizzling sausage and eggs, mutton and ham incited my stomach to riot, my feet to mutiny.

  I surrendered, entered this church re-sanctified to drink, rest and meals. Holy things, in their way. Within all was clamor of shouts and songs. Card and dice games abounding, despite our chaplains’ descriptions of hell’s flame and shame. Women of young face and old soul sat here and there on lap or table, else danced. Two figures in the balcony; a flutist, a fiddler. What was the tune? ‘La Vie Rose’. Ironic, we being assembled to end French lives. I found a table in a corner, sat with satisfaction. No one paid attention to one more weary traveler. But that might change. I kept head down, scanned the room.

  The apse had been baptized as kitchen, food scents and smoke rising for prayer through a shattered glory of stained glass. Pews long gone, fed to those holocaust cook fires. Makeshift tables now cluttered the nave and aisles. I turned towards what I knew I must see. There, by the ruin of the pipe organ, beneath a statue of Saint Claire. A table of civilians. Clerks and aides, grocers supplying the war. And one soldier, chair leaning back on two legs. This creature rested head against stony pillar, clearly drowsing. I studied the man. Empty bottles before him, a mug turned upside down. A bit of drool trickling out the mouth. A long gangly fellow, face absurdly young despite the wide shoulders, the broken nose, the scar upon the forehead… marks of experience inappropriate to that babyish face.

  The hat upon the table, eagle feather jutting, proclaimed him regiment striker. That title explaining why he sat with civilians. Had he sat to table with the uniformed regulars, they’d have scowled, moved away. Else sought quarrel.

  The sight gave me shivers. What the hell was I at, drinking and napping amidst a crowd of souls that loathed me? Half the room must dream of spitting in my beer, else cutting my throat. Perhaps I trusted those I sat with to guard life and drink? Strange thought, that. Devil take him, the fellow in buttoned vest was Jeremiah. Next sat his portly friend Vertumnus Green.

  I’d met Jeremiah before war. He’d served as accountant to his father. Came to Keeper’s tavern once a month, left with coin box and gift bottle. We’d not been friends. I judged him fop, sharp-eyed. He measured me servant, full of airs. We’d both had the right of it. But finding ourselves far from home in presence of men at war, it came easy to pretend ancient friendship.

  He’d introduced me to Green. Within five minutes we three had argued Machiavelli, the progress of the war, the existence of the soul and what women wanted in bed. Glorious! We shouted and shared the very things the fellows with hair on their backs shouted.

  I stared about now, fascinated. Only the slightest changes between recollection and reality. The statue of St. Claire had a nose. I recalled it absent. An extra person sat at the table. More onion and garlic in the food smells. But reality had the main of it right.

  I watched Vertumnus Green trace a beer-dipped finger onto the table. It’d be the map of the globe as he’d reorder it were he given command of its turning and whirling. In the clamor I could not catch all his words. No need. He’d be proposing a vision of empire designed to bring end to war, prosperity to kings and peasants in their fair measure. Black shook head, adopting the role of cynical devil. He played devil’s foil, to bedevil Green. A role that would eventually devour Black’s soul. He waved hands, dismissing the unity of Empire and Peace as a marriage of Fire and Paper. The tall, older fellow beside him nodded, sipped beer, said nothing. Taciturnity being Chatterton Espada’s nature.

  I stood. Chatterton didn’t belong at that table. He didn’t belong in the conversation. He didn’t belong in this war. I must drag him away. I sat. I belonged even less. If I rushed over to their table they’d take me for… who? My older brother, perhaps. A mysterious lunatic. A French spy.

  A tavern girl came dodging in and out the dancers’ paths and soldiers’ grasps. I put silver down, tipped hand in sign of drink. Keeping my eye on Chatterton. Because he’d just said something. I couldn’t hear what. But the words had reached the drowsing, drunken striker. Not as unaware as he seemed, then. He opened eyes. Set chair to table. He leaned forwards, said something bland and chiding to Chatterton.

  Again I stood. Again I sat. Anyone watching would assume I farted in pain. Well, the food of war will set you doing so. What to do? I watched as Mershon tapped the table with a knife. Hadn’t even seen him draw. Chatterton leaned back, grinning. Damnation, copulation and disintegration. Cousin Chat usually stared absent, paying no mind to the spinning earth. But now he decides to enjoy conversation. He supposes he tweaks the nose of the boy version of a friend. But said version is a killer preparing feet, taking breath for sudden strike.

  I’d been someone else then. Not trying to prove myself. I’d already proved myself. I was still enjoying what stood proved: that I was damned dangerous. Not yet moved to be more than that. But change would come. Inspired by Green, by Black, I’d declare my name ‘Gray’. Inspired? I considered all my life, and that present table. Yes. Exactly that: inspired. Those two self-conscious, posturing boys had sparked mutiny in the crowd of my soul. A des
ire to be something better than a swaggering bully hunting those who questioned the war, the king, and the commander’s taste in whores.

  Now Green said something. Mollifying, no doubt. Black pushed a peace-offering bottle towards Mershon. That wouldn’t work. Our young striker would be wondering who was grinning so at him. A deserter, a spy, a rebel? All fair game.

  The tavern girl returned. Fast service. She plunked down fork and mug. I nodded, waited for something to justify these utensils. Something to eat, to drink. Ironic how I’d demanded a fork and mug just this morning. Just these things. From mad Emily… then I rolled to the side, evading the knife the tavern girl pulled. It was Em. Hair pinned high, dull smock covering girl-form. She bent lithe, seeking my guts.

  I kicked the table upon her. Stood up, rapier drawn. Slashed. She jumped back wonderfully fast.

  “Voila a French spy!” she shouted, pointing at me.

  “She’s the spy!” I shouted at her. “She said voila!”

  She threw hands to the air. “Hear his perfected French!”

  I felt the idiot desire to shout ‘Merci beaucoup’. I did not.

  The crowd contemplated us. We were both clearly lying, but they sensed promise of entertainment in our drawn weapons, pointing fingers.

  “No, this man is the spy!” shouted a new voice. A man by the wall. Threw off hat, stood upon a chair and aimed a pistol at Chatterton. Edgar, of course. Time’s doors had opened wide to these creatures, inviting them to traipse about in my past. Near bad an intrusion as when the in-laws ran laughing through my dreams. For they could, when they wished.

  Chat seized the bottle before him, threw it at Cousin Edgar. He ducked, tumbled from the chair. The gun fired, striking the nose from the statue of St. Claire. Shouts and curses everywhere, but no screams, no stampede. This was a war camp, used to cannonade and riot. Such scenes occurred nightly. Explaining why I didn’t recall it.

  I ran towards the door. Beheld it blockaded by an officer interested in shouts of spies. I changed course, rushing up steps to the choir balcony. The fiddler and flutist puffing and bowing French tunes. Bon Dieu, did no one recognize the ‘Marseillaise’? How obvious; our camp musicians had been the spies all along. C’est la vie. The two followed my flight with their eyes, not missing a note. They’d have played a sea tempest to perfection. I waved, rushed past towards back stairs. A dark doorway invited retreat. I accepted the invitation.

  Chapter 24

  Love is not a Burning Roof

  Home again. Just like that. Quick as wick, as Brick would say. Bypassing the rituals of wandering Time’s hall, debating lunatics, dueling clockwork monsters, then dashing offstage through the next dark curtain. No, I rushed from a ruined church to stand in my own study. Dreamlike change, with an edge of nightmare.

  Not a candle burned, but evening light gloomed and greyed the western windows. Damned chill, with no fire in the hearth, not a single red ember. I searched for assassins, tigers, magic doors. None. Too dull a room for such theatre. The air tasted more lifeless than Time’s mad hall. My study had not been used of late. Damnation, this was the smell of neglected books.

  I hurried to my shelves. More crowded than I recalled. More books than I remembered. Some piled on the floor like a dragon’s spilled treasure, waiting thieves and mice. I traced fingers across spines. Dry, at least. But the things needed care. I’d see to it, I vowed. In the past or future, whichever. Which raised the essential point. When was I?

  The carving of a girl’s face above the fireplace declared I stood in my rebuilt house. After fire and marriage, then. But never had the house held this lonely air of disuse. The morning of my obituary, I’d walked out a home fragrant with polish and paint, new wood and plaster. And when I’d met the three nameless children, I’d breathed a wonder of cooking smells, soap smells, perfume smells, hearth smells, flower smells, candle smells, dog smells. The atmosphere of a house crowded with lives, touched by living. This air spoke of empty rooms and silence. I shivered, looked to the face of Kariel, asking counsel from her kind smile.

  How wise she once seemed. A mysterious figure making gentle entrance, granting friendly insights. Now I’d beheld the girl in sorrow, in anger, in confusion. Now I knew Kariel wandered lost as any of us. She’d admitted as much, atop the cathedral. Said she too stumbled about, wondering where the hell the next bend of road led. I’d taken that for modesty. A pair of wings and quiet smile shall make one seem wise. I wondered what mad position of the clock she stood upon now. Same as I wondered for myself. Good luck to her. Good luck to me.

  Footsteps. Click of key, and the door opened with a creak of sleepy hinges. A figure stood in the doorway. Candle in one hand, picnic basket in the other.

  “Rayne,” declared Lalena.

  I sheathed sword. But kept hand to hilt. The voice was right. But she entered the room in heavy robe. Disguised? Her steps slower, near halting. Hair bound tight beneath bonnet. I watched her close the door, walk to the desk, set down candle and basket.

  About her arm hung a folded blanket. She shook it out, went to the couch, laid it down. She began tucking it here and there, critical of every fold and wrinkle. Not giving me glance. And that told me much, for Lalena did just such when shy, when wordless. Worked upon some task, as though dissatisfied. So she labored to smooth the blanket while I stood staring, studying her by the window’s evening light more than the candle’s shine.

  Thicker of waist. The strong chin blurred. Nose beaked. She felt my gaze, I saw it so. She took breath of courage, turned to face me. Folded arms across chest, beneath breasts that lived lower, less rounded. She muttered something in Gaelic.

  “In King’s English, my lady,” I said, bowing. “Whatever madman sits as George today.”

  She shook head. “Ach, I forgot you took long to learn a godly tongue.”

  “I know French,” I argued. “That’s a godly tongue. Depending upon which god one declares.”

  She laughed. And there was my wife declared. How can all a soul be carried in a laugh? Same as all the bell shall be within each chime struck. She translated her Gaelic for me.

  “I said, ‘what a great dangerous bear I married’. Look at you with hand still on hilt, ready for sudden mischief. A wonder a bride lived to see wedding night turn to dawn.”

  Strange thought, that she should fear me. I remembered the wonder being my own survival. But I suppose it worked both ways.

  “I recall the knife you gave me,” I answered. ”Never took it from out the box.” Thought about taking it out the box, I admitted. To myself, not to her. She nodded at the words said and unsaid. Went to the basket, laid out items of food in covered dishes.

  “I know right well how tired and hungry you stand,” she declared. “I have it on long memory. Come, eat. Drink. Then you shall rest.”

  Invitation too wonderful to be true. The food would be poisoned, the resting would be eternal. And yet, and yet. To decline would declare ‘I do not know you’. And I did know her. Some truths time’s tricks cannot confuse. So I bowed again to my wife, courtly to make her smile. Then took the blanket from the couch, the blanket she set so careful, and laid it upon the rug.

  “Picnic,” I declared. And sat. Again she laughed. And then she brought the food and drink, set them before us. I set to at once, near faint with hunger. While she knelt facing me, in the slow moves that a body shall make when folding leg and bending back is a matter for consideration.

  Sitting, we offered one another cheeses, making the same jests upon their naming that we had done in dawn’s light upon the roof. Sipped wine, stealing glances, meeting eyes, turning away. She must have answers to every question in my head, I realized. What then to ask? Had Green acted upon my note? What of the mad Espadas? Who won to mastery of the clans? What were the names of our children?

  “When we were in the garden of my old house, watching window shadows, awaiting another magic door,” I recalled. “You disappeared. Where did you go?”

  She puzzled. While she did I studi
ed her face. Rounded by time, like a stone long in a busy river. Laugh lines, sorrow lines sketching all a life upon pale canvas.

  “Ah,” she exclaimed. “I’d forgot that night. Well, I climbed the ivy. While you ran off after your red-haired Elizabeth.”

  “Elspeth,” I corrected. “She shot me,” I added, in hope that earned sympathy.

  “Did she really?” asked Lalena. “Good for her.” No sympathy there.

  “Why did you climb the ivy?”

  She growled. “Why, boyo? Because it was where we first met, and I was cold and intended to get your mind off dragons. So I sat alone on the roof, while you chased old love in fresh skirt.”

  I frowned. The dragon would have killed me, yes. But I command my own retreats. I’ll not be thrown to safety by a wife. Lalena’s eyebrows were invisible gray now, not invisible blond. But lines of the forehead now revealed their sarcastic arch, reading my thoughts. Bah. We ate cheese and French bread in silence. But ever so often she’d glance at me, then turn away. Eyes wet, catching the candle shine. It came to me of a sudden she was shaking. Over a dragon? Trivial quarrel, that. Best ask something to charm, to warm, to make her smile.

  “Have you been back to the castle with the impossible name?” I asked. “I never felt our honeymoon was given the proper length of time. A year too short, I think.”

  She smiled. “Oft I visit in dream. But not stepped foot in waking life, in twice five years. My heart is in this house.” She pulled a grape from its stem, put it aside, pulled another. Put it aside. Well, she was nervous. Of what? Did I have to ask?