I watched my fists clench. How dramatic. I became like family. I released them. Studied how my wife’s right breast pressed to my side. Her hair ran straight past face and neck, framed the tit as velvet curtain would precious art.
“Are you supposed to be seen in mirrors?” I asked, placing an arm about her, reflecting her arm about me. The red C upon my forehead faded, if the pain remained. Dream stigmata, I thought. I become a citizen of dream and mirror. Perhaps I have always been. How shall a man know, till he awakes?
“Ach,” she sniffed. “Grand-dam couldn’t abide a mirror. But my Da fussed hours with his beard. And he was near the blood-drinking night-beast as she.” Lalena leaned mirror-head to my mirror-shoulder. Fetching picture we made. We stood awhile and considered ourselves.
What a thing is woman’s body and man’s, stood together not in copulation but mere communion. We were two persons mated. Had my parents ever seen themselves so? And their parents, and all couples before, a line of reflection leading back to rough Adam, mad Eve, glimpsed far in the distance of the mirror-window.
She began running a hand up and down my chest, tracing scars, writing secrets. My body took notice, desiring the secrets’ solution. She spoke of ships and politics, tracing far different words across my skin with idle finger.
“Howl will be taking the schooner south soon, to make peace with his folk, return his father’s clay to his land. Either the Mac Tier accepts him as the new Laird, or they rip his throat away. But if all goes well and he holds his present temper, who knows but sanity returns to the Moon Tartan.”
I recalled Howl sitting in the graveyard, empty pistol to head. But did not say. He had come to my rescue, or at least to his father’s defeat. He possessed strength. Sanity as well, if he could trace it through the tangle of mouth and muzzle, boy and man. I traced a mirror-finger-tip along Lalena’s jaw, up past the cheekbone towards the ear.
“Well, then,” I sighed. ‘Perhaps it were best I go with him, and then on south back to the city.” My wife closed eyes; either in sorrow of my decision, or the pleasure brought by my hand now tracing down her neck.
“I must stay here,” she declared. “This old rock must be held awhile, to show all that we Sanglair have strength and right to so do.” She shivered, watching the reflection of my hand hold her breast as she the castle. A metaphor, as it were. “If you go, walk doubly beware, Rayne. Stop that. No, and no and listen. You have caught the eye of family. An outsider has won the respect of the Sanglair, and now the Mac Tier? ‘Tis not thought possible.”
She gazed at my reflection standing in arousal. Trembled. My mirrored hand traveled down her pale stomach, the blond beard below. She struggled to declaim further in points of conference, with wise and wifely advice. But I smiled to mirror-see her prim locks grow tangled as high grass in summer wind. Mirror-nipples stood, and the red cat of a tongue-tip poked from mouth, glistened dark lips. She took a breath sounding close to gasp.
“The old ones dance about you. Now this sign of Fulgurous. My folk will seek to measure themselves gainst, against the upstart. The Rivalry. Ah, no. And the Harlequins. They will attempt some vengeance upon your vanquishing of their, of their, on that bridge… “. Her voice trailed off to guttural moan, deep and warm.
We gave over speaking reflection to reflection. We turned to face the thing itself, no more image of the thing. Clasped together, we staggered back to bed as one transformed beast, a mad creature devouring itself in joy, in desire, in a fever of arms and legs and teeth. Perhaps this conjoined beast was the original mankind; and when we walked separate we were lesser, unnatural beings. If so, now with touch and thrust, kiss and gasp the parts regained the lost glory of the whole.
So we lay, and loved, seeking every last crumb of touch and desire. Final course served for the feast of honeymoon’s end.
Chapter 16
And There the Lion’s Ruddy Eyes
And so at length I returned to the City. To kill a man, affirm social justice, place flowers upon a grave and recover a fortune stolen by my former valet. Sensible goals each, yet somehow my first day of return I found myself yawning at the back of a political meeting watching an impostor deliver an incomprehensible speech to angry tradesmen. Excepting he wore my face, name and manners, it held naught to do with me or mine.
I studied my double in the distance, considering whether his face was truly my face, or merely the idea of mine. Seemingly life had used my nose for hammering rocks. Quite right, it had. But did any creature possess such bushy eyebrows? I looked taller than I felt. Grayish loomed a bear of a man; but with hair the very lion’s mane I’d coveted by daydream’s light.
Tempting to put an end to the farce. Why not rush to the fore shouting “Ha! Behold the real Seraph.” There would be shouts, confusion. He and I would duel; and the true Rayne Gray would by reality’s rule be the man standing at the end, mild-smiling at adventure and the cooling corpse.
But this crowd was not the family dancing their practiced minuet of quarrel and affection. Confusion and blood would lead to riot. In such packed quarters, made murder in a box. No, best front him in an alley, some tavern used to strife. Not at his political prayers then, but when alone and full of bread.
I wondered what words Rayne Grayish proclaimed. Green and Black must lurk behind this show. Had they set the mummer to recite affirmations of banking law? More likely used him as foil, spouting mad calls to revolution and a new currency of cats.
And yet, was there not a smell of family in this mad act of imitation? Mimickery. The weaponry of Lalena’s Harlequin cousins. The in-laws again. Who knew that marriage could so complicate a man’s life? A year before, as confident bachelor I would have gaped astonished to see myself, and yet not be that self. Today it was mere puzzle to measure and solve, else leave aside.
I turned to Alexander Pope for advice. But no, the pages I opened were not Essay on Criticism. I now held the book exchanged with the prim young puritan. No tract on God and Man. A book of poems.
And there the lion’s ruddy eyes
Shall flow with tears of gold:
And pitying the tender cries,
And walking round the fold.
I leafed the pages, confounded. Visions of tigers, of furnaces, of gardens and angels, lions and chimney-sweeps… I held a copy of William Blake. I opened to the front, found Dealer’s florid inscription. “From a connoisseur, to a raconteur”. My own lost copy.
When had I held the book last? That night we’d come through this church, the night my pirate-valet Stephano betrayed me with the kiss of a drugged whiskey-flask. Run, I’d told Flower.
The boy outside the church today who exchanged books. Had he not girl’s face in boy’s clothes? Hair combed and tailed neat behind. Knee-breeches for a page, gormless eyes for disguise. Flower or I was a Frenchman. I searched the forest of adults. She might hide among them now, as a fox in tall grass. Then again, act of incomprehensible purpose performed, she might have wandered dockside, singing of mermaids to the stray cats.
Flower and Brick led me here that night; not through the church door but up from the catacombs. The certainty came I should seek that path again. At least, if I wanted to follow a mad bread-crumb trail of family theatre. Why on earth should I?
I gave long consideration to Grayish, still speechifying. I am fond of my face and the self that wears it. Damned fine fellow, the real Rayne Gray. But that mimic-creature in the distance… annoyed. He reflected my moves and thoughts in parody bordering contempt. He loomed, he grinned, he burned for a pyre of scars and cheerful violence. Now he raised hands to pull the Sword of Chemosh down from the heavens. Tedious fool, I thought. One need not hear his words to see he mistook anger for sincerity.
Whether a trap set by my enemies, or mockery performed by mad in-laws; of a sudden Grayish bored. Let us see what mad path Flower swept today.
I pushed through the crowd towards back-offices of the church, thence down a corridor to basement stairs. A sense of dream touched the air, cold w
afts from dark memories. When last I passed this way I climbed upwards from despair and defeat, not knowing worse yet waited. Home burned, Elspeth dead, Stephano her murderer and my betrayer. Green aligned with Black. Dealer coveting my house, my Elspeth. Black crowing victory. Crowds shouting idiot support, idiot condemnation. Final judgment of death by a court of blank faces, former friends all.
This book I held: all that remained of my old life. A happy life. I am not a brooding man. I wake each day smiling, knowing fair dice should have sent me empty-pocketed from this world long ago. By Pascal’s reckoning I laid me down to eternal sleep on some radish-field of France, some alley of the city docks. So I will treasure each day of my old life, for all it ended in flame and betrayal. Elspeth, Stephano, and I: we made a family true as any mad clan of Lalena’s. And as doomed by inner rot. Bah. I brood, declaiming I never brood.
I crossed basement shadows. No rapier at hand, but knife. I edged past barrels, found the wooden door leading to the stone-and-bone tunnels that underlie Londonish. Months past, I had come up this path, led by the boy Brick. A ragged tatterdemalion, tangled dandelion-haired with ears elf-pointed. He’d held lantern before him as a child Diogenes, eyes wondering wide at the honest world. I opened the door, beheld the steps still lit by lamp light below. As if I returned after a moment’s pause.
It’s all very well to laud the strategy of rushing forwards into life, love and danger. But sometimes it sums to fatalistic idiocy. For once I hesitated, understanding that here the path of my life divided. I had returned to Londonish. Why not return to sanity? Sound out allies, re-establish my position in the city. Take revenge, rebuild my house, my accounts, my self-satisfied life. Find another red-haired colleen in want of rescue. The mad dance of the last few months need only be left off, and it must fade as any dream dawn-caught.
Surely it was Flower who gave me this book, recalling me to that night, these steps. To descend them risked surrendering again to the moonlight theatre of Lalena’s mad family, leaving aside a world I comprehended. A world with boundaries and tasks set by my mind and will, not the moon-music of old ones and quarreling clans.
I studied the ring upon my left hand. Plain gold band, placed by Lilly-Ann Elena Mac Sanglair in vow to vow, word to word. My wife. A mad creature, whether in sober conference or warm bed. She bore the matching circle to mine. Did she also now stop, consider whether with a twist she might fling the past months into a drawer, safe-kept for fond memory?
Lalena. Her life had changed surely as mine. The world’s wheel had shifted beneath her, as for me. From night-haunt of blood and longing, she had fallen into ordered mind and daylight’s law; as I had plunged into her family’s lunatic mystery. Did she regret? Feel her wedding band as gold shackle?
What did she do now, leagues of land and sea to north? Not brooding on the past. We were neither of us for walking backwards down life’s road. No. This day Lalena enjoyed sunshine’s smile on castle tasks. Supplies to inventory, a garden to plant, sheep and hens to tend. Fascinating domestic pursuits for a vampiric queen. Ha. She’d be racing about with a broom chivying ghosts and dust. At such labor she would bind the Euclidian lines of her hair. I was sure of it, could hear the strands struggle to escape. But at night, at night in our room alone, jail-bonnet unlocked, drudge’s dress dropped… How hung her tell-tale hair then?
Did she think of me? If so, how? With frown or sigh or trail of tears? A fond fading smile, perhaps. And alone in bed she’d sigh with comfort, freed of the sweaty oaf who’d lately seized half the blankets and all her person. Her hair, her holy hair. If I could but see how waved that flag, I would know where things now stood between us. I recalled the dream-vision of her at seven, and how I’d tugged those locks. My hand reached out to do so again… I laughed, and decided, and continued down the steps.
At the bottom waited Brick, lamp raised, eyes wide in wonder at light and shadow, dust and stone. He stood not a mustard-seed changed than when I climbed these steps months past. The idea came that he had remained here, smiling, waiting my return. Lamp never fading, kitten eyes never blinking. But no, I’d seen him in Melrose. We are where we want to be, boasted the old ones of the family.
When with precocious Flower, Brick played the gormless foil. I considered him now by himself, for himself. The reciter of poetic lines unsuited to street-waifs. The child-actor blinking at the audience, hiding behind louder performers. The light he held now cast his form to wall, and that shadow wavered on the stones as flame might, a casting of power, a portent of presence. Dancing, for all the lamp held steady. I shivered. The old ones, the family called them. Living nameless, and homeless, and pocketless. Free as winter geese, to wander with the wind. Unfathomable as the void between stars. We are who we wish to be. Understand: no greater claim of power ever was uttered by devil, by angel, by man.
We considered one another. Then Brick nodded polite, turned and strode down the hall. I hesitated, sighed dust, followed after. Ah, but I loathed these catacombs. Alas, the family cherished such stage-prop scenery.
“That was Flower at the church door,” I declared, walking beside him.
He gifted me a puzzled look. “Who?”
“Your sister. Skinny as sticks. Tangled hair, moons for eyes. Speaks in lordly whisper.”
Brick shook head, confounded at idea of such an entity. At last brightened. “Oh. Her. Ach, she’s not Flower now-a-day. She calls her name The Demoiselle. Dresses in pants, combs hair back, ties it down. Colognes her silly self. Shoes. Ha.”
I made a mental note. Demoiselle. “Are you still Brick?”
He shrugged disinterested, but a lynx-ear twitched. The old ones disliked names. They wore them and dropped them, so keeping themselves unbound by words. We take no names, save as crowns of summer laurel. Brick glanced left, glanced right to ensure only the dead listened, and no sisters.
“After your wedding,” he confided, “she fell to moping. Found a red dress and boots. Stuffed old cloth in the front for a bosom. Ha. Washed her hair straight as pins, colored it yellow as the plague-flag pissed-on.”
I pictured that. The child dressed as… Lalena? The sight would astound. “Why on earth would she do that?”
Brick snickered. “The silly thing contemplated wandering up to Scotland, catching a seraph’s eye with what her infatuation-flamed brain-pan supposed must appeal.”
“But why?”
Brick stopped. He reached the lamp up to my face, verifying some dark truth he’d suspected within the windows of my soul. I blinked, while he sighed at the verification, muttered a bit of Gaelic. We continued on.
“Light was scandalized,” Brick confided to the lamp. “He told her to cease such foolishness. You were married man and that put end on it. She disappeared, came back as The Demoiselle. Remember to say ‘The’ or she sulks. Here you are.”
‘Here’ was a circle of dim light, empty of all but dust, dirt, bone-filled sconces, stink of decay, roots and rats. Oppressive air weighted with the world above us. I studied the view ahead. Just beyond the border of lamp-shine, a figure lurked, leaning casual against a wall,
“You’ll be having to follow him next,” asserted my guide. “Not I. He’s a farther clan of family than I care to company. I shall meet you later.” He turned and began retracing the way we came.
“Who is it?” I demanded. “What have I to do with this fellow?”
“Naught, overmuch,” replied Brick. “But you asked him for advice when we passed before.” The light fast diminished. “It pleases him now to help as you so asked. And polite of you to so let him.”
Me? I hadn’t asked a soul for advice. I considered the person ahead. But the light diminished as Brick withdrew. “I need the lamp,” I pointed out.
“He doesn’t,” replied Brick, and was gone.
I considered running after the light. Not in panic. Merely in manly haste. But that lacked a seraph’s style. Best march forwards. No need to rush. Knife at hand, of course. The figure had stood some twenty steps beyond. I took t
he first ten steps, during which I considered each time of late I’d stumbled blind in the dark. Damnation but this grew daily habit. I must begin carrying a candle, a tinder-box. A bag of torches. At the eleventh step I halted.
“How do you not need a lamp?” I demanded of the dark. Magical eyes, no doubt. Or tentacles for toes. Then again, he needs no lamp, who has no eyes.
Question’s answer came in sparks of mating flint and steel. A glimmer of candle, then a flow of gold from a lantern. Fiat lux complete, he placed the lamp upon the ground, then leaned back to slouch shoulder to the wall. A person in no hurry at all.
I studied the figure by the fresh light. Hat slanted over eyes, arms crossed over chest. A most proper street-lounging pose. He wore antique breeches, silk-stockings, long coat with cuffs wide enough to shelter cats and cannon. Brass buttons shone. I knew when I approached he would tip hat back, catch my eye with a grin, call me gov'nor and offer a horse or a woman. Perhaps a watch, the chain so fresh-clipped it still ticked by the winding of the real owner.
I approached, he tipped hat back. Behold a face built of scar and grin, ragged beard, dark eyes lamp-shining. The hat sported a proud turkey-cock feather. That hat thrummed with significance, like a bell just struck... Ah. I recalled. When Flower and Brick led me this path months before. In a moment of dramatic idiocy I'd plucked a skull from the catacomb wall, asked it advice. Not my usual behavior, I point out. Hamlet's an ass. But spend a few hours with the old ones and you find yourself shouting soliloquies to the sun, filling pockets with moonlight, lifting burning coals to the stars in joyous-if-agonized brotherhood. To the family, asking a rotting skull advice made mere social trifle.
They'd given it my hat. I had not asked, why do you give a skull my hat? Previously they’d given me the same hat. Though I’d had it before, from an associate in an alley. Later it had been taken and worn by a girl half, half, by a, ah never mind. That hat passed around, and there was end on it. Why this sinister return? I had not asked advice of a hat, but of a skull. Not that I expected advice of the skull, any more than a hat. One asks such things of the mind inside the skull inside the hat.
The Moon Tartan: Quest of the Five Clans Page 12
