The Moon Tartan: Quest of the Five Clans

by Raymond St. Elmo

  Anger translated for both. “De Coursey says, there is little time for speech. The sun will shift. He says, his present line stinks with shit and folly. Your foe is a white-faced dancing-master, a blood-dreaming mischief-maker. He comes to the city to destroy you.” Anger, sun-beam and Demoiselle considered me. I considered myself, recalling the mimic haranguing the crowd in the church above.

  “There is a fellow running about the city who makes himself seem me,” I informed all. “As a Mac Tier might adopt the form of a wolf.”

  More dust-mote whispers. “Yes, that is the Pierrot,” translated Anger. “Father to the late-passed Harlequin. Bastard blames you for his son’s death.”

  “The ass attacked my wife,” I observed. “That were best counted suicide, not murder. But how does wearing my face do aught but amuse?”

  Anger shrugged. The Demoiselle bit her lip as though asking ‘what could it all mean?’ I thought that pose. She knew. There followed conversation between the three. Another family conference, myself loitering outside the language door. And just when I had begun to pick up a bit of Gaelic. Of course the creatures would switch to tongue of sunlight. Or antique Frankish.

  What was Anger? I wondered. Specter or man? For that matter, what the sunbeam, what the girl? I felt reduced to considering Anger’s hat. I knew the hat, its nature and history and purpose. I could tell long tales of that hat. That was something.

  At last, “The Pierrot sought your city-foes,” declared Anger. “They cook some plan to use your face and name, cause a slaughter. The Pierrot wishes harm to you, shame to your wife’s clan. Your enemies gain by blacking the flag of your beliefs. De Coursey says the rot must be cut from the Harlequin line. You must take his old armor, wear it in battle against the Pierrot.”

  I considered the hell-and-blood construction of steel. Wear that? How to politely decline. “Ah, it is not how people fight nowadays.”

  Anger smiled, said something aside to the sun beam. “How would you fight a foe that stands before you, master of all your strengths?”

  I considered jesting that I’d turn and run. But it was no jest. I would not wish to face a man who fought as well as I. There lies no boast in that admission, only the measured judgement of a master craftsman to his mirror.

  I settled for polite demur. “I will not war with my wife’s clan-cousins. My fight is with the Aldermen’s Council and the Magisterium. If they have taken a Harlequin into employee or alliance, I shall settle with my sort, and leave him to his.”

  Anger shook his head. “Your Aldermen and Magisters are lesser foes. The Pierrot toys with them. It is he you must face, else fall.”

  I laughed. “To the family, only family matters. All others, plaything people, as your play goes. But I count Black and Green my greater enemies. I will not turn aside yet again to deal in matters of clan quarrel.”

  The room grew grave-silent. Natural enough, it being tomb. Anger considered. The Demoiselle sighed, shook head. The sun-beam shivered, motes dancing. The blind angel studied infinity, leaving us to deal with the finite. Leaving me to reveal the powers of reality. Which is to say, banks and law, coin and king.

  “As to how I shall fight my enemy?” I asked the assembly. “Why, I will pierce my foe’s heart through his ledger books. I know for a fact he smuggles lives and rum, guns and coffee. Annoying, as he also works to raise the tariffs on these things. “

  Ghost-guide, girl and sunbeam gifted me a look of measured consideration. Clearly I babbled. Sunbeam or ghost-guide or girl, what mattered to them was ancient feud, magic duels and hell-forged armor. Mills, banks, ships and laws weighed less than family dust and shadow.

  I did my best to explain. “My enemy’s chief clerk is the weak point in his mercantile armor. A careful kidnapping, and I have the books in hand. As I am presently pardoned, I can safely present them to the Magisterium. Proof positive of Alderman Black’s thefts and treasons. That fire lit, I hunt down Stephano, regain my fortune, hire a few associates and we begin dismantling Black’s cabal.”

  A perfectly sensible plan. More sensible than my usual ‘Go to his house, climb in the window and kill him’ which lacked in style what it possessed in simplicity. But what did the family know of sense? Their strategy was for me to don a ghost’s ancient armor, God’s sake. There came a long conversation in the speech of sun-beam and dust. Or old Frankish, I remain uncertain. I tapped a foot impatient. At length family consensus was reached.

  “An excellent plan,” declared the Demoiselle, picking up Anger’s lamp. “Let’s to the bank house.”

  Chapter 19

  On elephants and Silk Rope.

  Londonish is a holy city. The wider streets bloom with marble-and-brick boxes consecrated to the gods of Law and Throne, Coin and War, Healing and Death, Theatre and Music. And Heaven’s official Deity as well, of course. If you prefer, name these shrines courthouse and counting-house, ministry, bank and armory, theatre, hospital and garrison, gaol, church and chapel. Label them as you will, the things remain the same. Fanes consecrated to some archon of law or sword, pain or healing, coin or spirit. Each has its priests in ordered robe, the daily sacrament. And daily sacrifice, oft as not.

  My unfaithful friend Dealer envisioned a public temple consecrated to Art. A low reason to betray a friend, yet within the holy traditions of the city. Londonish dreams of grand edifices dedicated to ceremonies of desire and awe, greed and sacrament, laughter and jurisprudence, worship and sorrow. As many houses as the clans of the family, I suppose. These platonic ideals will insist their way equally into tartan-cloth or chiseled stone.

  The Demoiselle and I sat in a simple chapel devoted to Coffee, close by the temple of Mammon known as the City Bank. There we slurped thick brew from clay cups, ate honeyed bread that crunched stale. I now wore a wide-brimmed hat. Not Anger’s hat. Behold a lesser chapeau of no destiny. Mere adornment to my periwig, company to the fool bifocals that blocked my sight.

  “We shall buy a carriage,” decided the girl. “Douse it with oil and flame. I shall enrage the horses, drive them crashing through the doors of the bank.” She considered, eyes shining with impending flame. “I shall fire braces of pistols from either hand. Meanwhile you have climbed the cathedral spire, shot an arrow to the roof of the bank. An arrow with rope attached of finest Chinese silk. You shall circus-walk the rope over heads of astonished citizens. Then jump through sky-lights to locate your ledger books. That done, you leap into my blazing carriage and we ride away.”

  I weighed this plan, the hot coffee, the stale bread. The plan had the advantage of style and direct action. The coffee bubbled hot, but bitter; needing cream. The stale bread had no advantages I could find at all.

  The servant-girl came with a pot of cream decayed as any bone-marrow in the catacombs below. I complained, the keeper came, agreed to charge nothing for ancient cream, but more for fresh. I reviewed my diminishing coin-purse, extracted copper, deposited sighs.

  Before boarding ship, Lalena gifted me a purse heavy with silver. I’d accepted with gritted smile. Pride makes a fine hat; but what point in leaving only to fail my quest for lack of bread? The journey south had cost. Inns, horses, simple meals. Today I’d abandoned a new rapier and half my clothes in an alley. I debated returning now, searching for it. ‘Course it would be gone.

  I considered how difficult it is to loiter in disguise, robbing banks and avenging oneself upon merchant-pirates, when limited by slightness of purse. A spadassin without coin is scarce better than lurking ruffian. Perhaps I’d best track down my wayward valet Stephano first. Take back the jewels, coin and letters of credit he’d removed from my closet upon my arrest. In return, I’d gift him with a revelation of eternity; or at least a vision of Hell’s infinity.

  I returned mind to present challenge. I lacked funds to purchase carriage, horses, oil, pistols and fine Chinese silk ropes. I might afford fresh cream.

  “We watch, we wait,” I proposed. “The man comes forth, I step close behind with a dagger. Menacing words foll
ow. We proceed to an alley, where I threaten. He promises Black’s books, intending to cheat, of course. But they must be in the bank offices themselves, or in Black’s house, or one of the warehouses. I will watch his eyes for the answer he fears.”

  “Pffff,” sniffed the Demoiselle. “How do you see his eyes when you hold a knife at his back?”

  “A proper spadassin has eyes in front,” I explained. “Just as a mere duelist has eyes behind.”

  “What?” asked the Demoiselle. ‘Everyone has eyes in front.”

  “No, I speak of extra eyes in front, staring back. Picture a mirror some five steps before me, which I gaze upon at need to see myself and all about. Quite useful in tavern and alley.”

  She narrowed her own up-front moon-orbs. “Then who’s behind you now?” she demanded.

  “The girl with the fresh cream,” I said. And indeed this prophesied creature appeared, placed the pot before us.

  “You heard her step,” scoffed the Demoiselle. “You smelled the cream.”

  “Are you going to rob the City Bank?” asked the girl. An eavesdropper, of course. No matter. I was a school-proctor with my young charge. Nothing more natural than we should plot the robbing of the bank next-door.

  The servant-girl was a skinny thing scarce older than Flower/Demoiselle. Aproned, and hair in prim bonnet. She stomped great work-boots seemingly made of lead. One would hear her tiptoe in China. She stared into dreams farther from here than the Orient. “I do love to stand by the window figuring how I’d get into their gold.”

  I checked the pot. No cadaver-cheese, but fresh lace of cream. Excellent. I added it to my coffee, stirred with a dirty spoon. “And how would you commit this terrible crime?”

  She smiled into dream-distance. “An elephant. I’d befriend one, and we’d come by night. Oh, your elephant is wonderful strong and quick. He’d tug those great iron bars off a window with his trunk. Then I’d climb in, climb out, piling his back with bags of gold. Then off we’d ride, ha!”

  The Demoiselle sighed. “You can’t sneak up the street with an elephant. You can’t slip away on an elephant. The whole city would follow you down the street to watch you rob a bank with an elephant.”

  The girl opened eyes wide. “I’d want everyone to watch. What pudding-head would rob a bank on an elephant without wanting anyone watching? Might as well sing a beautiful song with your head in a bucket.”

  The Demoiselle covered face with hands, embarrassed that one of her sex and age should so fail to see the impracticality of elephant burglary, as opposed to blazing carriages and braces of pistols. I smiled, caught myself doing so, and frowned. Flower-Demoiselle acted entirely her age. Suspicion moved me to look twice. The Demoiselle peeked through fingers, as fox in brambles. I turned to the servant-girl. Pale, freckled; blond hair a shade red. Overlarge eyes that reminded me of wolves and sea-maids, nights of ghosts, ghosts of knights. Bonnet covering head; covering ears. I reached to reveal these tell-tale objects but she stomped away, affronted at our failure to see the point of robbery as high theatre.

  The old ones. Dance with them once, and life smolders forever-after in fever-dream. No one is quite what they seem, and the moments seeming most prosaic suddenly shimmer with message and meaning, just beyond sight. Beyond even the extra eyes of a spadassin.

  I missed my wife. She made these things normal, she being beyond mere madness as the moon above the tangled woods. I sighed, finished my coffee, rose to rob a bank. But visions of flaming carriages and elephant banditry had shifted my thoughts along a different path. I decided not to waylay bankers. My new plan was simpler. I’d just walk in and ask for the money.

  * * *

  “The theory is sound,” I explained to the Demoiselle, as we crossed the street. “Clearly I am again a citizen in good standing. No reward on my head now. Hell-fire, I give speeches in church. Ergo my account must be in good standing as well. I present myself, withdraw my funds, thus replenishing my diminished coin. While doing this, I inquire as to Master Furst, the chief accountant. He is an acquaintance of long standing and the keeper of Black’s books. I may obtain what I want without so much as a knife to his back.”

  The Demoiselle bit lip, considering. “Not bad. Few must know the other you is fraud. And those who know, likely believe the real Gray dead. Elsewise, they’d fear to clear your name. Perhaps only the Pierrot himself knows both the fraud, and that you live. But he will not share family quarrel-and-gossip with your muckety muck banker-bandits.”

  That absurd tale of Jacobins freeing me from my cell; the royal pardon for my idiot return. Arranging such presented no difficulty for Black and Green. Combine that with a mad Harlequin mimicking me. The question screamed a question to the heavens: what the hell and why?

  I considered the crowd of tradesmen and burghers at the church. The hope of the New Charter had not foundered for my absence. Sad conceit, to suppose the wind of justice depended on my continued breathing.

  ‘They arrange a slaughter’, the Sun-beam de Coursey said. Simple enough. The Pierrot would enrage a crowd in favor of the New Charter. An arranged riot ensue, perhaps a call to uprising. Aldermen and Magisterium would declare no choice but drastic steps; which is to say, slash away with cavalry saber. Firing muskets and crossbows into crowds. Hanging leaders along the high-street for holiday flags.

  Mine was no longer a mission of revenge; but staying hundreds of deaths, perhaps thousands. To prevent the river of human decision from being directed towards a future ruled by bankers and gaolers, merchant pirates; all the priesthood of Mammon, Baal and Moloch. I accepted this higher duty meekly. It still came to the same throats to cut.

  Only that business of fighting a mad Harlequin with my face… I recalled his mild smile upon the two sailors beaten into the street. I shrugged. If a man could not defeat himself in fair fight, why then the other was the better. Was that true? Was it even sense? We reached the steps of the bank.

  “I will now instruct you to wait here where it is safe,” I informed the Demoiselle.

  She nodded. “While I scowl, then agree sulking. Of course I follow behind anyway.”

  “Right,” I sighed. “Well, be ready to run when the shout rings out: ‘that man is not a fraud.’”

  She grinned, and the sight wrenched my heart. For I beheld her toothed resemblance to Lalena. Cousins in spirit, if not in form. She’d need far more old-cloth stuffing.

  And so we entered the great oak and steel doors of the bank. As promised before, Flower/Demoiselle and I then waited in line for a cashier to acknowledge our existence. The most dull and daily thing in the world.

  Chapter 20

  Of Human Cages, and Heaven’s Rages

  “That man is a rogue in disguise,” declared a voice across the hall. I turned to see Banker Furst standing by the door to inner treasure-rooms. Pointing an accusing finger. Cashiers, clerks and fellow customers, not to mention guards, all followed finger to consider me. I gave a slight bow, lifting up my glasses to peer in comic blinks. At which, Furst gave a bankerish laugh.

  We were never friends. And yet oft enough sat the same table. Black’s dinners, usually. Sometimes Dealer’s. Furst abhorred my affirmation of labor laws, my desire for justice to reach even unto mansion doors and banker’s desks. But he did so openly; making no fool demand I yield to king and class as to the passing carriage of God. No, Furst simply declared his own pocket’s interest lay in society as it was, and more of the same. So we mocked one another, in words more honest than I’d exchanged with Black or Green since the war. Better an honest opponent, than a false friend.

  He’d sat to the back of my trial. I recalled studying the different faces of acquaintances, the averted eyes, the solemn frowns, the sly smiles. But Furst showed no glee, nor fraud of sorrow. His look declared puzzlement to see the world turn so upon a man. Well, it had puzzled me too.

  Furst gestured us out of line. He summoned no guards. The Demoiselle followed behind, erect and proper as a prince’s page. I approached the man, re
moving the idiot contraption of glass and wire that hindered sight. I studied Furst, wondering whether he saw Rayne Gray, or Rayne Grayish.

  “Here to burn my bank, I suppose,” sighed Furst. “For the good of Irish loungers everywhere.” So then, he thought I was me. Which was true, I was me. But had I been another and he knew so, it seemed unlikely he’d jest so. I returned what riposte I would tender at a fine state dinner, were I me and not pretending to be another feigning me. Which is to say, I recited Blake.

  “A Robin Red breast in a Cage

  Puts all Heaven in a Rage

  A dog starved at his Masters Gate

  Predicts the ruin of the State.”

  He tendered a fiduciary snort. I deposited a polite bow. “But no burning of your bank,” I vowed. Added for afterthought, “At least, not before I make a full withdrawal of funds.”

  Furst laughed, turned eye to the solemn personage of the Demoiselle behind me. She wore face blank as fresh ledger paper. Furst tapped finger to the side of his nose, in sign he knew a secret. “Ah. You’ve come for the contents of your private box.”

  I nodded to say ‘but of course’. In fact I’d kept no private box. Not in the past. I’d trusted in a secret closet. Alas, not secret to my valet Stephano, in whom I’d also trusted. Well, let us see what Rayne Grayish kept under lock. Furst turned. I followed, down halls, past guards and doors that would deny retreat if things turned violent. And when in my life did they ever not? But no choice now but forward charge.

  A hall where a guard sat bored. A door of bars, a turn of key in lock. “I shall wait you here,” said Furst. “I have less desire to see what horrors a spadassin keeps under lock, than you have to share such mysteries.”

  “Quite right,” I approved. “The key, if you please?”