The Moon Tartan: Quest of the Five Clans

by Raymond St. Elmo

  Chapter 24

  And with thy bloody and invisible hand

  Blood and flame are kith and kin. I watched spilt blood seep towards the fire, making their family greeting. They only seemed to hiss. In truth, they shared fond, familial kiss. I regretted this blood. Dealer’s betrayal meant little to me. Even his mocking had been theatre for self-pride and unrequited love. I bent down, tried to meet the eyes. They considered strange new art, beyond this world. I wondered if Dealer yet saw my face, heard my words. They say the guillotined blink on request. Perhaps I should whisper forgiven. No. Bad theatre, and he was connoisseur enough to deserve better. But I pulled away his costume hat of devil’s horns, tossed it to the flames.

  I wanted to explain I’d acted to save myself, not for vengeance. Why kill Dealer, yet let Stephano live? That nonsense of saving my former valet’s throat till last, was milk-sop avoidance of duty. I knew my chances in this fortress. Too many enemy, too many shadows.

  Chatterton’s Angel declared my wedding day, “You cannot come out this alive, Rayne Gray. Too many seek the prize you’ve set to bed. And the prize herself is a drinker of life, same as you. Can a man challenge his reflection?”

  Since then I awaited the sudden knife, the over-loving bite. No different than fields of war or the night-alleys of peace-time. But I had changed in the last months. Seen a world past the idiot curtain of daily expectation. Marriage changes a man, sure as the moon.

  “If the world is magic, why then so am I,” I told Dealer’s head. “I am part of the world, am I not?” Spirits of Erasmus, Spinoza and Lucretius stood to argue but I spoke to the open eyes. “I have changed. I could be forgiving.”

  ‘Do you want to forgive’? asked the flames. ‘Black burned your home. Stephano murdered Elspeth. Betrayed you, more than any.’ Dealer’s eyelids rested low, thinking cynical thoughts. Easy to read his opinion. End of conference. I declined to argue further. “No. Never forgive,” I informed head and flame and blood. “If I live, they die. I must make sure to live then.”

  I rose, shaking mad thoughts from my unsevered head. Went to the safe, found a leather satchel with three large books. Spell books, grimoires of financial magic. Behold ships and men, barrels and crops, mines and mills turned to arcane symbols. Numbers for lives, sums for thefts, curses cast upon farms, turning them to fairy gold. What a wonder of column and equation, name and notation. I could not help but smile. Behold the very books I’d sought the night I met a master fencer sitting lonely by a candle. Not yet a year past.

  Of what worth now? If both Magisterium and Aldermen’s Council aligned in Black’s plots, what magistrate would declare trial for treason? Still, as Black gathered power, the number of his enemies must grow apace. Mere human nature. Some office close to the King might make use of these. The sad, mad king.

  I faced the far door. I guessed it led to the terrace overlooking garden and fireworks. In which case, I knew who I would next meet. I went back, took the pistol, placed it in the satchel. Slung it about my shoulder, disliking the weight. Lowered the mask of Death, scythe in left hand, knife in right. Readied my soul for what would come, glad the Demoiselle remained off-stage. I then struggled to open the door with full hands, spoiling the exit somewhat.

  Stairs, spiraling up. My honeymoon castle had just such stair within a tower. Lalena and I had tread careful lest it end in air. But no, it came to sea-wind and rain. We’d been searching for the gallery of family images. We never found it. At day’s end she stamped foot, declared I’d made it up to mock her family. I stamped foot, suggesting her mad family dreamed it to mock me. Then we’d argued about my French officer’s coat.

  “It’s a good coat,” I told the winding stairs. “Still has the buttons. Most of the buttons.” I came to a guard before a door, holding pistol and lamp. He took Death for dead Streng, lowered the pistol. “Doesn’t a man have the right to choose his own coat?” I asked him. He nodded unsure. I became Death, nodding sure. I dragged the dying body down the steps, out of view of the door. Returned to the top, unlocked the door to night air and the sound of music, the battle-field smell of fireworks.

  A garden terrace centered by a dinner-table. Candelabrum flickered in night-wind, setting crystal goblets glittering. Silver dishes, golden bowls, porcelain plate. At table-head sat Hades on ebony throne, decked in funeral velvet. Crowned with iron bone and thorn, devil’s mask of black silk. Behold Jeremiah Black as Hades, Lord of the Underworld. One had to admire the commitment of his imagination to the worship of his soul.

  The somber effete beside him: by day’s light Magister Green; by tonight’s holy moon the Pope. It took all my strength not to laugh in joy at his triple-tiered hat. How did he keep it from falling in the soup? I wondered at the other three. Conspirators of lesser import; good for a scene, serving as foil or spear-carrier. A Neptune in emerald green. Ah, but I’d seen a real sea-lord. A Punch of excellent ugly face, nose curling down to touch up-curling chin. A Roman toga’d Caesar, oak-wreath crowned. I rendered Caesar a second look. The judge who’d presided over my capital trial. I forgot his name. Months past he’d intoned ‘hang till dead’. Far more interesting things had happened since.

  A fine and private meeting. In my years of knowing Black, I had never been upon this terrace. Only eyed it from the garden three stories below. In hindsight, the man could hardly lead me past Elspeth’s portrait. Four terrace corners, each sheltering pots of cypress and well-hidden guard. The door behind me the only apparent access. I found the key and locked it.

  “Streng,” intoned Hades. “Where is Dealer?”

  In reply Death bowed, jerked a bony hand to the floor. They took the meaning for the chamber below. Truly, Death pointed far, farther down.

  Caesar laughed. “He is still moaning and mooing at Gray’s whore.”

  “His heart overcomes his art,” said Neptune. “Why lust for a used Proserpine, after Hades has tired of the ravishing?” This received some laughter, appreciative nod from Hades. Death thought it weak jest. Better something simple like ‘Why go to Hell for a dead mistress’? But they could pursue the proper bon mot in Hell themselves. Soon.

  As chief of arms, I dutifully began my rounds, strode to the guard in the first shadow-corner. He straightened at my approach, nodded in respect. I nodded, waited for the next round of fireworks, then stepped on his foot to hold him still. I put hand against his mouth and cut his throat. He jerked, stilled. I propped him in the corner, peered at the terrace and table. No notice taken.

  “Master Streng,” called Black. “Fetch us the next round from the basket.”

  I puzzled what he meant. But I must not show myself unsure. No servants here, nor servant’s entrance. From where did the feast come? Ah, he had some system of pulley set by the balcony, to send up fresh drink and food. I emerged from shadows, went to the railing, found the mechanism. A basket of proper claret. I struggled to uncork two bottles. Damn all corkscrew. I emptied my powder-vial into the first bottle, feeling remorse. Fine French claret. Haut Brion, undeserving of addition.

  “What of that devil Pierrot?” asked Caesar, looking about as I filled his glass. “Not joining us?”

  Black snorted. “I dislike his company. He gives himself near as many airs as the previous Gray. And he sets our Alderman friend to twitching.”

  The papal Green sighed. “Gray had right to wear what pride he chose. This other fellow shows a different pride. He takes our orders and smiles. Follows our direction and smiles. That smile mocks us. He means mischief.”

  Green accepted a re-filled cup, stared into it without slightest tilt to his tower of a hat. I felt an urge to goad him to look down, toppling that wonderful crown. I did not. I finished pouring wine, then continued inspection of the guards. The second struggled. Perhaps the smell of blood on my cloak alerted him. But the orchestra in the garden had begun a Haydn trumpet concerto. Allegro, and I could have cut an elephant’s throat without notice. Not that I would. Let all beasts live. Merely remove from us those who consider themselves
men yet act as beasts… said the man with hot blood soaking his cloak. ‘Do you know how awful it feels to stand in clothes dripping with blood?’ Lalena had asked. I knew right well.

  “Well, Pierrot is only an actor. And the script calls for him to hang, by and by, by and by,” said Neptune. He wobbled slightly, as the sea-god’s tide began to ebb. Punch laughed, shook his great ugly head at the idea of Jack Ketch. I watched as he maneuvered the wine glass between nose and chin to reach red lips.

  I inspected another guard. This one straightened warily at my approach. I smelled smoke, tobacco not fireworks. A pipe smoldered on the ground. I shook my head in disapproval. He flinched. I pointed to it, he bent down and I struck hard on the back of his neck. He collapsed. I bent to cut his throat. Stopped at sight of the ring on his left hand. Sighed, and let him lie.

  I went to inspect the last guard, listening to Haydn and the dinner conversation. I had never heard this piece performed. I had heard the conversation performed, many times.

  “We would be fools to remove the king,” observed Green. “We only wish him to sit in his throne, and let us be about the business of administering his kingdom.”

  “I thought we did so now,” laughed Punch. I knew his voice. The Assistant Minister of War. Very keen to modernize. A visionary of molten steel rivers flowing into molds for rifle and cannon and swords, engines and ships. One listened to his prophecy and smelled hot iron, blinked at fiery glow.

  I returned to the table, inspection of guards complete. I put down the leather satchel of over-heavy books, throwing off the blood-soaked cloak, but keeping mask. I sat myself in Dealer’s seat. I did not expect he’d join tonight. But suppose his head rolled from the shadows, asking me to pour a cup? Suppose it followed me forever after, lecturing on art? I recalled the lines I’d recited with Elspeth and Dealer.

  Come, sealing night, scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day;

  And with thy bloody and invisible hand

  Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond which keeps me pale.

  Well, I’d killed no friend. Let no man born of woman, name me Macbeth. Dealer had been no Banquo. I poured a glass of claret, hoping I chose the safe bottle. Which was right? I felt fevered, trembling. Sipped a bit of claret, which helped. Unless it was poisoned.

  “Too many laws still bind our hands,” declared Hades. “And always this howl from the mob, for more votes, more rights, more share in the fruits of their master’s fields.”

  “I can hear what Gray would say to that,” remarked Green.

  “The field belongs to those who labor in the field,” I declared to the company, setting down cup. “Fruit and harvest belongs to he who sows, he who reaps.” I leaned Death’s scythe against the table, prima facie evidence. The harvest blade shown fresh red.

  “Yes,” laughed Caesar. “Exactly how Gray talked. What a mad Robin Hood.” He began to cough, oak-leaves slipping down.

  Punch’s hands fumbled, searching for the face behind his mask. Fingers fluttered frightened over the elongated nose and chin. Caesar trembled. Hades considered me, turned eyes to his half-empty goblet. Green drank his deep, a proper gourmand. And yet his hat did not tilt! Amazing. He set down cup and sighed.

  “Adam Smith’s ‘The Wealth of Nations’ says that a nation prospers by an invisible hand of market forces,” he declared. “How shall the hand guide, except by ownership?”

  “You misunderstand Smith,” I retorted. “Or say rather you hope to make others misunderstand. His work points out that the prosperity of a nation is inhibited by monopoly and cabal, privilege and oppression.”

  Caesar fell forwards, gasping. His oak-leaf circlet rolled across the table. Punch sagged backwards in his chair, puppet suddenly deprived of puppeteer. Just an empty thing. Poseidon picked up the bronze circlet, let it drop again. Then let his head sink. The sea-tide ebbed, bearing him away to oceanic depths or the caves of hell.

  Green observed these departures, but ignored them. “Smith shows that prosperity is the result of sensible division of labor unrestrained by government. There can be no division, if there is no divider. Ownership is the most fundamental and necessary division of labor.”

  Hades threw his cup to the ground, stood from his throne. “Guards,” he croaked. He pointed at me. Had we been in bonny Scotland, their ghosts would dutifully appear. Alas, we were in Londonish where the dead stir not. Well, seldom anyway.

  I pulled the double-barrel pistol from the satchel. Thumbed back both cocks. A pleasant ‘click’, ‘click’. Then laid it upon my dinner plate, to appreciate the coming course.

  “Labor is divided by different types of work,” I pointed out. “How shall those you call masters do the least work, and yet claim the largest share of prosperity?” I took off Death’s mask, laid it next to Caesar’s crown.There came silence at the table. Not surprising as half the guests lay dead. But Hayden’s music continued. What a wonder is music. Composers must perish, and every last musician. Yet the music continues.

  “Pierrot,” spat Black.

  “No, it is not,” corrected Green. “Behold the man himself.” He stared into his empty cup. At last the papal tower tilted forward! I held breath, inwardly cheering. Green put words into the cup, to mix with dregs. “It does no good to remove princelings from ownership. Hand farmers and tinkers the deed to castle and farm. Now they are the masters, now they shout for their share of the labor of others. You keep confusing economic reality with a story, Rayne, wherein humble orphans triumph over proud princes. Why, if they ever do, then they become proud and princely themselves.”

  “Nonsense,” I retorted. Sipping my claret. Unpoisoned, else I’d be dead as Caesar, Poseidon and Punch. “You are the one making a story, pretending the rational call to social balance is mere battle of prince and peasant. Consider Plato’s Republic. You –“

  “Balance!” laughed Green, head tilting back. Again I watched for the tower to fall. “You play with words. I think the late Caesar had it right. You play at Robin Hood. But Sherwood Forest makes no economic model for Britain.”

  “Will you both be silent!” shouted Alderman Black. “Are you mad? He is Rayne Gray. He has just poisoned us all.”

  Green and I stared at Hades, our looks chiding untoward interruption.

  “These, certainly,” said Green, waving at the three corpses. “But I feel only the usual indigestion caused by your cook, who is far less than you claim. And Gray also drank. No, he served us from separate bottles.”

  Black picked up a carving knife, considered its edge, my pistol, my smile. Sighed, put the knife down.

  “Sit,” I invited him. I ran a finger along the polished wood of the gun, studying the man. “And may I invite you to take off that ridiculous mask? It embarrasses.”

  Hades returned to his throne. He reached up, took away the mask. I studied the face. My age, and much of my humor. But no scars, except worry-lines of financial sorrow. More handsome, if a bit blank. To be fair, I’d grown used of late to interesting faces.

  When last I saw Black’s, he’d come to my cell to chat a final bit, fire a crossbow into my head. My future wife had interrupted, bless her.

  Before that he’d been burning the books of my library, sending guards to their deaths chasing me about my garden. And entire years before that, he’d sent Elspeth into my life. To spy? For what, we’d been allies then. It could only be to have someone in my house he considered his. I studied the raging eyes, the proud chin, the idiot crown. We’d sat at table like this a thousand times. Laughing, arguing politics and women, wine and the world. Men who saw eye to eye on little, yet acknowledged the worth of the other. Peers. And all that time, he’d hated me so much he’d been slightly mad with hate?

  Fair enough, and understandable to my present heart. I now felt the same for him.

  “Hades,” I laughed. “Seriously?”

  He flushed, weighing my mood, the pistol, the door, the balcony, the attendant corpses. In the garden below swarmed a multitude of guards and friends. He m
ight rush to the railing, call for aid. That would be comic. I half-hoped he would.

  I watched lest his hand slip to pocket for pistol. It would be like the man to keep one about. One should not dress as Hades yet dine unarmed. But he knew me. He would not draw till my eye was elsewhere. I poured more claret, but only sipped.

  “The late Punch made excellent point,” I said. “You and yours already rule the world. Look at this idiot estate. Servants and fireworks, fountains and orchestra. You hire clerks to seek luxuries not yet overfilling your closets.” Sip. “Why this idiot plot to lead tradesmen to revolt and slaughter?”

  Black kept proud silence. He saw no profit in bantering at his death-scene. Whereas I had chatted brightly as he visited my cell, drawing back the crossbow. The man lacked style except in victory. Green answered for him.

  “You never considered the consequences, Rayne. If you grant votes to men of no property, then you turn the kingdom upside down. Farmers are not philosophers. They are experts in dung and dirt. Shop-clerks know their shelves, not the needs of a mercantile empire.”

  I considered the guard I’d left breathing for his wedding band. He might be awake already, tiptoeing behind me now. Damn me for a milksop assassin, exact as Green accused. No more dawdling. I pushed away the cup, picked up the pistol.

  “Farmers and shop-clerks know the worth of sense,” I replied, standing. “Unlike twisted bankers and drunken princes who think it statecraft leading men to hope of freedom, just so they may be crushed.”

  “If I may quote Machiavelli?” retorted Green.

  “No you may not,” I declared as Black groaned, “No, absolutely not.”

  Green smiled, ignored pistol and groan. “That wise Italian said, ‘Politics has no relation to Morality’. Your heart is in the past, Master Robin Hood. But the coming age is one of wheels. Financial wheels, political wheels, factory wheels. When they turn well, they shall profit all. But wheels do not turn on kindness, but practical rule.”