The sound
of a carriage clattered behind. One horse, two-wheeled, iron-rims clanking. It
had followed three streets now. Slow enough that carts passed cursing. I paused
to put down the table-top, scratch, turn, observe. The driver hunched over for
a capital C. Curtained windows. I saw a
flick of cloth, a bit of face. A woman. Hunting me? I have instructed two madam associates. Sad to think either might
seek their teacher's life. I would not spare them, I knew. They knew as well.
Granted, it
might just be a weary horse on a busy street. If I jumped at every shadow, I
would not last the day. I advised myself to abandon the burned table-top.
Absurd, carrying heavy trash across the city. And yet it made a decent shield
for the back. An excellent disguise. Passerby avoided me as obviously insane,
possibly dangerous. Not that I did so for sly strategy or mad purpose. No, I
determined to bring it to a friend who knew of carvings in wood and stone. I craved
some hint of the identity of the sword-master of last night, who had crashed my
world, smashed my mirror. The mind seeks stories in the turns of Fortuna's
wheel. The mind is an idiot. There is no story in a spinning wheel but change
and repetition.
Strange
thoughts. I looked strange, a ragged figure carrying a burned table-top.
Excellent. I was weary and hurting, fearing each alley, each face. Perhaps I
was mad. What better disguise than the truth? I hefted my burden, continued on.
Two streets
later I stopped before a beggar. The same child. She swept my path again,
brushing fairy-dust from city cobbles, swaying to no music but the melody of a
broken mind. She fixed her moon-gaze on the ghosts and angels about us. Clearly
awaiting another shilling. Then she'd dart ahead, take position at the next
corner. We would circle the globe thus. Well, I have dreamed worse eternities.
Far worse. But I was out of shillings.
The
carriage rattled behind. Farther on the street narrowed. If hunters waited
ahead I’d be trapped. I considered the cross-street. To the left the river, to
the right an alley blocked by a ragged puppet show. Stage built of a bed-frame,
curtains of stained sheets. Cast-off from the charity hospital, seemingly. A
few benches cobbled from river driftwood. I pretended to consider this dismal
entertainment. It had no audience but me, a boy and a ragged man laying upon
the ground, drunk or dead.
Eyes on the
stained curtain, ears following the carriage. No more clanking wheel, it must
have stopped. I put down my burdensome table-top, leaned against a street lamp,
placing it between me and the carriage. I made a poor target for pistol or
bolt. Neither is a proper weapon for a professional. When machine-magicians perfect
the gun, twill be the death of assassin-burglars, of duelists and
sword-masters. A loss to the world, possibly. Not today.
A puppet-head poked out from under the ragged
curtain. "Can't do a show till we hear some clinking," complained a
voice hypothetically from the lump of ugly face. An aged Punch, scarred and
weary, twenty years after Judy left him for Jack Ketch.
The
beggar-girl raced across, whispered to puppet and puppeteer. The boy joined in.
He might have been her twin, or at least a fellow member of Rags and Tangles.
High cheekbones, eyes like fevered cats.
I heard words I did not follow. Gaelic, probably. Refugees from Ireland
or Scotland. What a long way they came to starve. Parliamentary debate closed,
the boy, girl and puppet went silent, turned to me.
I met their
mad eyes and considered whether I was their fellow. I wasn't Irish or a puppet.
I might be mad. Yes, a bedlam bearing burned
trash, daydreaming the adventures of Spadassin
Seraph. Perhaps I had no grand house,
no valet-pirate, no feather mattress. No crystal
decanter of whiskey on the bedside table. The thought saddened me.
I didn't
believe it. Couldn't if I tried. Madness is the ability to believe this world
is something else, that you are someone else. I have seen war, the world and
the mirror. I understand full well why one desires to go mad. It just mystifies
me how the trick is done.
Mad
thoughts, granted. I met their waiting eyes and settled for a very sane nod. Upon which gesture Punch
retreated, the girl pirouetted. The boy rose, stood beside the curtain. It
lifted, revealing a second sheet. Behold the world: gray cloth dabbed with
shabby yellows and whites for suns, moons and stars. Sticks sewn to the sheet
in memory of trees. A faded blue sash for a faded blue ocean. That square stain
of mud or blood? Surely a castle. It stood lonely in the middle of the
faded-sash sea. An island fortress at the edge of the tapestry-world. A hole in
the cloth formed a dark portcullis. An eye peering through. At me. I winked,
why not.
One puppet
appeared, then another. They hopped before this make-do world. Along came a
third and fourth, movements ironically awkward for being the puppeteer's feet.
Now the boy
recited. Voice girlish but strong. Did he babble what words he heard the moon
whisper? No, this sounded similar to the girl's whispers Words of meaning, then.
At least to mad children.
"In the beginning, so proud to be us.
Measured by our eyes and no other. Peers we were each to each, and cared
nothing for princes waiting at the door. The least of our blood was royalty in
the measure of our love. All others, plaything people. We were the lords of
table and battle and bed, of book and dance and secret chant. Nameless, except
such names we took to wear as crowns of summer laurel. We were the night-sky
stars, the storm wind, the winter geese-folk flying free, free."
A puppet
with wings dashed before the sheet, bobbing with a 'honk, honk' goose-cry.
The girl
tiptoed to the ragged figure lying dead or drunk. She gave him a kick. He
twitched, she nodded, tiptoed back to her position opposite the boy. The boy
frowned at this. She shrugged. Brushing tangles from eyes and memory, the boy continued.
"We ran laughing across the world, mocking
its muddy face. The wandering folk, magic and untouchable. Glorious in our
days, terrible in our nights. A' times it pleased us to march into villages
blowing horns, dancing mad steps. Then the common clay threw green branches
before us as holy pilgrims, as fairy conquerors, as divine kings returned from
Hell or Avalon."
A dirty
handkerchief popped itself upon a puppet. It jumped ghostlike about. The girl
turned, gave the specter a critical eye. The ragged man sat up, began puffing
on a flute. Hesitant as the first bird-notes of dawn. And as moving. I
shivered. The boy nodded, continued.
"Other times we appeared sudden within castle
walls. A lordling looked from high window, wondering what our shadows foretold.
Then we stood silent as trees, still as stones. Ominous gibbet crows, holding
within our laughter. Until the lordling
would tremble, offer us their coins and children, their golden cups of rich red
wine."
A puppet
twitched its head to mime downing wine. The piper trilled a rising melody, fit
to fill a king's cup. I heard the carriage door open, watched a veiled woman
climb out. The beggar girl twirled, monitoring puppets and piper. I tensed, eyed
the woman, desperate not to kill before a child. A blue ball, with white stars.
The boy
continued. "We tumbled and tangled
hearts and bodies, furious in our love. We feuded and laughed, each of us all
the world to each. We leapt from high trees into deep waters, daring the next
to follow. Raced across desert dunes, leaving mad poems in the sand. We stood alone on mountain-tops singing to the
wind, in honor of the next of our blood the wind should meet. Glowing coals we
snatched from fire, held to the stars, laughing at the agony and the joy to be
us, us, entirely ourselves and nothing lesser."
The girl
lifted a hand to the sky, holding a theoretical coal. The absurd bobbing puppets
moved with sudden hints of grace, inspired by the strange words, the notes of
the piper. The veiled woman now stood
beside me. Ignoring me. She held white hands together. She wrung them in grief.
I stared in horror. I'd prefer she wave a knife.
Steps to my
left, and an old sailor tottered to a rough bench. He sat. His shoulders shook.
Steps to my right. A tall woman in gray. The eldest Gray Grace from the
cathedral stairs. She hurried over, sat beside the sailor, patting him on the
back for what comfort that gave.
The boy
took a breath, recitation driving his starved frame to shake. “Slow came our passing; terrible the end. From
sweet jealousy of love, we turned envious of excellence in craft and power. We
gave our hearts to knowledge, not to wisdom.
Pride turned to rivalry; rivalry turned to fear. Alliances were made
with dark creatures and mad things, folks of air and fire and blood. The clans
withdrew to cave and forest, mountain-top and sea-depth, each seeking some final
mastery. Few returned. Those that did
wore faces we no longer knew.”
A stray dog
leaped a bench to land before the beggar-girl. A wolf-creature. Black-furred, ribs
hinting a diet of kicks and trash, the occasional feast of rat. It whined from
a cave of yellow teeth, red tongue. The girl considered, then reached to pat it
once upon the head. I flinched, expecting blood. But the creature sighed, sat,
ears cocked for the rest of the story. The boy nodded at its good manners and
continued.
“Strife came. Struggle within clans as the
ambitious sought to rule over brother, over sister. Then between clans, each seeking
supremacy over the people once wind-free. And first we dueled in formal games
of blade and chant, hand and art, hoping to limit the spilling of the blood once
cherished. But game became war. All our excellence of mind and spirit we turned
to slaughter. So the folk died or fled, lessened
in number, diminished in the graces of fire and life and love."
The dog howled. The old sailor
wept. The veiled woman wrung pretty hands. The piper trilled a dirge. And all the
puppets collapsed in grief to the floor of their rag-tapestry world. I turned
to the busy street, wondering what it thought of this madness.
Nothing,
apparently. Passerby gave the show a glance, then turned aside as one does from
any city-scene asking coin or pity. Across the street, four dock-workers stood
arguing portage-fees and beer. A certain exaggeration to their shouts and
stamps made me suspect they play-acted. Still, not every theatre is meant for
me.
A rider in
livery of the Magisterium trotted in smart style down the street. His sniff declared
he had no time for gatherings of rags, dolls and dogs. A girl hawking fish from
a push-cart quickened pace, deciding we had no custom to pursue. A baker in
flour-bedecked apron stumbled by, comically fussing with four baskets of bread.
He gave the puppet-audience a snort for our lack of commercial energy.
The boy
cared not a fig. He swept fingers through tangled hair, revealing an ear
pointed as a lynx's. Then recited in a voice
high and clear:
"After war came silence. Wind swept the empty
hills where once we danced sunset, sang sunrise. Villages forgot us, castles
crumbled, towers turned to stone shells where lizards scuttled dead leaves. Last
we were, lost we were, wanderers we became. A half-people, the shadow-clans,
remainders of the glory of -"
A gun fired beside my head, putting fin to the play. Pity; I would have liked to hear how it ended.