Quest of the Five Clans

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

A gathering of beggars recall a lost glory

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.