Quest of the Five Clans

Chapter 8

Four spread out through the garden. The fifth posted himself by the ivy trellis. I circled behind the tree trunk, thicker than any church pillar. High above the branches whispered with night-breeze, light and silvery as faery laughter. Again that shiver of raised hackles.

The year previous I toured Italy, visited the usual ruins. The guide showed us a circle of stone, where once stood a sacred oak. He explained a king once slept beneath the tree, sword drawn. Every so often a challenger marched up to kill him. The victor became the new oak-king, circling the tree sword drawn, awaiting the next challenger. The guide promised if we stayed the night we'd see the ghost of the oak-king, orbiting the phantom trunk, bronze blade drawn. We declined. We were in search of warm arms and wine, not cold shivers in ruins. Later I half-wished we had.

The two with the candelabras edged clockwise around the trunk. The two with lanterns moved around the other side. I waited till I was within the candelabra flicker, thrust through the throat. No temptation for milksopery. This was my garden. He dropped the candelabra. My candelabra.

"Tiger, Tiger!" I shouted. Why not.

His fellow backed away at the death-gasp or Blake's verse. For either cause, he had the sense to abandon his candlestick. My candlestick. It only hindered his eyes, offset his balance. The bravo with the torch ran forwards with a shout, but I was already circling behind the trunk again, surprised those with lanterns had not come behind and finished me. One lantern lay on the ground, abandoned. I kicked it toward the fountain, where it clanked on stone.

By the door, Alderman Black shouted for news. He knew we fought, but could not tell who was up, who was down, who stood as King of the Oak. Where was the fellow with the torch?

I put my back to the tree, waiting enemies to circle from both sides. The garden shimmered with glows that gave neither figure nor form to sight; mere shadows of light. My heart hammered, lungs labored. I considered, and removed my boots.

Such trivial things decide whether we die today, or just later. A patch of ice on the bridge. The line of sun in battle. The democratic winds that elect an arrow's path. Destiny is the sum of idiot trivialities. How can we think our lives rise to greater importance than a thousand coin tosses?

I presently live for the accident that my garden is too shadowed for grass. Ergo, my gardener placed pebbles over the dirt. So this night I put back to trunk, and dared close eyes, ignoring the distracting shadow-play. I listened for the crunch of boot-steps. Then turned and lunged at the man coming upon my left. He parried poorly, I cork-screwed, ran him though the gut. I regretted the target, the gut's a painful end. He'd left his lantern on the ground. My lantern. It flickered in requiem to his fading moans.

"In the forest of the night," I cried out. From the door came curses. From the tree branches above, whispers of laughter.

Two down, four left plus Black. But the two had been pawn sacrifices. They knew where I was now. They need merely maneuver with caution and light round both sides of the tree, two to a side, cornering me. Or three come around one side, chasing me into view of the sixth fellow's cross-bow.

Gravel crunching on my right. I crept the opposite direction, expecting to meet who lurked this side of the trunk. No one. I continued circling till I came in sight of the door to the house. It stood closed. Through the glass I spotted Black, peering out. No sign of the ominous Sixth Man, armed with crossbow. Sounds of gravel crunches beyond the curve of the trunk. A muffled exclamation. A whisper of laughter from the branches above. I edged quickly forwards, preferring to come upon enemies than have them come upon me.

A smell of teak forests burning... there lay the smoldering torch. No sign of its bearer. Puzzling. I caught the crunch of gravel behind, the slow steps of caution. I continued around the tree, meeting no one. Another candelabrum lay snuffed on the ground, wicks still glowing red. Puzzling twice. I put back to trunk and listened. Someone stepped cautiously on the far side of the tree. Something laughed in the tree branches. Black pounded now on the glass doors, shouting something not heard.

I began circling the trunk again. I heard only one set of feet now. Ergo: three must have stopped. Unless they tiptoed barefoot? I listened, heard my laboring heart. Shouts from inside the house, the distant crash of glass. A soft splash of something wet beside me. I held out a hand, catching a second splash. A familiar smell. Blood. I looked up.

Twenty feet high against the night sky, a body hung upside down from a branch, arms waving gently, in dance to what dismal tune the wind piped in such place. Too far and dark to see a face. Glad of that.

I considered running for the ivy. Climbing and away. But I would be cut down before reaching the top. Steps behind me. I should continue circling. But I wanted company, even just some kill-for-coin footpad. I stood my ground, waiting. Around the tree came someone holding no light. Crossbow and rapier. The Sinister sixth guard.

He waved the crossbow, mere distraction. I circled backwards around the trunk, denying him a clear shot. He tried a lunge. Not distraction, he meant to kill. The new Oak King? I doubted it. Not as fast as last night's anonymous sword-master. Still, respectable.

We parried, testing reach and speed. I fight with either hand; my advantage circling the tree. His advantages: the crossbow and time. He need merely distract till Black fetched more help, more light. I wondered about the missing guards. Past time they came up behind me. I could think of but one place for them to loiter. Strange fruit, hanging from my tree.

I circling backwards. Light bloomed from out my house windows, brightening the night. Black stood behind the glass doors, holding one of my books. He ripped pages, dropped them deliberately into a growing fire about the curtains.

Perhaps it was a clever move to distract me. I think it mere malice. He wanted to burn my house as I did his warehouse. Unfair. He had a dozen warehouses, I but one house. I considered how deep his hatred reached. When Green, Dealer, Black and I had sat at table arguing politics, art and science, had Black sipped, contemplating my death?

Unless it was business decision. I, Green and the more sane Magisterium members opposed his cabal of industrial pirates. I preferred his hate be about the poet William Blake. More personal. How soulless, to be murdered as a business decision. I watched Black rip my books, set my house afire, and in weary rage I turned from the Sinister Sixth Guard. He should have run me through. Long live the new Oak King.

Instead he held hand out, staring at what glittered wet in the growing light from the house. Then he turned upwards. I should have run him through, but of course I also looked up, guessing the source of strange rain.

Two, no, three more bodies dangled from the branches above, hawks nailed by the gamekeeper, crickets spiked by a butcher-bird. Hands and hair waving like sea-fronds, in deep water no swimmer should dare. We looked away at the same time, recalled to earth and our present task.

"Treaty and truce," I said. "Let us continue our homicide somewhere sane."

He looked to the house, where the door burned a cheery bright yellow.

"The ivy, then." he declared. Sensible fellow. We ran from the whispering tree to the wall of ivy. I eyed him, he me. When he sheathed sword I did the same. We began to climb. I trembled exhausted, my thoughts blurred. What just happened to four men in my garden? Why did I climb the wall of my own house? I should enter the front door. Stephano would draw the bath, bring brandy and fresh clothes. I would lay myself down in my soft warm bed, and Elspeth would knock, bringing a dinner tray. Lay herself down with me, soft and warm herself.

But the house fast caught fire. Elspeth lay on the library couch, within a pyre of the books she'd hoped to hear speak. They were to tell of magic islands and angelic visions, lovelorn princess and wise fools. Most of all, the meaning of Heaven itself, that forever-hinted secret which Heaven always denies ear and eye. Words and flesh, their combined flame would rise to the sky, jump to the tree. House, Elspeth, books and tree would be smoke and ash tomorrow. I would be last king of the Oak. I felt an absurd comfort in that.