Nov. Bargain, Part the Fifth - CONCLUDED.
Jan. 15th, 2004 01:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynHere is the prior segment of "Grandfather's Legacy".
We were in India, and it was September, but I don't believe I've ever had such a cold feeling creep over me as I did at the banded snake's words.
"Sankhapala's son said no more than that," said Samadarshi very quietly. "When he spoke the name of his captor, the charm slipped his grasp. Ulupi woke then, and brought her brother's message to her father and his ministers. It is in this way that we know of the prince's fate." He uncoiled some of his length from the spear, rearing up his head, and his tongue flickered for a few moments. "The scent of you is very like that which the Prince conveyed to his sister, and though your garb is different, the look of you is much the same as well. And you have already given us your name, which is the same as his. . ."
"So tell us," the Naga King broke in. His expression was carefully neutral, but the thickest man alive could have seen the pain and the anger in his eyes. "Tell us, now that you have heard Sankhapala's words: are you the man my son spoke of?"
I wanted to tell him something. I don't know what. Something that would at least have done some kind of good, or given him some kind of news- but if I said anything like that, it would have been a lie. "No, your Majesty," I answered. "I'm sorry."
The King was silent. The other Nagas were probably watching, too, but- well, they didn't matter. Harsh, I know, but they didn't. King Sankhapala was the only one who mattered.
He looked at me for a long time, his head held high and his jaw grimly set. He might have been a marble statue for all the movement he showed. There wasn't anything I could do but return his gaze- I'd given him the truth already. I didn't have anything else to give.
Without warning, the Naga King threw down his spear- and I do mean down: it landed in front of me, the haft crosswise to my feet. "So it is," the King said through gritted teeth, Samadarshi slithering himself around one forearm. "It seems I must believe you."
I let out a breath- hadn't known I'd been holding it. "Thank you, your Majesty-"
One of his hands came up in a sharply truncated gesture. "Do not thank me! I have done nothing. There is no lie in you, Preston. That is all." He turned towards his daughters, and I couldn't see his face any more. But there was a line to his shoulders that I knew much too well. Men don't take it well when their only chance for revenge slips through their fingers.
Not wanting to intrude further on the King, I turned to Sagara. The cobra had receded a little, but noticed me looking at him. A man would've raised his eyebrows, but the royal minister only tilted his head, almost like one of my dogs. "What happens now?" I asked as quietly as I dared.
"Now?" Sagara's hood widened a little. "I do not know. But you will not be punished. Everyone here knows you are not guilty."
Well, that was something. Unfortunately, 'here' was still India, lack of punishment or no. "If I might be so bold, I seem to remember you saying there were no English for many miles. Does that mean you know the way to where the English are?"
"That is so." His tongue flickered on the air a moment. "But I will not tell you."
"Why not?"
"It is as I also said before, Preston. . . we do not appreciate visitors." He glanced to the King a moment, but Sankhapala was still conferring with his daughters. "Particularly not visitors who are close kin to wanted criminals."
"Excuse me?" I swear, I could feel my own hackles going up at that. "You've got no proof!"
"You have the face," Sagara pointed out. "You have the smell. Your ancestor is of Scotland, and shares the name. For many humans, that would be reason enough to see you dead."
"But you said I wouldn't be punished." I looked to the King as well- he was coming back to the open space. "I haven't done anything!"
"It is true, you have not," said the Naga King. "But your ancestor did."
"Again, your Majesty, I mean no offense, but you haven't got any proof it's the same man!" I wouldn't have thought it possible, but I was liking this situation even less than before. "Strong evidence, maybe, but you don't even have a first name. There's a lot of people in Scotland named Preston."
"Ones who look like you? Or share your scent?"
He had me there. If there'd been a dog involved I would've taken the smell as evidence of kinship and not thought about it twice. "Well- no, probably not-"
Sankhapala nodded. "Then we must assume that you are kin to the one who holds my son. We have no choice, Preston. The Nagas are just, and our law is not lightly to be cast aside."
Worse and worse. Comprehensible, true, but worse and worse nonetheless. "And what does your law say about a situation like this?"
The Naga King shrugged. "My son is held prisoner, very far away. You can write, yes?"
"Well, yes, but what has that got to do with anything?"
"We shall bring you paper and pen and ink, then," decided the King. "You will write to this man, your grandfather, and tell him that my son must be released. One of my daughters will disguise herself and give this message to the English. You will stay among us as our guest until the Prince Kauravya returns to us- it is only fair."
I couldn't believe my ears. Prisoner? Here? In India? "But your Majesty," I exclaimed, "my grandfather's dead! He died when I was two years old!"
Sagara hissed, but it was the King who spoke. Eyes narrowed, he said, "Then the obligation passes to his heirs."
"My father is also dead." Even as I said it, I realised what was coming next. "And I don't know the first thing about magic rubies, or anything else. Everything I know about my grandfather comes from my father's stories, and all he ever said about my grandfather's time in Europe was that Saul Preston left Scotland in disgrace after a business venture soured on him."
The King's lips pursed. "Mere ignorance of an obligation does not cause it to vanish- are you trying to tell me that you cannot undo this debt?"
"He most certainly can not." It was a woman's voice. And it was English, beyond all shadow of doubt.
"Miss Poppins," I said, feeling the smile of relief starting entirely of its own accord, "you have no idea how glad I am that you're here right now."
She sniffed, stepping carefully through the smaller snakes and around the end of the Naga King's tail, but there was something of a smile to her eyes. "You're not the first to say that, Sergeant," she observed primly. "All things considered, I doubt you'll be the last, either."
Sagara's hood had snapped out to its greatest width yet. If there were such a thing as the white of a snake's eye, I believe I would've seen it then. That's how startled he looked. "Ranee?" he asked, disbelieving. "You know this man?"
She smiled up at him. Actually smiled. "Of course I do," she said. "I would hardly come all this way and interrupt your council for a stranger, would I?"
From the sound of his voice, the Naga King was just as surprised as I was. "This is . . . very unexpected, Cousin."
Cousin?
Cousin?
I have no idea what else the King said after that. I really don't, and I've been trying to remember, but I just can't get past that one word. I'm sure he must've said something else, and I know Miss Poppins said quite a lot to him, but I can't for the life of me recall any of it. I just know that she eventually turned to me, and Sankhapala turned as well, her hand in his. "I think perhaps something can be arranged," he said, "although it does not sit well with us."
"I know, cousin, I know," she told him soothingly. "But really, keeping him here won't do you any good."
The King sighed, shoulders slumping. "I had thought, perhaps. . ." He trailed off. "It has been so very long since we lost my son, dear Mary. So very long."
"That's true, but he really can't help you. He's a policeman, not a magician."
As the Naga King murmured his reply, Miss Poppins' words sank in. A policeman, not a magician, eh?
"Maybe there's something I can do after all," I said, stepping forward. "Your Majesty?"
The King looked up; Mary merely glanced my way. "Your Majesty, the situation your- ah-" I didn't know what to call Samadarshi, exactly. "-storyteller described. Your son was taken from India, held captive against his will and forced to serve this man Preston in Scotland, am I right?"
He nodded slowly.
"That sounds like slavery to me. That's been illegal in Britain for a very long time."
"What does this have to do with my people?" the Naga King asked suspiciously. Sagara watched me intently over the king's shoulder.
"Only this, your Majesty: what you're talking about is a crime against a subject of the British crown. And that's exactly the kind of thing I'm supposed to put a stop to." I tapped the stripes on my tunic's sleeve. "It's part of the job."
"Sergeant," Miss Poppins murmured, "under the circumstances-"
"I know, Miss Poppins. I'm out of a Mountie's jurisdiction, and even as a member of the League I've got League matters to attend to first. But His Majesty himself said it before you got here: they've carried this wound for years. If they can carry it just a little more. . ." I looked the King square in the eye. "Then as soon as my current obligations are discharged, I'll do everything in my power to find out what happened, and set things right. If it was really my grandfather who did this, then I owe these people that much."
"And what if it was not your grandfather?" Miss Poppins asked softly.
I kept my eyes on the King's as I answered. "Then it's a matter of duty. I swore to uphold the Crown and its laws, and serve its people, and that's what I'll do." I don't know what prompted me to do it- such a thing never occurred to me once in Oz- but I held out my right hand to the King.
He looked down at it. He looked up at me again. And, very slowly, he took it and shook it.
"Very . . . very well, Sergeant Preston," he said, remembering my rank at last. "We will trust you."
That was more or less it. Miss Poppins made her farewells to her cousin (I still don't believe that), then took me firmly by the hand and returned us to the Tate. I caught a glimpse of a painting with a title along the lines of 'Rajmahal Hills', but my head was still spinning as we landed, and I didn't care to look for long. "Miss Poppins?" I said, my eyes shut. "Where's Prince?"
"Why do you ask, Sergeant?"
"Because we're going to take the dirigible back to Canada. I'm not doing that again."
She was silent for a while.
"Miss Poppins?"
"I'm sorry, Sergeant, but that's not going to happen."
I opened one eye. The room had stopped trying to throw me to the floor, so I opened the other. "What do you mean? Tom's still here, isn't he?"
"Yes, but that doesn't matter. You aren't going back to Canada by dirigible. We haven't got time."
"I don't care. I'm not going to risk another experience like that." I didn't even want to look in that painting's direction. The Jackson painting in front of me was bad enough.
"It isn't a matter of choice, Sergeant. Not if you're the man I think you are."
I turned from the painting to stare at her. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Prince made the jump rather better than you. I'm very sorry, Sergeant, but your dog is already in Canada."
"What?"
"When we leapt into the painting, you let go of my hand," she pointed out. "That's how you wound up in the wrong painting entirely. Your dog, it seems, has rather more sense about such things. Although he did get extremely upset when he realised you were missing."
"And you just LEFT him there?"
"I really didn't have a choice, Sergeant. A panicked, angry husky jumping from painting to painting until we found the right one would've put you in even more danger when we finally found you. There were far too many places you could possibly be for me to risk taking Prince along to each and every one, so I convinced him to sit and wait until I came back."
I could've forgiven her that. I really could have. But then she had to go and ruin it by adding, "Besides, if I'd brought Prince along, the two of you would be halfway to the dirigible hangar by now."
Then she smiled- wretched woman- and held out her hand expectantly.
I suppose all's well that ends well; Prince and I are safely back in Dawson, and we're going to see Inspector Moore soon. I've assembled my diary notes of the last several weeks for him. I'm going to leave these pages out, though. The rest of what I've done and seen will be hard enough to believe without adding strange implications about my grandfather to the mix. Frankly, I liked matters better when I thought my grandfather's time in Scotland was a mystery because he'd been a Catholic. . .
Well, we'll see. Nothing's been proven yet. We've got things to do for the League, and I've got arrangements to make for Oz. We'll find out about this magician named Preston eventually.
But I'm not going into one of those blasted paintings again.
Ever.
We were in India, and it was September, but I don't believe I've ever had such a cold feeling creep over me as I did at the banded snake's words.
"Sankhapala's son said no more than that," said Samadarshi very quietly. "When he spoke the name of his captor, the charm slipped his grasp. Ulupi woke then, and brought her brother's message to her father and his ministers. It is in this way that we know of the prince's fate." He uncoiled some of his length from the spear, rearing up his head, and his tongue flickered for a few moments. "The scent of you is very like that which the Prince conveyed to his sister, and though your garb is different, the look of you is much the same as well. And you have already given us your name, which is the same as his. . ."
"So tell us," the Naga King broke in. His expression was carefully neutral, but the thickest man alive could have seen the pain and the anger in his eyes. "Tell us, now that you have heard Sankhapala's words: are you the man my son spoke of?"
I wanted to tell him something. I don't know what. Something that would at least have done some kind of good, or given him some kind of news- but if I said anything like that, it would have been a lie. "No, your Majesty," I answered. "I'm sorry."
The King was silent. The other Nagas were probably watching, too, but- well, they didn't matter. Harsh, I know, but they didn't. King Sankhapala was the only one who mattered.
He looked at me for a long time, his head held high and his jaw grimly set. He might have been a marble statue for all the movement he showed. There wasn't anything I could do but return his gaze- I'd given him the truth already. I didn't have anything else to give.
Without warning, the Naga King threw down his spear- and I do mean down: it landed in front of me, the haft crosswise to my feet. "So it is," the King said through gritted teeth, Samadarshi slithering himself around one forearm. "It seems I must believe you."
I let out a breath- hadn't known I'd been holding it. "Thank you, your Majesty-"
One of his hands came up in a sharply truncated gesture. "Do not thank me! I have done nothing. There is no lie in you, Preston. That is all." He turned towards his daughters, and I couldn't see his face any more. But there was a line to his shoulders that I knew much too well. Men don't take it well when their only chance for revenge slips through their fingers.
Not wanting to intrude further on the King, I turned to Sagara. The cobra had receded a little, but noticed me looking at him. A man would've raised his eyebrows, but the royal minister only tilted his head, almost like one of my dogs. "What happens now?" I asked as quietly as I dared.
"Now?" Sagara's hood widened a little. "I do not know. But you will not be punished. Everyone here knows you are not guilty."
Well, that was something. Unfortunately, 'here' was still India, lack of punishment or no. "If I might be so bold, I seem to remember you saying there were no English for many miles. Does that mean you know the way to where the English are?"
"That is so." His tongue flickered on the air a moment. "But I will not tell you."
"Why not?"
"It is as I also said before, Preston. . . we do not appreciate visitors." He glanced to the King a moment, but Sankhapala was still conferring with his daughters. "Particularly not visitors who are close kin to wanted criminals."
"Excuse me?" I swear, I could feel my own hackles going up at that. "You've got no proof!"
"You have the face," Sagara pointed out. "You have the smell. Your ancestor is of Scotland, and shares the name. For many humans, that would be reason enough to see you dead."
"But you said I wouldn't be punished." I looked to the King as well- he was coming back to the open space. "I haven't done anything!"
"It is true, you have not," said the Naga King. "But your ancestor did."
"Again, your Majesty, I mean no offense, but you haven't got any proof it's the same man!" I wouldn't have thought it possible, but I was liking this situation even less than before. "Strong evidence, maybe, but you don't even have a first name. There's a lot of people in Scotland named Preston."
"Ones who look like you? Or share your scent?"
He had me there. If there'd been a dog involved I would've taken the smell as evidence of kinship and not thought about it twice. "Well- no, probably not-"
Sankhapala nodded. "Then we must assume that you are kin to the one who holds my son. We have no choice, Preston. The Nagas are just, and our law is not lightly to be cast aside."
Worse and worse. Comprehensible, true, but worse and worse nonetheless. "And what does your law say about a situation like this?"
The Naga King shrugged. "My son is held prisoner, very far away. You can write, yes?"
"Well, yes, but what has that got to do with anything?"
"We shall bring you paper and pen and ink, then," decided the King. "You will write to this man, your grandfather, and tell him that my son must be released. One of my daughters will disguise herself and give this message to the English. You will stay among us as our guest until the Prince Kauravya returns to us- it is only fair."
I couldn't believe my ears. Prisoner? Here? In India? "But your Majesty," I exclaimed, "my grandfather's dead! He died when I was two years old!"
Sagara hissed, but it was the King who spoke. Eyes narrowed, he said, "Then the obligation passes to his heirs."
"My father is also dead." Even as I said it, I realised what was coming next. "And I don't know the first thing about magic rubies, or anything else. Everything I know about my grandfather comes from my father's stories, and all he ever said about my grandfather's time in Europe was that Saul Preston left Scotland in disgrace after a business venture soured on him."
The King's lips pursed. "Mere ignorance of an obligation does not cause it to vanish- are you trying to tell me that you cannot undo this debt?"
"He most certainly can not." It was a woman's voice. And it was English, beyond all shadow of doubt.
"Miss Poppins," I said, feeling the smile of relief starting entirely of its own accord, "you have no idea how glad I am that you're here right now."
She sniffed, stepping carefully through the smaller snakes and around the end of the Naga King's tail, but there was something of a smile to her eyes. "You're not the first to say that, Sergeant," she observed primly. "All things considered, I doubt you'll be the last, either."
Sagara's hood had snapped out to its greatest width yet. If there were such a thing as the white of a snake's eye, I believe I would've seen it then. That's how startled he looked. "Ranee?" he asked, disbelieving. "You know this man?"
She smiled up at him. Actually smiled. "Of course I do," she said. "I would hardly come all this way and interrupt your council for a stranger, would I?"
From the sound of his voice, the Naga King was just as surprised as I was. "This is . . . very unexpected, Cousin."
Cousin?
Cousin?
I have no idea what else the King said after that. I really don't, and I've been trying to remember, but I just can't get past that one word. I'm sure he must've said something else, and I know Miss Poppins said quite a lot to him, but I can't for the life of me recall any of it. I just know that she eventually turned to me, and Sankhapala turned as well, her hand in his. "I think perhaps something can be arranged," he said, "although it does not sit well with us."
"I know, cousin, I know," she told him soothingly. "But really, keeping him here won't do you any good."
The King sighed, shoulders slumping. "I had thought, perhaps. . ." He trailed off. "It has been so very long since we lost my son, dear Mary. So very long."
"That's true, but he really can't help you. He's a policeman, not a magician."
As the Naga King murmured his reply, Miss Poppins' words sank in. A policeman, not a magician, eh?
"Maybe there's something I can do after all," I said, stepping forward. "Your Majesty?"
The King looked up; Mary merely glanced my way. "Your Majesty, the situation your- ah-" I didn't know what to call Samadarshi, exactly. "-storyteller described. Your son was taken from India, held captive against his will and forced to serve this man Preston in Scotland, am I right?"
He nodded slowly.
"That sounds like slavery to me. That's been illegal in Britain for a very long time."
"What does this have to do with my people?" the Naga King asked suspiciously. Sagara watched me intently over the king's shoulder.
"Only this, your Majesty: what you're talking about is a crime against a subject of the British crown. And that's exactly the kind of thing I'm supposed to put a stop to." I tapped the stripes on my tunic's sleeve. "It's part of the job."
"Sergeant," Miss Poppins murmured, "under the circumstances-"
"I know, Miss Poppins. I'm out of a Mountie's jurisdiction, and even as a member of the League I've got League matters to attend to first. But His Majesty himself said it before you got here: they've carried this wound for years. If they can carry it just a little more. . ." I looked the King square in the eye. "Then as soon as my current obligations are discharged, I'll do everything in my power to find out what happened, and set things right. If it was really my grandfather who did this, then I owe these people that much."
"And what if it was not your grandfather?" Miss Poppins asked softly.
I kept my eyes on the King's as I answered. "Then it's a matter of duty. I swore to uphold the Crown and its laws, and serve its people, and that's what I'll do." I don't know what prompted me to do it- such a thing never occurred to me once in Oz- but I held out my right hand to the King.
He looked down at it. He looked up at me again. And, very slowly, he took it and shook it.
"Very . . . very well, Sergeant Preston," he said, remembering my rank at last. "We will trust you."
That was more or less it. Miss Poppins made her farewells to her cousin (I still don't believe that), then took me firmly by the hand and returned us to the Tate. I caught a glimpse of a painting with a title along the lines of 'Rajmahal Hills', but my head was still spinning as we landed, and I didn't care to look for long. "Miss Poppins?" I said, my eyes shut. "Where's Prince?"
"Why do you ask, Sergeant?"
"Because we're going to take the dirigible back to Canada. I'm not doing that again."
She was silent for a while.
"Miss Poppins?"
"I'm sorry, Sergeant, but that's not going to happen."
I opened one eye. The room had stopped trying to throw me to the floor, so I opened the other. "What do you mean? Tom's still here, isn't he?"
"Yes, but that doesn't matter. You aren't going back to Canada by dirigible. We haven't got time."
"I don't care. I'm not going to risk another experience like that." I didn't even want to look in that painting's direction. The Jackson painting in front of me was bad enough.
"It isn't a matter of choice, Sergeant. Not if you're the man I think you are."
I turned from the painting to stare at her. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Prince made the jump rather better than you. I'm very sorry, Sergeant, but your dog is already in Canada."
"What?"
"When we leapt into the painting, you let go of my hand," she pointed out. "That's how you wound up in the wrong painting entirely. Your dog, it seems, has rather more sense about such things. Although he did get extremely upset when he realised you were missing."
"And you just LEFT him there?"
"I really didn't have a choice, Sergeant. A panicked, angry husky jumping from painting to painting until we found the right one would've put you in even more danger when we finally found you. There were far too many places you could possibly be for me to risk taking Prince along to each and every one, so I convinced him to sit and wait until I came back."
I could've forgiven her that. I really could have. But then she had to go and ruin it by adding, "Besides, if I'd brought Prince along, the two of you would be halfway to the dirigible hangar by now."
Then she smiled- wretched woman- and held out her hand expectantly.
I suppose all's well that ends well; Prince and I are safely back in Dawson, and we're going to see Inspector Moore soon. I've assembled my diary notes of the last several weeks for him. I'm going to leave these pages out, though. The rest of what I've done and seen will be hard enough to believe without adding strange implications about my grandfather to the mix. Frankly, I liked matters better when I thought my grandfather's time in Scotland was a mystery because he'd been a Catholic. . .
Well, we'll see. Nothing's been proven yet. We've got things to do for the League, and I've got arrangements to make for Oz. We'll find out about this magician named Preston eventually.
But I'm not going into one of those blasted paintings again.
Ever.
