The Serpent's Shadow em-2

by Mercedes Lackey

  "I will grant you all of that, Scott," he finally answered, as Peter chased a pea around his plate impatiently with his fork, with no intention whatsoever of eating it. "All right, then. We'll leave this lady doctor of yours to her charities and her patients. She won't be causing us any trouble, at least." Alderscroft finally put his focus back on Peter, and chuckled. "And you are impatient to get back to your business, I know. Well, thank you, Scott. Well done, as usual."

  "My pleasure, sir," Peter replied, even though it had been nothing of the sort, and took his leave of the Head of the Lodge and Council before he could make any more remarks that would not—at the very least—be polite, nor politic.

  But he as he waited for Cedric to hail a cab, then climbed into the conveyance, he found that he had fallen prey to a mood of resentment, and for once, it wasn't on his own behalf, but on a stranger's. Had she been fully white, had she been a man, Alderscroft would have had her brought into the fold and properly taught immediately. Had she even been of other than mixed blood, he'd have sent word to one of the Earth Masters who lived outside London—probably one of the ladies he wouldn't let into the Lodge, the Council, or the Club, but had no trouble in calling on for help. But no. No, with the double damnation of mixed blood and the incorrect sex, Maya Witherspoon must languish untaught, or struggle along on her own. And if, as Peter suspected, she was hiding from something, . . .

  How long can someone self-taught hold out against any enemy? It must have been someone in her homeland; why else flee all the way to Britain, and why choose the most populous city in Britain in which to hide? Here she can make alliances, obviously is making alliances, among the only people who have eyes and ears everywhere, and weapons to help protect her. He thought about that thrown-away comment concerning "her patients' friends." There was no doubt that she'd earned a bodyguard of sorts among the half-honest and the fully criminal, and given Alderscroft's attitude, indeed, the attitude of nearly every "British gentleman" toward "her kind," well—he could only grant her mental congratulations.

  But Alderscroft didn't say anything about me helping her, if I can, he suddenly realized, as the cab came to an abrupt halt in traffic. I've no doubt he would have, if it had occurred to him that I'd dare, but he didn't. By God, he didn't, and I'll be damned if I let him have a hint that I'm going to!

  The sudden resolution erased his sour temper, and he almost laughed out loud, which would have probably puzzled the cabby. Oh, Peter, you dog, you were looking for an excuse to see more of the lady anyway, and you know it—

  Oh, yes, he knew himself too well to deny that. He'd walk half across London in a screaming storm just to take tea with her again.

  Well, now he had a reason to see her, a good one, a solid one, a reason that any real gentleman would applaud, if said real gentleman could be persuaded to see past his own pigheaded prejudices.

  Now all I have to do is find a way to broach the subject. All! Now he did laugh, at his own foolishness. "Pardon me, Doctor, but I can't help noticing that you've been using a bit of magic, and I thought I'd offer—offer—"

  Offer what? Good lord, how am I to put this without offending her or making her think I'm a madman and having that heathen warrior of hers throw me out on the street?

  Well, deciding how to put his "offer" to her ought to keep his brain spinning for the rest of the afternoon, at least. And perhaps by the time he'd managed that, he would also be able to figure out how to make it clear—in the most polite of fashions—that teaching her magic wasn't the only thing he had in mind in seeking her company.

  Oh, what fools we mortals be! he thought, alighting at his own shop. What fools, indeed.

  Nevertheless—he happened to have a new stock of incense just in, and a handsome statue of Ganesh, the elephant-headed Indian god reputed to be the remover of all obstacles. So—and only because the customers liked the hint of sandalwood in the air when they came to examine his wares—and only because there was a fine receptacle for such offerings at the foot of the statue—Lord Ganesh's serpentine trunk breathed in the airs of sacrifice that afternoon, while Peter helped ladies with more money than taste select "exotica" for their parlors.

  After all ... sometimes even unfamiliar magic worked, East and West could meet in harmony, and there was never any harm in asking someone for a bit of a favor.

  MAYA paused for a moment beside the statue of elephant-headed Ganesh that stood beside the waterfall in her conservatory pool. The statue had been there from the time the pond and waterfall had been built, and blended into the rocks surrounding it so well that she hardly noticed the handsome little idol was there most of the time. There was a box of incense sticks and another of lucifer matches on a ledge nearby, out of reach of the damp—Gupta was particularly attached to Ganesh, and he often lit incense as an offering here. But this afternoon it was Maya who felt an unaccountable urge to make an offering.

  Oh, well, God's commandment is "Thou shall have no other gods BEFORE Me." That doesn't exclude getting a little help from a lesser power, now, does it? And since I don't happen to have a statue of Saint Jude around to patronize my hopeless cause, I believe the Remover of Obstacles will do.

  With a chuckle at her own mendacity, she lit a lucifer and set flame to the tips of several incense sticks, placing them in the holder beside Gupta's previous offering. Just what obstacles she wanted removed from her path at the moment, she couldn't have stated clearly—just that she would very much like to see more of that charming Peter Scott. . . .

  Just then, the parrot flew down to her shoulder, nibbled her ear, and murmured a clear, "I love you." It was in Hindu, of course, but she was reminded of the custom of the young men of India to teach their parrots seductive phrases before giving the birds to the maidens they were courting. That, in fact, was probably why her mother Surya, always fond of a clever joke, had sometimes called him "Kama"—a word and a god that encompassed every aspect of love.

  "You may love me, my sweet, but it's cupboard love," she told him fondly. Nevertheless, she found one of the little sunflower seeds he craved in the recesses of her skirt pocket, and gave it to him. He took it, and flew off with a chortle.

  Dusting off her hands, she squared her shoulders, and sternly told herself to forget daydreaming about sailors for the rest of the day. She had work to do; this was her afternoon at the Fleet, and, as always, the place would be a bedlam.

  With an eye to more than the weather, she took her umbrella, a stout article that served double duty as a weapon, with its sharpened ferrule and sturdy ribs, twice as strong as any other she'd ever seen. Then, umbrella in her right hand and medical bag in her left, she began the walk to the Fleet Charity Clinic—for there were very few cabs that could ever be persuaded to go where the clinic lay.

  At least, not during the daytime. Neither she nor Amelia had to pass through the hell that was their neighborhood at night, for they had a guardian angel in the form of Tom Larkin. Like so many of the working class, he had little to spare in the form of ready money to cope with an emergency—and like so many, he rightfully distrusted the doctors and the care he'd get at a hospital. Too often, those who entered the charity wards became the subject of either careless mishandling, callous disregard, or reckless experimentation. Sometimes, even all three.

  So after fourteen agonizing hours of labor, when his wife was spent and exhausted and still no closer to giving birth than when labor had begun, he'd had to seek other help. At the urging of the Fleet-trained midwife and frantic with fear, he'd brought his wife to the Fleet, in his own cab. He'd all but killed his poor horse, getting her there.

  Well that he had. By sheerest good luck, both Maya and Amelia were on duty. They'd had no choice but to perform the dangerous Caesarian operation.

  Though why the Caesarian should be considered so dangerous, when ovectomies to "calm hysteria" were considered no great hazard, was beyond Maya's understanding. The death rate was nearly equal for either operation—well over half the patients died. Infection was the gr
eatest killer, with blood loss running a close second.

  But that was without Amelia's carbolic spray, or Maya's own—unique—talents.

  Mother and child lived—and cab driver Tom Larkin had vowed that while he or his new son lived, breathed, and drove a cab, neither Amelia nor Maya would ever have to brave the dark to walk home at the end of a day at the Fleet. He turned up, every night at closing time, to see if either woman was there that day, taking them safely through every possible hazard and escorting them right to their own doorways.

  Which was just as well, all things considered. Too many times, pre-Larkin, Maya had been forced to defend herself with her umbrella and Amelia with a string "miser's purse" that contained, not money, but a lump of lead. It wasn't so much the inhabitants of the neighborhood that were the problem, it was the "visitors," men drunk and looking for a whore, any whore, and knowing that the women of these streets could be had for less than a shilling. They tended to assume that any woman out on the street after dark was a whore, and that the only difference between a woman who rebuffed their offer and one who took it was the small matter of price.

  "Mis'rble day, eh, Miz Maya?" The salute came from the pavement at her feet as she strode past, and she grinned down at the filthy face looking up at her.

  "It would be less miserable if you hadn't a hangover, Bob," she replied, stepping over his sprawling legs, then making a skip to the side to avoid a puddle of liquid best left unidentified.

  He only laughed. He was a day laborer, when he could find work, and when he couldn't, he drank up every cent he made or could borrow. He had no family, claimed he didn't want one, and as Maya knew only too well, was dying of tuberculosis. There was no cure for him, and he knew it, and so did she. Not even her healing talents could save him; she could prolong his life, but he didn't want her to. He had once, in a bout of drunken confession, told her that he hoped one day that his bottle of "blue ruin" would be out of a bad lot that would poison him and kill him quicker. That he wouldn't take his own life but courted an "accident" on a daily basis was a contradiction she never tried to resolve. Instead, on the rare occasions she could coax him into the Fleet, she did what she could to ease his pain and his breathing— and no more. It was her duty to fight death—but not when her patient pursued it, and had good reason to welcome its all-enfolding wings.

  She dodged peddlers and pickpockets, pimps and prostitutes, human refuse and the refuse humans left behind, and was mostly greeted with the same ironic cheer that Bob had used with her. She was respected here, and if not beloved, was certainly welcome. She, unlike other charity doctors, made no demands that her patients "act like good Christians" or be one of the "worthy poor"—whatever that was supposed to mean. She dispensed medicine, sound advice, compassion, and some well-earned tongue-lashings in equal measure, and the people who came to her for help understood and respected that.

  But as she neared the entrance to the clinic, shouts and shrieks of pain sent her from a brisk walk into a run; she picked up her skirts in both hands, the better to lengthen her stride, exposing ankles and even calves to the applause of a couple of drunken louts she didn't recognize. One was cuffed over the side of his head by a fellow with a barrowload of potatoes for sale as she sprinted past.

  "Shoaw sum r'spect, ye buggerin' swine!" said the peddler as another shriek sent her into a full-out run. "That there's a doctor, not 'un'a yer tuppeny whoors!" Yes, it was going to be a busy day at the Fleet. Perhaps she should not have asked Ganesh to remove unspecified obstacles, since it seemed that he had removed the ones between new patients and her!

  Tom brought her home just after ten that night, limp as a rag, yet strangely elated. How could she not be elated? She had saved the hand of a man who would otherwise have lost it, she had delivered three healthy babies in rapid succession, one presented breech that she had somehow managed to turn in the womb before labor was too far along, and one set of twins. All the patients recovering in her ward were doing well. Although the work had come in the door steadily from the moment she arrived to when they closed their doors, for once nothing had gone horribly, or even mildly, wrong. It had been a day full of small triumphs, not disasters.

  Tom descended from his perch up on the driver's box and handed her out with a sober propriety that

  would have had anyone who knew him and his usual truculent manner with a fare gaping in astonishment. "You look done in, Miss Maya," he said, as she smiled at him, grateful for the support of his hand tonight. "You go get some rest."

  "I will, Tom, I promise," she said. But not just now. . . . There were too many things to do first, not the least of which was to check to see if there were any messages or letters for her. Her other clients, the ladies who paid her so very well, tended to make appointments for a given afternoon on the evening before. Unless, of course, there was an emergency, in which case she would find a frantic message waiting for her, or even a messenger waiting to guide her to the emergency.

  There were no messages, but there was a letter, waiting on the tray beside the door. She frowned at it for a moment, not recognizing the handwriting. As she was about to open it, Gupta appeared at the end of the hall. He had such an odd expression on his face that she put the letter back down on the tray. It could wait.

  "Gupta, is there something wrong?" she asked, hurrying toward him, her weariness forgotten.

  "No, mem sahib—" He hesitated. "But I have great need to speak with you. There are things I must tell you; things it is time that you should hear." None of this made any sense to her. "Gupta, it is very late, and I am very tired—" she began.

  But Gupta shook his head stubbornly. "I have seen a thing, and heard a thing, and there is much I must tell you. And tomorrow may be too late."

  That, coupled with his expression, made her shake off her tiredness with an effort. "Then take me where you will, and I will listen," she replied.

  She wasn't particularly surprised when he took her to the conservatory. Incense burned before the statue of Ganesh, and there were many candles burning among the plants. She settled into her usual chair; he sat cross-legged on the floor. She felt a little uncomfortable, looming above his head on her ersatz throne, but there was no way she could join him on a floor cushion, not in her confining Western clothing and corsets.

  She waited for him to speak in his own time. There was no point in trying to hurry him, for he would not be hurried. He didn't force her to wait very long, however, just long enough for him to gather his thoughts and begin, as a storyteller would.

  "There were, on a time, two sisters," he said gravely. "Both were beautiful, both were gifted with more than the common measure of the power to speak and act with the Unseen. The younger, who wept not at all at her birth and had eyes that hinted of hidden things, was named Shivani. The elder, who laughed at her birth and had dancing sparks of happiness in her eyes, they called Surya, the Fire."

  "My mother?" Maya asked, with a feeling that something solid had dropped from beneath her, leaving her dangling in midair. She clutched the arms of her chair and breathed in the incense, a tightness in her chest. "My mother has a sister? But what happened to her?"

  Why was I never told? Why did I never see her? How could she have deserted Mother if she was Mother's twin?

  Gupta nodded. "As sisters should, they loved one another, despite such different natures. Your mother chose to study the powers of the day, her sister studied those of the night, as all expected, and still, despite that they now saw so little of one another, they were as sisters should be. But as time passed, Shivani withdrew into herself, kept her own counsel, and went ever more often to a certain temple and sect of the goddess Kali. At length, she treated Surya as she would a stranger, and your mother gathered about her these seven friends, to ease her loneliness."

  Here Gupta waved his hand around the conservatory, where all seven of Maya's pets, some warring against their own need for slumber, sat watching her, wide-eyed.

  "Still, there was no thought of enmity between
them—until your mother met Sahib Witherspoon, your father." Gupta shook his gray head, with an ironic smile. "He had come to the temple where she served—came humbly, and not as the arrogant sahib of the all-wise English—to ask of the ways of our healing. He would learn, so he said. And he "did learn; I was there, and I saw it all. He learned—and so did your mother. She taught healing, and she learned to love."

  "So did he," Maya whispered softly, knowing how very much her father had loved her mother.

  Gupta's nostrils flared. "Did I say he did not?" he demanded with annoyance. "But he was not my concern. She was my concern; I was her appointed guardian. I cared not what some English sahib felt or thought or did or did not do—not then—not then—"

  He sighed deeply. "I was more than appointed guardian; I was your mother's friend. Never did she treat me as a servant, often did she confide to me her inmost thoughts. So she told me of her love, and of his. Then I feared for her, tried to dissuade her. Yet she would not be moved, and implored my help in convincing her father to allow a marriage." He shook his head. "Impossible, of course. There were hard words, then threats, then Surya was locked away. And it was my hand, my hand, that set her free, to fly to your father and make the marriage of his people." He smiled with great irony. "She did not go dowerless; she took what was hers by right, the gems and jewelry that formed her marriage portion, her seven friends, and her power. But it was for none of these that Sahib Witherspoon welcomed her into his arms and heart— I had seen that he would have her were she the lowest Untouchable. I, too, loved Surya as a daughter and a friend, and that was why it was my hand that turned the key in the lock that night."