Work Text:
"You mean you actually saw the place where Gordon was murdered?" Watson asks me, eyes going distant with the memory of other just as desperate battlefields.
Yes, I saw it. nearly a decade has past and the place is a sorry sight, neglect, the harsh climate, the battle that raged through it's rooms and corridors all have broken the structure. It spoke to me, still after all these years I could read it as clear as any book even as I stood in the shelter of a corner as the mournful cry echoed from minaret to minaret across the city, it spoke of lost hopes and broken dreams. Of an upright man doing what considered his duty and damn the consequences, a man so much like my dear Watson that it took no effort to see him standing shoulder to shoulder with General Gordon as that last fatal assault came on.
The wind sighed and moaned thought the walls and a soft rain of sand fell through the roof, it was a place devoid of life. The locals claim it to be haunted by the ghosts of those slain there, and many have sworn they have seen the specter of the General in his full dress uniform standing at the head of that fateful staircase. I found it a place of refuge, the long dead hand of a countryman reaching out to shelter me from those who sought my blood just as surely as his enemies had spillt his.
It takes me a moment to recall myself and answer him softly "Yes, it was a sorry sight, a ruin. His blood still upon the staircase."
I sigh and can not bring myself to burden this most loyal and forgiving man with the details of the two days I passed in that lonely and silent place as the hunt for me was pursued throughout the city. Or of the frantic and very nearly fatal chase through the outskirts of Khartoum and into the desert hat followed that strangely peaceful wait. Although at some later point I may regale him further with tales of my travels with the caravan I fell in with, he has a zest for life that would admirable suit him to their company and ways.
Pushing away such memories I try and lighten the mood and bring my narrative to an end. We have work to be about and there will, blessedly, be time for travelers tales later.