Chapter SIX
It was all Rory Williams could do to prevent his wife from
diving through the Rift after them. She struggled wildly, screaming at him to
let her go, but he held firm. He had been close enough to hear what the Doctor
said. Massively unstable. He wasn’t going to take a warning like that lightly.
He was not going to risk losing Amy again. Not for the Doctor. Not even for two
Doctors.
‘Rory, let me go!’
‘No! Amy, no! Did you hear what he said? It’s unstable. It
could close at any time—'
‘All the more reason for us to follow them,’ she told him,
twisting in his grasp.
‘If it closes, we’ll be trapped on the other side.’
‘If it closes and we’re not with the Doctor you’ll wish you
were on the other side!’
A moment later, it was a moot point. The portal expanded
with a rush of eyebrow-singing energy then closed in on itself and winked out.
Amy let out a gasp of disbelief, then pounded him soundly on the chest. And
kept pounding. He took the abuse, repeating to himself that the Rift had been
unstable, unsafe, unstable, unsafe… but there was nothing he could do to deter
her anger.
‘Now what are we going to do?’ Amy demanded, her face
flushed from the exertion of running, followed by her effort of fighting with
him. She jabbed a finger over his shoulder, forcing him to look. ‘The Tardis is
out of phase again, both Doctors are gone, and I have a photo shoot in the
morning!’
Rory grimaced. He had forgotten that minor detail...
‘Well, you know,’ he said weakly, offering up his sweetest
smile. The one that usually worked but was not, apparently, working just then.
“Time travel and all that. You know him. He’ll get us back in time. Even if it
takes a while.’
‘Oh yeah?’ she said, pounding him on the solar plexus one
more time before she turned abruptly, flipping her long hair in his face,
hugging herself against the rain that had begun to fall again. ‘What if it
takes him 40 years? I don’t think aging that much overnight is in my contract!’
He coughed hard, thinking better of trying to say anything
else clever to make her feel better. She glared at him one final time before
stalking away.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To take the dog out!’
All in all, he thought, she was taking being marooned on an
alternate Earth remarkably well.
‘Pick up the phone,’ she yelled, just before he lost sight
on her in the woods.
‘The--?’
Jackie Tyler’s pink, bejewelled mobile lay in the dirt where
it had fallen when the Doctors had jumped through the rift. Rory picked it up.
‘It says ‘Rose’ in missed calls. Should we call back?’
The world transformed with a sickening shimmer, and he
emerged on the far side, tumbling arse over elbow onto a road. A very dirty,
very hard road. He had barely time to lift himself up, let along draw a single
breath before the Doctor slammed into his back, knocking him flat on the ground
once more. To think traversing wormholes looked so easy on the telly. When was
the last time he had seen Daniel Jackson crash into Jack O’Neill? The horse and
rider they had followed from Pete’s World were a few metres away, visibly
shaken, but recovering enough to move off with all due speed. With no time to
lose, he retrieved the Doctor’s stylish new hat from where it had fallen in the
mud, plopped it on the Time Lord’s head, and they began their pursuit.
After what seemed like miles at a dead run he could feel
himself tiring. Instead of running side by side like the wind, the Doctor was
now outdistancing him, apparently unaware of his encroaching fatigue. He pushed
on as long as he could, finally shambling to a halt, hands on his knees, head
bent, gasping for breath. The Doctor ran back to him, hopping about manically.
The waterlogged ostrich feathers on the hat hung in ridiculous spikes.
‘Com’ on, com’ on! We’re gaining on him—'
He groaned. They had lost sight of the horse and rider miles
back, made at least one wrong turn which had taken them nearly to London,
before trusted instinct and the pattern of hoof prints on the damp road guided
them back. Rain showers had since obliterated the hoof prints, the entire road
churned into flowing mud. The Doctor’s claim of a horse detection application
on the new sonic screwdriver was absurd. No doubt the hapless pair were leaving
a trail of void stuff in their wake. Where it not for the mud he suspected even
his more-human-than-not olfactory sense would have smelled it.
‘--just… need… a minute,’ he stammered, sucking air into his
lungs. He clutched at his chest. ‘Inferior vascular system, remember?’
The Doctor blinked at this revelation, as if it had already
been forgotten.
‘Riiight. Sorry. Catch your breath.’
Ignoring the sludge, he sat in the middle of what passed for
a road, legs drawn up to his chest. He wrapped his bare arms around his muddy
jeans, resting his head against his knees. The Doctor splashed back and forth
across the road, a curious, bandy-legged gait made all the more comical by dirt
smudged trousers. The Time Lord’s handsome moleskin jacket was mud-splattered
and wet, and the man’s hair hung in crazy tendrils from beneath the sagging
hat. Not that he imagined he looked any better. In his haste, he had left his
long coat behind. It would have afforded him somewhat more protection from the
elements than a T-shirt and he could only guess at what useful items remained
in the pocket—aside from the brolly. . He reached down to touch the road
lightly. Vibration. A moment later he was on his stomach, ignoring the mire,
ear pressed to the muddy ground. He looked up at the Doctor.
‘Fancy a climb?’
The Time Lord snapped shut the sonic screwdriver and whirled
around.
‘Why?’
‘Someone’s coming,’ he said. ‘Correction. A whole lot of
someone’s.’
From their vantage point high in an ancient, sprawling yew,
and with the aid of a pair of high-tech binocs and the vintage spyglass the
Doctor had produced from trans-dimensional coat pockets, they could just make
out what appeared to be two separate military regiments moving up and down the
narrow road that divided a rambling town of
half-timber structures, most of which crouched on the far side of a
rapidly flowing tributary.
Several hundred buildings stretched away from the stone
bridge, shops and homes alike. Modest, but well established, he thought.
Perhaps grown up in support of the nearby abbey which, if he calculated
correctly, was no longer functioning in that capacity. But that’s all it was.
Calculations. It bothered him, not being able to verify the period
instinctually, relying instead on a good, long memory—and logical clues. He’d
been here before. Or near here. And near now. He sensed that, clearly, but… but
that was all. As the Doctor recalled previous adventures in the vicinity, he
listened to the pulse in his ears, focusing on his heartbeat. One heart, whose
only function was to pump blood. It did nothing to keep Time. It did nothing to
key him into the universe at large. And having no concrete sense of where and
when in Time he was made him feel ill.
‘You look… time sick,’ the Doctor said suddenly. ‘Are you
all right?’
No. No he was far from all right. But when had that ever
stopped him?
‘I’m always all right.’
He returned his attention to the town. Whenever it had grown
up in the past, it remained a trade hub of some note to have spawned the
statelier three storey houses to the east, enclosed gardens adorning those not
on the Thames. At least he assumed it was the Thames. To the fore, on the south
side of the river not far from the bridge, a church spire rose against the
bleak, autumn sky. 15th Century by the looks of it, with a rag-stone tower
capped with crenulations. He wondered if it had bells. He rather fancied the
sound of church bells. When the atmosphere was right at the Tyler’s manor house
he could hear them from the old church by the river. By the… river. No. It
couldn’t be. Could it? He shifted his gaze. Closer still, a ribbon of houses
dotted the road, the most prominent
being nearest them. A Lord’s house no doubt, and one that had its own
share of Redcoats busying themselves to make it more defensible.
It was difficult to tell from the milling sea of buff, red
and purple coats and dull metal helmets just which side of the conflict they
represented, but he would have wagered they were Parliamentarian troops
preparing to defend this sprawling village from the Royalists in support of
Charles I. As of yet no flags had been raised, as if whoever it was did not
want to advertise, but the flurry of activity suggested something was afoot.
Fortifications were being erected around the manor house
nearest their roost, earthworks heaped up against what looked like little more
than pig fence. Thorny hedgerows would serve them better. On the bridge and
further along the road to the east, barricades were being assembled from fence
posts and wagons. The inhabitants of this village were digging in for
something. Hundreds of muskets and sword toting men moved amid the buildings
and civilian population, and he had seen at least two small cannons being dragged
into defensive positions within town. All focus was on the road leading to the
west. Somewhere, in this military tangle, lay a precious store of Zeiton 7. Two
sonic screwdrivers confirmed it. But where? Perhaps acting on impulse had not
been the wisest choice.
The Doctor lowered
binoculars and turned to him.
‘Jon, can I call you Jon?’
‘I wish you wouldn’t,’ he said, scanning the bridge with the
spyglass. It was a remarkably sturdy structure, supported by three arches.
Quite a change from the first time he had been in the region, hunting with
Saxon King Edmund.
‘Sorry? Jackie called you Jon.’
‘Jackie calls me all sorts of things.’ He wondered where
this line of questioning was leading and tried not to sound too cross. ‘It’s an
alias. That’s all. To fit in long term, since I didn’t have much choice about
that. But it’s as much me as ‘John Smith’ ever was. Well, less than when I
really was John Smith.’ Having eschewed that mortal life, relinquished that
happy future to embrace his Time Lord nature, he’d found it difficult to think
of himself as John Smith anymore.
‘But it’s so much more than an alias,’ the Doctor told him
earnestly. ‘Really. Jon Noble. Brilliant
name.’
‘It was Rose’s idea.’
‘Like I said. Brilliant.’
He supposed it was. And as apropos a pseudonym as he had
ever had. Jackie had suggested Don Noble, after Donna, thinking herself so
clever. He’d rejected it in a heartbeat. Not that he rejected Donna or that
part of herself that she had unwittingly given him during the meta-crisis that
resulted in his creation. Donna. His Donna. A backlash of Time Lord
consciousness had transformed her into the Doctor-Donna, just as the Ood had
foretold. His last best mate. They were going to travel the stars forever, he
and Donna. Well, as long as she could keep up with him and knowing Donna, that
would have been a very, very long time.
‘You did marry her?’ the Doctor asked suddenly, gripping a
branch to keep from falling to the ploughed field below.
‘What?’ He lowered the spyglass and glanced sideways, now
quite sure he wanted no part of this line of questioning. They had more
important things to do than to talk
about his personal life. Though, truth told, he was surprised it had taken this
long.
‘Rose. You were going
to tell me something back in the greenhouse.’
He raised the glass again and concentrated on the structures
on the far side of the bridge. A pub stood near the church. That was handy he
supposed.
The Doctor was being ever so patient, waiting for him to
answer.
He sighed at last and, without looking at his companion,
said, ‘Now wouldn’t that have been a happy ending.’
‘What can I say? Love a happy ending, me. And fairy tales.
She broke down the walls between worlds to find… you.’
Now he turned, taking in the Doctor‘s new features all over
again, his long, oval face and that square chin! Blimey! Not to mention the
cascade of hair twisting over a bright green eye. Indie rock Time Lord. All
they needed was an electric keyboard.
‘No. Let’s at least get that part straight. She wanted to
find you, well, you from before.’
‘That would be you,’ the Doctor pointed out smugly, raising
the binoculars once again.
He turned away. What was the point in arguing? He couldn’t
even begin to explain what it felt like to be unable to lay claim to his own
identity. To not even own his own name. To walk through life having to make it
all up as he went along. To be exiled. How was that for irony? Perhaps he
didn’t need to explain it at all.
‘I doubt she’d go for this,’ the Doctor told him, sticking
out a prodigious chin before crinkling up the rest of a very youthful face.
‘She wasn’t keen on my changing the first time. Thought I was a Slitheen in a
man suit. As if a Slitheen could squeeze into
your skinny, uhm, skinniness. Blimey. I forgot just how skinny I was.
Don’t you eat? I remember eating all the time. Must have been all the running.
And you can still run!’
‘Professional hazard.’
‘It is that. But Rose… ‘ the words trailed off.
‘Don’t,’ he said at last. ‘Just don’t say anything.’
Green eyes darted everywhere except straight ahead into the
face that had once belonged to him as well. Then a smile edged nervous,
see-sawing lips. A very small, very wistful smile.
‘You know what happens when we change. It’s the same, but it
isn’t the same. New man, same as the old, but not. And Rose… I don’t expect her
to… Not that way. It’s… complicated.’
‘You’re telling me.’
‘Not the half of it.’
He curbed the desire to ask the obvious question, surmised
it had something to do with River Song, the woman who knew his name. The woman
from a future he would never know. Where had they met, anyway? And how was it
she knew his name? What had she told him all those years ago? Spoilers.
He lowered himself down to another branch that he might
survey the surrounding area further. He gazed down the long road, a remnant of
ancient Rome, no doubt, then back at the bridge and coursing river that ran
beneath it. He tucked the spyglass under one arm and breathed on his fingers.
The autumn air grew colder as the day grew longer. He was in need of a coat.
Perhaps a hat. Albeit one less waterlogged than the sad affair sitting atop the
Doctor’s head. He looked back at the bustling town again. A Parliamentary flag
had finally been raised.
‘Assuming this is the London Road, and that is the River
Brent, and that lot,’ he gestured with the spyglass, ‘are Parliamentarians, I‘d
say we‘re in for a Civil War battle. And if they’re building barricades that
quickly today…’
‘They’ll be expecting Prince Rupert’s Horse tomorrow.’
‘That’s bad.’
‘Very, very not good,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘Unless of course
history plays out differently here on Pete’s World—assuming we didn’t also
travel sideways into another universe as well as backwards--or these guys are
just out for some historical cosplay.’
‘You know, Tegan never did forgive us for that,’ he said,
the image of his companion, Tegan Jovanka, dressed as the May Queen coming to
mind.
‘I fear Tegan never forgave us for a lot of things.’
That brought him up short, stirring up memories that he had
no wish to grapple with just then. Too many people had died. Too many were to
die after.
‘And we have yet to mend our ways,’ he said softly. ‘But no.
The English Civil War happened on Pete’s World. Only here--if we are here and
not there--Essex didn’t reach London before Charles did. Things… changed after
that.’
‘And you know I love a history lesson, and I was really
hoping to lay hands on that Zeiton 7 for you, but right now I‘m thinking—'
‘We should leave.’
‘Yes. Yes, we should.’
And they would have, were it not for the group of angry
Roundheads gathered directly under the tree.
Given the choice to climb down of their own accord or be
shot down, they choose the former and descended to the ground, hands raised in
the air. Not a man in the ranks stood above either of their shoulders, but the
pikes made them look taller.
‘Speak the truth. Are ye for King or Parliament?’ asked the
leader.
‘King.’
‘Parliament.’
They looked at one another in shock, hastily reversing their
answers.
‘Parliament.’
‘King.’
‘Yes. Definitely. King/Parliament,’ they chimed together.
‘Damn Cymru dogs,’ one of the soldiers muttered.
That’s when it hit him and he turned suddenly toward the
Doctor. ‘How’s your spoken English?’
‘My what?’ the Doctor asked him with a nervous laugh. ‘I
speak English perfectly, why?’
‘No translation circuit here and you‘ve been speaking
Gallifreyan,’ he said.
‘I most certainly have not,’ the Doctor told him, this time
the nervousness spreading over the Time Lord‘s entire face.
‘You have, too. So, have I. I didn‘t even know I still
remembered how. But I have been---since we got here!’
‘Quit your nattering, you two!’ one of the Roundheads
barked.
‘I told you they’re Cymru dogs. Shifting their speech and
allegiances as the wind changes,’ said the first man.
‘You know,’ he said, still directing most of the
conversation toward the Doctor, ‘he has a point. The Welsh were notorious for
that. Bad day at Edgehill, wasn’t it? Of course, they‘ll come ‘round again.
Uhm, Tomorrow, if memory serves…’
One of the soldiers pressed a pistol into his ribcage. He
swallowed hard.
‘This really isn‘t the time to debate the subject, though.
Too right. Sorry.’
‘Oh, hello,’ the Doctor said suddenly, nodding toward the
young man they‘d encountered earlier outside the orangery. The man they had
pursued back in Time. The poor fellow stood at the rear of the assembly,
obviously trying to master invisibility. ‘It is you, isn’t it? Good to see a
friendly face. Well, a familiar face at least. We weren‘t properly introduced
earlier. I’m called the Doctor. And this is…’
‘Jon Noble,’ he muttered, hating to say it but having little
choice.
‘Yes, right. Doctor Jon Noble. May I just say what a
marvellous hat you have. I’ve quite enjoyed wearing it, but of course here it
is for you. To wear. Again.’ The Doctor leaned toward him. ‘I mentioned it was
marvellous, right?’
‘That you did. Twice. I don‘t think he wants it back.’
‘Mott!’ the soldier in charged barked. ‘You know these men?’
The younger man drew back sharply, clearly ill at ease but
not wanting to elaborate. And rightly so. The poor dear had been transported to
another world. A world as alien and terrifying to someone of this age as any
advanced and hostile civilisation might appear to someone from the world they‘d
come from.
‘Mott?’ he asked, making the connection to Donna‘s
grandfather. Wilfred Mott. Good ole
Wilf! The red hair, the sad eyes, that deer-in-the-headlights expression. ‘Are
you from Chiswick then? Oh, you are, aren’t you? No. You are kidding me. That’s
some strong genetic transference, there.’
The Doctor was equally bemused.
‘Mott!’ the group’s leader barked at the young soldier
again.
‘By all that’s holy, I don’t know them. Only seen them on
the West Road on my way to Braynforde. They—they had a big blue wardrobe in the
forest with a torch on top of it.’
‘A wardrobe!’ scoffed the man who had previously made
disparaging remarks about the Welsh. Snaggle-toothed did the bloke justice. The
large, hairy wart on a pock-marked cheek didn‘t help. The sort of man you
wanted to avoid in any century. ‘In league with that devil, Rupert, I‘d wager.’
‘Don’t be absurd,’ the Doctor retorted, tossing back an
impressive fringe before donning Mott’s hat again. ‘Do I look like a poodle?’
‘Well, if you really want to know,’ be began, wishing he had
a mirror just then.
‘At least I have on a jacket and tie.’
True and true again.
‘Are you here from Colnbrook, then?’ asked one man eagerly.
Several of the others joined in, pressing them for news, asking if they were
envoys of the King.
‘Something like that,’ he replied, thinking quickly for an
angle to play.
Any chance of constitutional compromise had broken down
early in 1642. If it was now fall of the same year, the peace negotiations that
Parliament had entered into with Charles I had gone
awry, no matter which timeline they were to follow. If they
had fallen back through time on Pete’s
World, as they suspected, the consequences for Brentford were even more dire
than on the world Rose and her mum had come from.
‘As you can imagine,
it’s imperative that be on our way to London.’
The Doctor caught on to his ruse and offered up the psychic
paper with what he hoped now contained convincing credentials and not more
Gallifreyan nonsense. They really did need to assess those calculations. In any
case the Doctor didn’t show the leather wallet for long.
‘There, you, see? Doctors Smythe and Noble, due in London
this very day.’
‘You’ll nae get there before nightfall,’ replied one of the
men.
Indeed. The hour was well past what it had been on the other
side of the portal. Hazard of time travel.
A swift riding courier drew their attention.
‘It’s Essex,’ the newcomer told them quickly, breathing
hard. ‘He’s moving toward Acton to regroup with Hampden. They’re calling for
more men. London’s fallen to the Royalists and Prince Rupert Horse moves in
from the west.’
The officer in charge drew a sharp breath.
‘Take these two men to Sir Wynn’s house and put a guard on
them. Lord Brooke can attend to them upon his return. If they’re the King’s
men, they may be all that stands in the way of Braynforde burning to the
ground. And if not, then may God have mercy on their miserable souls.’
There were worse places to be detained than Sir Richard
Wynn’s curing house, he supposed, though the insidious meat hooks from which
hung slabs of bacon and ham hocks were
far from comforting. Nor were the eels. He rather hated eels. Especially since
that incident with the Nemonites during World War II. Barrels of salt stood
along one wall of the small building and a low fire filled the room with
choking smoke. Really, it could have been worse. At least they hadn’t been put
with the bees. Then again, it was November. The bees would be docile. Pigs
then. It was better than being put with the pigs. But only just.
‘A little early to have killed the fatted calf, isn’t it?’
the Doctor asked, poking a sizable ham with an index finger.
‘Imagine feeding that lot. There’ll be scarcely a chicken
left in all of Brentford before long. A lot of local fish in here--aside from
the eels. Someone‘s been to Billingsgate,’ he said, wrinkling his nose. He
swept the room with his sonic screwdriver. ‘Though, I’d wager--if I were a
bettin’ man--that we’ll find something more interesting hidden in those salt
tubs.’
The Doctor wrestled the lid off of one, then quickly slammed
it down again. ‘Just not that one.’
‘What’s this then?’ he asked, pushing the lid off another
and lifting out a bronze shield boss covered in Celtic knot work. ‘Oh, that’s a
pretty thing, isn’t it?’
‘It is indeed,’ the Time Lord agreed, and they both bent
over the open cask to see what else could be found.
‘Quite the spot for antiquities, Brentford. All sorts of
bits and bobs dredged out of the Brent and the Thames, including the rather
famous…’ he pulled out a small bronze fitting and held it up triumphantly,
‘Brentford Horn Cap. Or, should I say, pair of Horn Caps.’
He tossed the second horn cap to the Doctor who gave it a
fair appraisal.
‘Very interesting. Historically, there’s only one, kept in
the British Museum. Love the British Museum. Spent a fortnight in the vault
sorting things they don’t even have names for yet.’
He fiddled with his sonic screwdriver, scanning each of the
ornate chariot pieces in turn. The one in the Doctor’s left hand resonated as
he adjusted the frequency, the excited Zeiton 7 particles in the copper-alloy
producing a faint, unearthly glow as the temperature was elevated.
‘What sort of devilry is this?’
Equally startled, they looked up through the billowing smoke
to see a well-dressed gentleman standing at the open door. If the bloke they’d
managed not to cross swords with earlier looked grumpy, this fellow looked
genuinely cantankerous. Bad combination, superstitious and a bad temper. This
was an age when they burned suspected witches and then determined the fate of
their souls if they were found innocent. Not to mention charging their family
for the wood with which to burn them.
‘It isn’t what you think,’ he said quickly, switching the
sonic screwdriver off. ‘Wait. What do you think?’
‘Sorcery. Alchemy. You’re transforming lead to gold!’
‘Am I? Oh, dear. I suppose that is what it looks like.’
The Doctor shook a finger at him. ‘That was the conclusion
someone else had, that other time when we did that other thing at Camboglanna.
As you may recall it did not turn out particularly well.’
‘That was an accident,’ he pointed out and might have argued
the point further where it not for the six-armed men crowding into an already
crowded smoke house.
‘Who are you? Who sent you here?’
‘Didn’t you get the memo? We’re the Doctors. A better
question would be who are you? Not Lord Brooke. And you’re not Denzil Holles.
Met him in a pub once…’
‘You’ll show respect for Captain Bennet,’ one of the men
barked at them.
‘Bennet? William Bennet? Oh my,’ he said, recalling the list
of the dead after the swiftly approaching battle. ‘I am sorry.’
‘Yes, yes. I was told you were Doctors,’ Bennet told them,
affording them little courtesy. ‘And Doctors we’ll need if Rupert’s Horse
reaches Braynforde before we have reinforcements. But not your kind.’
‘I’m sorry?’ the Doctor asked, laughing nervously. ‘And what
kind might that be?’
‘The kind we hang from trees,’ Bennet growled, turning to
leave. ‘Cattorill, Willoughby, remove the unholy instruments and burn them.
Then put our Doctors someplace more secure until Holles or Brooke return. I
have more pressing things to attend to. Is Lilburne still here…?’
Two of the soldiers advanced on them and he backed away amid
the eels, lowering the sonic screwdriver so as to make it appear less
threatening.
‘You really don’t want to do that because, because—'
‘--because of the wonderful things it does,’ the Doctor
added. They were backed nearly into the rear wall now.
‘Yes. Right. Wonderful. Helpful things. Good, wonderful,
helpful and not-threatening things.’
The soldiers hesitated, obviously uneasy about the orders
they had been given. Couldn’t fault them. Suspected sorcery was a chancy
business. He noticed that the other four were in no hurry to advance on them
either, and instead crowded around the door, discussing the need for a
chaplain.
‘What wonders do you speak of?’ asked one.
‘What wonders. This fine gentleman wants to know what
wonders your, em, tool, can perform…’
‘Wasn’t turning lead to gold impressive enough?’ he asked.
‘Evidently not,’ the Doctor said.
‘All right. All right. It is also used very effectively for
bluffing.’
The Doctor looked at him quizzically. ‘Bluffing?’
‘Yes. Bluffing. You remember bluffing? We’re both very, very
good at bluffing…’
A moment later they were shoulder to shoulder, brandishing
their sonic screwdrivers like comic book ray guns. A short burst of energy
heated the belt buckle of the first Roundhead‘s trousers until it was at a
sufficiently high temperature to be noticed. In a flash, the poor man was more
concerned about catching on fire than keeping a watchful eye on two bizarre
prisoners. The man’s obvious distress caused two others to look away and when
subsequent blasts popped the metal bands on salt barrels, splattering meat and
grease alike, the rest of the men scattered, calling for reinforcements. Smoke
billowed from the curing house, masking their escape.
‘The horn cap!’ he cried, turning back.
‘It isn’t worth it!’ the Doctor shouted at him.
‘It is to me!’ He ducked back into the choking pork-scented
miasma, feeling his way through slippery eels and sausages to the crates.
He scooped up one brass fitting, then the other one,
uncertain which one he needed. A faulty sonic screwdriver did nothing to sort
out his dilemma. Behind him, the Doctor urged him to make haste. Run was the
word used. Twice, in fact. The quickest solution was to take both bronze-age
relics and he did so, pocketing the artefacts as he dodged back out, blinking
smoke from his eyes.
For a third time, and with considerable gusto, the Doctor
shouted ‘Run!’
If only he’d known in which direction. As luck would have it, he went the wrong way.
end of chapter six
