Doctor Who_ Battlefield - Marc Platt [27]
Mordred stared for a moment, and then his eyes widened in angry recognition. These were the mocking tones that had plagued his thoughts so often over a thousand years or more. ‘Merlin!’
‘Not again!’ moaned Ace.
‘You were bound!’ accused the prince. ‘My mother sealed you into the ice caves for all eternity.’
The Doctor sneered. ‘I am the master of time. I am not bound so easily.’
‘Master of lies!’
Ancelyn levelled his sword at Mordred’s chest. ‘Beware your tongue, Mordred. Have you so easily forgotten Badon, where he cast down your mother with his mighty arts?’
‘Yes,’ insisted the Doctor fiercely, ‘remember Badon and my mighty arts!’ He was rather enjoying this verbal joust with the undefinable and added, ‘Do you think I would use mere trickery against one as formidable as you?
Now go, before I unleash a terrible...’ he reached to conjure some elemental force from the air, ‘...a terrible something upon you!’
‘Go, Mordred, while you still live,’ warned Ancelyn.
Mordred’s eyes narrowed with hatred. ‘There will be a reckoning, Ancelyn. I promise it. And as for you, mighty wizard Merlin, my mother Morgaine has waited twelve centuries to face you. You will bow down before her this time.’
He turned and led his knights away through the gap.
Ace pressed her hand on the Doctor’s arm. ‘Who was that?’
He sniffed dismissively and watched the knights as they disappeared into the woods. ‘That was Mordred.’ he said knowledgeably. ‘And his mother is Morgaine, a mighty sorceress.’
‘You know these guys then?’ asked Shou Yuing, who had finally emerged from hiding.
The Doctor shook his head. ‘Never seen them before.’
Ancelyn began to gather up his armour. Its last duty had been to shield him from the energies of the firecone’s explosion and break his fall. Then it was dead and its visor cracked across. He could no longer leap from Avallion back to the world. It had been his armour since his knighting, embossed with the emblems of fights and favours he had won. He stacked its cold, chitinous sections with fond care, remembering the origin of each scratch and chink. But he was no longer alone. Where Merlin was, so would Arthur be.
‘Winifred. A word,’ said the Doctor, ‘and in comfort please. I suspect it’s my round again.’ He was out of the brewery and heading back to the hotel before Bambera could argue.
‘Come on, Sir Galahad,’ said Ace.
Ancelyn fixed her with a grave smile. ‘Not so, damosel.
Sir Galahad of blessed memory was the grandest great-grandfather of my great-grandfather’s great great grand-uncle, and a solemn holy knight.’
‘Sorry,’ said Ace. Families were other people’s problem
— a fact she repeated to herself with worrying regularity.
Ancelyn slapped her merrily on the back. ‘No matter.
My parage is tangled as a briar patch. You need a stick to unpick the thicket.’ He paused, apparently waiting for a response.
Ace glanced at Shou Yuing. ‘I wish he’d let us in on the joke,’ she muttered.
‘I think he just has,’ confessed Shou Yuing. But she grinned because her grandmother had always told such tales of their family’s ancestors. The tales were in Mandarin; in fifty-three years as a British subject, Granny had not learned one word of English.
The young women hurried after the Doctor, leaving Ancelyn and Bambera to follow.
They collided in the door.
‘I want to talk to you,’ said the brigadier.
One corner of the knight’s mouth sidled into a mischievous grin. ‘I am Ancelyn ap Gwalchmai, the Sperhawk. Knight General of the Britons. I do not talk to peasants.’
Frustrations that had been smouldering since the early hours finally ignited. Bambera raised her fist, Ancelyn caught it and they fell through the open door in a tangle on to the muddy path and lawn.
Ace glanced back and saw the fight in progress.
‘Professor!’
There was a cry of pain from one of the grappling protagonists.
‘Don’t worry about them,’ advised the Doctor without even looking. ‘They’re just establishing their credentials.’
‘They’ve got a funny way of doing it.’ Ace stared back at the fracas.