Doctor Who_ Battlefield - Marc Platt [46]
Chapter 3
The column of men-at-arms had taken two full minutes to pass along the road.
As their marching faded, Pat Rowlinson raised his head above the level of the hedge. He saw the column making a right wheel into the road that led towards Vortigern’s Lake.
‘What is this?’ asked Francoise Lavel. ‘The village where time stood still?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Pat. ‘I don’t know what’s happening.
I thought you’d tell me that. Who are those people?’
Lavel shrugged. ‘I don’t know either. That’s the trouble with UNIT. The work’s so security-bound, sometimes even we don’t know what we’re working on.’
‘Or can’t tell a civilian,’ he said knowingly. ‘I was in the police force twenty-three years. I know what it’s like.’
She winced with the pain of her leg.
‘We’d better get inside,’ said Pat. ‘I don’t like it out here. After last night, it’s too quiet. I haven’t seen a car this morning.’
‘That’ll be the zone sanitaire,’ she said. ‘The exclusion zone. Has nobody told you?’
‘Nobody’s told us anything.’ He helped her along a path beside the hedgerow until they reached a freshly kreosoted fence. There was a gap halfway along, where it had been brought down by the storm.
‘How much further?’ she asked. She tried not to lean her weight on him, but her leg was painful.
‘Just through here and up to the hotel.’ As he started to help her through the gap, she stared back at the woods, looking for danger.
‘Come on,’ he insisted. ‘I left my wife on her own.’
‘You go ahead. I think I can walk.’
‘I won’t ask if you can look after yourself,’ he said with a glance at her gun. ‘I’ll check the coast is clear.’
He made his way through the garden up to the hotel.
For a moment he paused as he found the back door wide open.
There was a stranger in the house. He wore a full suit of armour and a heavy sword at his belt. His hair was long, dark and unkempt. He leant against the bar amidst the empty pint glasses and stared at Pat with a sneer.
Elizabeth, who was pulling yet another pint, turned her head as she heard someone enter.
‘Pat? Is that you?’ Her voice was choked with terror.
‘Elizabeth.’ He pushed behind the bar and embraced her tightly. She was shaking. ‘It’s all right, I’m here now,’ he whispered gently.
He looked at the saturnine stranger, who leered drunkenly back across the bar at them.
‘Your wife?’ said Mordred.
‘Yes.’
The Prince raised his glass to them. ‘With your aspect, it is well that she is blind.’ He laughed and drained his beer messily. It ran in trickles down his unshaven chin.
‘Get out,’ Pat wanted to say, but the words cloyed in his throat..
‘Speak up, landlord.’ Mordred turned and sat in an armchair ‘Do you not want my custom?’
There were footsteps in the hall. Lavel walked unsteadily into the lounge, her gun drawn. She saw Pat and said, ‘Someone’s coming. There’s a woman in armour...’
She noticed Mordred and froze.
‘What is this?’ said the Prince. His interest was suddenly aroused by the intruder.
Lavel pushed back her hair and levelled the gun at him.
‘So there is light in this grey world,’ he said.
‘Don’t move.’ She faced him awkwardly, trying to put her weight on her good leg.
‘Am I to do nothing?’ he teased. He stayed lounging in the chair, fixing her with his eyes, mocking her, daring her.
‘ Vous pouvez payer l‘addition,’ she said tightly. ‘Pay the bill if you like.’
‘Light and fire!’ He lurched eagerly to his feet. ‘Come drink with me.’
‘I said don’t move!’
She was frightened and that excited him.
‘I could wish for kinder words,’ he said and stepped closer.
Lavel tried to steady the gun, but the fierce concentration of his dark eyes burned and beguiled her.
He reached for her weapon hand.
‘Mordred. Who is this?’
A woman’s imperious voice cut through Lavel’s struggling thoughts. The pilot backed away and turned to cover the newcomer with the gun.
Behind the bar, the Rowlinsons cowered, innocent bystanders in the power play of forgotten beings.
A tall woman in golden armour was watching Lavel.
Her straight red-gold hair was like fine