Doctor Who_ Battlefield - Marc Platt [54]
‘Bessie!’ he exclaimed in astonished delight.
Ace and Shou Yuing were already staring at the bright yellow, open-top, antique roadster.
The Doctor sauntered around his old car, beaming with pleasure as he checked for rust and scratches.
‘I knew how fond you were of it,’ called the Brigadier,
‘so when you last went off on your... "travels", I had it put in mothballs.’
‘Does it run on petrol or steam?’ teased Ace.
The Doctor climbed into the driving seat and refamiliarized himself with the deceptively veteran controls that he had once souped up so lovingly.
‘For that,’ he said to Ace, ‘you can stay here. Coming, Brigadier?’
‘Oh. Professor!’
‘Too bad, Ace. Besides which, things may get dangerous.’ He held up something stubby and white and pencil shaped. ‘I want you to have this.’
‘It looks like a piece of chalk,’ she said.
‘It is.’ He dabbed her on the nose with it. ‘I got it from the dartboard. It’ll protect you from Morgaine’s sorcery.’
‘A piece of chalk?’
He suddenly looked gravely serious. ‘At the first sign of anything strange, draw a chalk circle. As perfect as you can make it.’
‘What, like in Dennis Wheatley?’
‘I expect so. Then you and Shou Yuing stand inside with Excalibur and the scabbard.’
‘Right, Professor.’
‘Trust me, Ace,’ he said.
‘I do.’
‘Good. And whatever happens, neither of you step outside that circle until I return.’
Shou Yuing barely managed to stifle a grin until she saw that Ace was as serious as the Doctor.
There was a twitter of energy as the Doctor clamped a small device over the hub of the steering wheel. He turned a lever on the top between his fingers. ‘Running up to speed,’ he said. ‘Ready, Brigadier? Just pray we’re not too late.’
The engine whined in an ascending scale. Strapped into the passenger seat, Lethbridge-Stewart tensed himself as if preparing for blast-off.
Ace nudged Shou Yuing. ‘Nought to sixty in twenty minutes!’
‘As fast as that?’ said her friend.
‘Appearances are very deceiving,’ smiled the Doctor.
‘Don’t lose Excalibur and stay in the circle!’
There was an explosion of sound. Bessie vanished behind a cloud of white steam and smoke. Staggering back, Ace caught a flash of yellow from far down the drive.
The Doctor’s hat tumbled out of the smoke and landed at her feet. Where Bessie had stood, there were two burning skid marks in the gravel.
‘Gordon Bennett!’ suggested Ace.
Shou Yuing giggled with amazement. ‘Wicked!’ she said.
Chapter 6
The two men-at-arms moved silently through the woods.
The scent had gone cold. The quarry was lying low. They edged slowly forward fearing an attack.
With a blood-curdling scream Ancelyn ap Gwalchmai, flaxen hair flying, burst from the thicket and fell upon them. He caught and despatched both the soldiers with one whirling slice of his sword.
‘Ancelyn!’ hissed Bambera as she dashed after him.
‘Can’t you do anything quietly? You’ll have Morgaine’s whole army down on us.’
Like hers, his clothes were blackened by smoke and singed by fire. ‘Let them come.’ he cried. ‘Do you not know, I am the best knight in the world!’
Ancelyn’s blood was up for the fight. Hell’s beard, but the warrior maid had spirit too. She had pulled him from the wreck of the car and covered their escape from Morgaine’s troops with her gun. She was a different breed from the wan damosels who simpered in the households at home, embroidering their dainty graph-tapestries or mooning over some idyllic romance.
Yet Ancelyn had seen many a lusty knight sink into a pool of lovesick moping for such pale hearthkeepers.
Lohengrin Cygnblen had fallen to Ilza of Brabann; Arveragus of Bretonesse forsook the field of combat to write poetry all day to the Lady Dorigen of Lyonce; worst of all, Ancelyn’s comrade at arms, the gallant Tristremon, his rival in the lists, was suddenly seen sporting the favours of Ancelyn’s own sister, that auburn-haired glacier Ysoldar.
Ancelyn had seen him lurking spaniel-eyed beneath her oriel at midnight, and caught him picking a nosegay from the hydropothecary