Doctor Who_ Bunker Soldiers - Martin Day [14]
‘Even if the Doctor doesn’t approve?’
I walked over to the window and pulled back the shutters.
The governor’s staterooms had panes of glass, allowing him to look out over the city and its people. In Dodo’s chamber, as in mine, the window was covered with a wooden lattice filled with thin strips of polished horn. The horn felt like plastic, and let in an incredible amount of light, but was not as transparent as glass. Buildings became dark shapes, and the movement of people in the streets was simply a kaleidoscope of blurred colours.
‘It looks fine today,’ I said, avoiding Dodo’s question. ‘A good day for drying grain.’
Dodo nodded. She was helping to oversee the storage of food in preparation for a long siege; by all accounts, she was proving to be an excellent manager and co-ordinator, though the men were still not disposed to take orders from a woman, still less one who hoisted her dress above her knees whenever the sun came out.
There was a polite tap at the door.
‘Yeah?’ answered Dodo gruffly.
It was Lesia, daughter of Yevhen. She had struck an up an almost immediate friendship with Dodo – I think because each recognised something of her own character in the other – and I was glad that they spent a great deal of time together. For Dodo, this was the one bright spark in the whole awful situation.
‘Good-day, Steven, Dodo,’ Lesia said, the formality of her words blunted by her generous smile. I’d noticed, too, how she was at great pains to pronounce my name differently from her father’s (many were not so careful). I got the impression that she and her father did not always see eye to eye, and that the pronunciation of my name was, therefore, a very necessary distinction.
‘Hiya,’ said Dodo. ‘You ready?’
Lesia nodded and they trouped off, arm in arm, giggling like children – followed closely by the guards who had been stationed outside Dodo’s room.
I lingered a while, sitting on the bed. As ever, I ran through my options. Frankly, they were limited, verging on the nonexistent. We couldn’t escape; the Doctor refused to back down; and somewhere, distant but drawing close, the Mongol hordes were moving implacably towards us.
We had tried losing our guards, but they weren’t stupid enough to fall for any of our ruses. I’d been taught a harsh lesson in patronising ‘primitive’ people. In any event, the walls and gates of the city were patrolled by soldiers at all times. A mouse could hardly escape Kiev without alerting them.
We had tried appealing to the governor, but he was resolute and, in any case, we didn’t want to abuse his generosity. Better this life than an awful languishing in some benighted prison cell
– or torture.
I’d even considered cracking the old boy over the head and making off with the TARDIS key – but the point was, only the Doctor could operate the thing. I’m not even sure it would let us in without him.
The only hope I could give myself was that perhaps, just perhaps, the history books were wrong, and the Mongols spared the populace of Kiev – or that we were in control not only of our own destinies, but those of the thousands of innocents around us.
The alternative was too awful to contemplate.
I arrived at the Church of the Virgin some time later. It was a smaller and less grand building than the central Cathedral of St Sophia, resembling a squat castle more than a place of worship.
For this very reason, it had been chosen as the last refuge of the people of Kiev and, day and night, groups of men worked to fortify and strengthen it still further.
Around the base of the church teams of masons worked on huge stone blocks, cutting them to shape with chisels and much cursing. These were then lifted up to their final positions on hoists that were moved by men walking inside, and straining against, enormous wooden wheels. Workers on precarious-looking scaffolding shifted the blocks on to temporary frames of oak.
It was a surprisingly sophisticated operation and, from a distance, it was as if termites were building some great stone edifice. But conditions were poor, and accidents