Doctor Who_ Bunker Soldiers - Martin Day [82]
‘You have my word,’ said the Doctor gravely.
‘I would rather trust a whore’s expression of undying love!’
Isaac spoke up, a rational and calm voice amid the charged atmosphere. ‘But, my lord, if the Doctor has access to compounds that will rid the city –’
‘No,’ said Yevhen, determined ‘Our physicians are working on treatments that will restore the balance of the humours. We must trust them.’
‘This disease is not an imbalance!’ exclaimed the Doctor, furious. ‘It is an infection that enters the body through contaminated food and water.’
‘Your words are meaningless,’ said Yevhen. ‘We do not need your “help”.’
‘Then you sentence us all to death!’ said Nahum, always more headstrong than his father. ‘By disease, or at the hands of the Tartars, it matters not to you!’
‘We have been doomed from the beginning, said Yevhen. ‘Is that not so, Doctor?’
The Doctor said nothing. It was clear that what Yevhen said was true enough.
Yevhen soon swept away on some business or other. The rest of us remained in the great chamber.
‘The disease,’ said Isaac gently. ‘Is it too much to hope... that it might affect the Mongols. . At least to delay their attacks?’ He too had been appalled by what had happened, but his outrage was tempered by a desperate hope that perhaps Dmitri’s plan had worked.
The Doctor shook his head. ‘I doubt very much that the disease will have any impact on the Mongol army,’ he said. He paused for a moment, deep in thought. ‘Though I suppose...
Well, yes, there is a precedent for this.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘Well, a future precedent, if you will.’ He lowered his voice.
‘In 1346 an army serving Janibeg Khan besieges the city of Kaffa. A dreadful pestilence sweeps through the Mongols, killing many of the soldiers. The commander... I forget the fellow’s name now... He orders that the diseased corpses be catapulted over the walls and into the city. He simply waits for the illness to take hold.’ He paused, his voice funereal. ‘It is widely regarded as mankind’s first attempt at biological warfare.’
‘You’re joking!’ I exclaimed without thinking.
‘This is no laughing matter, young man,’ said the Doctor, and I immediately felt foolish. ‘The effects on the besieged citizens of Kaffa was bad enough. Even worse was the long-term impact of the pestilence. Genoese merchants took the disease to the Mediterranean ports of southern Europe, from where it spread through Spain, France, Germany and Britain. Eventually it reached Scandinavia and Greenland.’ He paused again, seemingly mindful of Dodo’s presence. ‘But you do not want to hear of this,’ he said suddenly.
‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘Please, Doctor,’ added Dodo.
‘Very well.’ The Doctor’s eyes were faraway. ‘The ensuing plague was the most awful catastrophe of European history. A third of the population of the entire continent was killed.
Nothing ever perpetrated by Genghis or the other khans compared to this.’
‘The Black Death,’ I said quietly.
The Doctor nodded. ‘Bubonic plague. Little wonder that historians sometimes call this period the Dark Ages.’ He turned to me, angry perhaps at the awfulness of his tale – angry, perhaps, at the impotence he still felt. ‘You both come from a time of such great privilege! You, Dodo... an era when a plane falling from the sky is front page news! You, Steven... a period when illness and premature death has been conquered. My children, it is little wonder that you do not understand. Death is the neighbour of these poor people!’ He indicated Isaac and Nahum, and I wondered what on earth they were making of the Doctor’s prophecies, his tales of futures they could not comprehend. ‘They are as intimate with death as we are with our families, our friends.’ The Doctor turned on me, resuming an argument from days or weeks before – a common trait of his, I had noted. It was as if he played out his life, again and again, behind his eyes, and old events were as fresh as yesterday’s. ‘And you dare to lecture me on involvement in history, on making a stand!’
I did not know what