Doctor Who_ Byzantium! - Keith Topping [108]
At the entrance to the Greek quarter, finally, their luck ran out. As they rounded a corner, their way was barred by the terrifying sight of one of the Zealots, wild-eyed, his coat soaked in blood. Roman blood.
‘Stand,’ he shouted loudly. ‘Who goes there?’
‘We mean you no harm,’ Barbara pleaded. ‘We have to get off the streets.’
The Zealot laughed, chillingly. ‘Sister, we should be on the streets, putting to death the filthy dogs that rape our land: He removed a knife as smooth and shining as a shark’s tooth and held it glinting in the light. ‘They say unto me, “Yewhe,”
they say. “Go forth into the streets and find those who collaborate with the dogs of Rome. And put them to the blade.”’
‘We are no collaborators,’ Barbara replied. ‘We are in as much danger as you from the Romans. Please, you must let us past.’
‘Must?’ cried Yewhe. ‘Must? I must do only God’s will, sister. And He. through His servant on Earth, Matthew, has commanded me to slay those who do evil in his sight.’
They were trapped. They could not turn around and go back the way that they had come for that would almost certainly lead to them running into one of the Roman patrols that were, even now, meting out justice to most of Yewhe’s kind.
‘Who do you plan to start with?’ Dorcas asked Yewhe, trying to engage the clearly mad individual in conversation.
‘Why, those within the compound,’ he replied.
‘That would be suicide,’ noted Barbara with genuine concern.
‘You’d be killed before you got fifty yards into the place, it’s crawling with Romans.’
‘Then I shall die, as I have lived, magnificently fighting the scourge of my people. Yes, they shall kill me, but before I ascend to heaven, I shall send an indeterminate number of those heathen scum straight to hell. I shall become a martyr to my people and will inspire them to rise up and throw off the yoke of Roman oppression that has choked us for too long.’
Barbara had heard this kind of fanaticism before, and she shook her head. ‘Yewhe,’ she replied, softly. ‘That would be pointless. The Romans will be mostly gone from this land in another fifty years and your killing a few of them, and then getting yourself killed,’ she paused, ‘or, for that matter, threatening a group of terrified little girls like us, will not affect any of this. I have seen the future, Yewhe, and what you seek will come to pass. It will just take time.’
Yewhe thought about this for a moment. ‘Fifty years?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ replied Barbara. ‘Then Thrace shall be free.’
It was a lie, of course, and Barbara crossed her fingers as she said it.
‘Too long,’ replied Yewhe as he advanced on Barbara.
Vicki, Felicia and Dorcas.
He raised his dagger above his head and Vicki choked down a scream as she saw the madness in his eyes.
And then he slumped dead at her feet, Ian Chesterton standing behind him with blood dripping from a Roman gladius and a bemused expression on his face.
‘Perhaps one of you could tell me just exactly what is going on here?’ he asked. He saw the equally dumbfounded looks that Barbara and Vicki returned to him and shook his head. ‘Seemingly not,’ he
continued.
‘How on earth...?’ began Barbara.
‘Long story,’ said Ian. ‘Ridiculously long, if truth be told. I’ll explain everything, but I think it would be wise if we find somewhere safe first. If there is such a place in Byzantium.’
Such a place did exist. It was the Georgiadis house, and they reached it without further incident and found the Greek family about to barricade themselves into their home.
‘So, you are not Vicki’s aunt and uncle then?’ Evangeline asked, curiously, as Barbara sat and tried to recollect her thoughts and explain the adventures that she had experienced since leaving the Greek quarter earlier in the evening.
‘In a manner of speaking, I suppose,’ Barbara told her.
‘We’re all the other has.’
This seemed to satisfy the Greek woman who was busy feeding her tired guests as best she could.
Ian, meanwhile, was still trying to clean the blood from the sword, explaining to Dorcas and Felicia that it was this gift from the praefectus that