Doctor Who_ Byzantium! - Keith Topping [44]
'The praefectus,’ spat Marcus with disgust, 'has taken issue with the way in which the insurrection was put down.
Politics, gentlemen. The business of compromise. Of weakness in the face of aggression. I should sooner deal with the Zealot leader, one-on-one, face-to-face, with my sword at his throat than trust the ditherings of a transient governor at the eleventh hour of his reign.'
`We shall have Basellas's head on a pike soon enough,'
noted Edius.
Fabius sensed that Marcus might have other plans for Basellas and motioned his young comrade to silence. ‘The plan is not so simple,' he suggested. 'Is this not so, Marcus?'
'All in good and ample time, my fine friends. For are we not Roman? Do we not reveal our hand until it is the one that carries the sword to make the striking blow, and seals our victory in all things?'
Again, there were nods of agreement and echoed shouts of 'Victory'.
`The praefectus and Calaphilus are mutual thorns in our side. And to remove the one without the other will bring neither satisfaction nor the redress that we seek for all of the wrongs that both have done upon us, and our men, and our people.'
What followed was a strange and mesmerising silence, as though the full implications of what Marcus was proposing had failed to penetrate the closed minds of his ambitious but shortsighted colleagues. After a moment of waiting for a reaction, Marcus added a punchline in the hope that this would provoke some sense of what they could achieve.
`We are the knights of Byzantium. And Byzantium shall be ours,' he said with a gesture of solidarity and strength.
That went down very well indeed with his three friends.
EPISODE THREE
WINDOW SHOPPING FOR
A NEW CROWN OF THORNS
Whatsoever thou shalt ask of me,
I will give it unto thee, the half of my kingdom.
Mark 6:23
Chapter Fifteen
Pale Shelter
For it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.
Mark 14:27
It took Vicki approximately a day to become used to the idea that in all probability she would never see Ian, Barbara or the Doctor again. That part of her dilemma, in truth, didn't take a lot of accepting. She was, after all, well used to losing those people close to her. She was grateful that the TARDIS crew had saved her life on Dido from the madman Bennett and his deranged schemes. After that, she swore that she would never trust anyone other than her rescuers again. But circumstances change all the time The concept of Byzantium being her permanent home, with Georgiadis and Evangeline and Iola, took a little more effort for her to become enthusiastic about, however.
Certainly the Greek shopkeeper and his family were nice enough people, and she was genuinely obliged to them for saving her life yet again. But, she reflected, she was now stuck in a time two-and-a-half thousand years before she had even been born. She came from an age of computers, electronics, space travel, interactive learning, virtual reality, chemical stimulation, instant maturity. She was fourteen, going on 108, yet to these people, for whom all of the things of her world that she took for granted were greater and more astonishing than all of the seven wonders of their own put together, she was what she appeared to be to the naked eye: a mere child.
There would be trouble somewhere along the line, Vicki was sure of it.
Iola didn't talk very much. Vicki had to literally drag out the first few conversations that she had with the girl.
`Let's be friends, ‘Vicki said, considering that a young ally in this place, as opposed to adults who merely tolerated her eccentricities, could be really useful. Someone with whom she would share secrets and hopes and aspirations.
Someone whom she could use as a barrier, a protective shield against the outside world. More importantly, someone to keep her right on etiquette, laws and required