Doctor Who_ Byzantium! - Keith Topping [49]
'Man cannot live by bread alone,' she muttered. But, she reasoned, the famous quotation hadn't mentioned teenage girls specifically. Besides, if there wasn't anything else...
As she picked up the bread, she felt a presence behind her and turned to find Evangeline entering, carrying two water jugs.
Ì thought you'd all run off and left me, said Vicki. ‘Have you been to the well?'
Evangeline ignored the question. 'What do you think you are doing?' she asked, angry at seeing the bread Vicki was holding. She put the pots down beside the door and advanced into the room.
Ì was hungry,' Vicki answered, as if that explained everything.
Ì left you food on the table.'
`Wasn't enough,' Vicki noted.
Evangeline strode across the room and inflicted a neck-snapping back-handed slap across Vicki's face. See, I knew she had the strength to sink ships with those muscles, Vicki thought in the micro-second before the impact knocked her to her knees. This hurt, too, the stone floor grazing the skin.
But she didn't have time to dwell on the pain as Evangeline hauled her roughly to her feet, shook her by the shoulders and slapped her across the other cheek.
Too shocked by the first blow to speak, the second produced a suitably indignant response from the girl. `Cut it out,' said Vicki, her voice raising to a crescendo on the final word. 'What’ve I done to deserve that?'
`Theft,' shouted Evangeline, shaking with anger. 'And insolence when caught in the act. I know not what the customs of your land dictate when a child steals, but in this house, the rules are clear and distinct. The child is disciplined that she shall steal no more. It is the way that Iola was taught and, if you are to live amongst us, then it is the way that you shall be also. Go, and fetch me a stick with which to beat you.'
Vicki blinked back at Evangeline in mute astonishment.
Then she began to giggle at the stupidity of the command, as though the entire episode was some big practical joke. ‘You are not serious?' she asked. Her skeptical reply was answered with yet another flesh-rattling blow to the cheek. Òw,' cried Vicki, shrinking away. 'You have got absolutely no right to impose your outdated ideas of child psychology on me. I'm not your daughter.'
Red-faced with anger, Evangeline grabbed Vicki by the scruff of the neck and shook her with a terrifying strength. ‘You are a stubborn and wilful girl and your lack of respect for your elders is a disgrace,' she snarled. ‘Your family have clearly let you run wild. I intend to cure you of that independent streak.’
This was getting out of hand. Vicki tried a more common-sense approach. 'I thought the Greeks were supposed to be a civilised race,' she argued. 'Where I come from no one would dream of beating a child. It just isn't done,' she stammered.
'Then that explains much about your barbarous and backward nation, and why it is regarded as the most vile and heinous in the whole of the empire,' Evangeline said, releasing Vicki from her grip. `Wait here whilst I find a suitable rod. And not another word or you shall rue the day that your mother bore you.'
'Well, this is just great,' Vicki shouted as Evangeline left her alone. 'Orphaned again, starved, an object of curiosity and subjected to brutality. I am a character from Dickens.'
Woefully, she sat at the table and rested her chin on her fists, feeling very sorry for herself as she waited pensively for Evangeline's return.
The Doctor's two days with the Christians had passed in a blur of constantly changing locations as the small group of thirty or so shuttled about from cave to cave in the foothills just beyond Byzantium's city limits. They needed to move with such regularity to avoid the persecutions of the Romans and the Zealots, he was told.
‘We are vulnerable to attack from all sides,' Daniel advised him as they made their latest hasty evacuation of a cave at Byzantium's outskirts and travelled up a narrow passage to another, more hidden cave, further into the rock. 'The Word terrifies those too blind