Doctor Who_ Byzantium! - Keith Topping [63]
Ìola,' shouted Evangeline.
`Yes, Mother,' said Iola quickly. 'It is all true, every word of it. We were just walking about, by the sea walls. I told Vicki that we should get back home but she said we had plenty of time...’ Iola's voice trailed away and she began to cry.
'Father, you believe me, do you not?'
Oh, excellent, thought Vicki, cynically. Set your parents against each other, why don't you?
Georgiadis clearly wanted nothing to do with this argument and ignored his daughter's plea, going to sit in the corner and stoke the fire instead.
It was then that Evangeline placed a maternal arm around her daughter's shoulder and hugged her tenderly. 'Be not upset, my lamb. I believe you. Set the places for supper.' Iola sniffed, nodded, kissed her mother and scuttled over to the table trying hard not to look at Vicki.
‘As for you,' Evangeline told Vicki, clearly blaming their interloper for coming perilously close to leading her daughter astray with her alien ways, 'after supper, you and I shall speak again about your conduct within this house.'
Òh good,' said Vicki with an innocent smile. Ì'll look forward to that.'
Chapter Nineteen
Some Call It God-Core
And all the city was gathered together at the door.
Mark 1: 33
So long as unwanted visitors like Titus and Phasaei were absent, then life was quiet and peaceful for Barbara in Hieronymous's home. She found time to recover her shattered nerves in the beautiful gardens, and read some of the scrolls in the priest's library. They were mainly obscure Jewish religious texts, but no less interesting for all that.
Barbara had decided that if she was going to be spending the rest of her life in Byzantium, then she wanted to be armed with as much knowledge as to the beliefs of those who lived there as she could.
A further encounter with Titus and Phasaei after the execution of the two Christians had helped to cement her initial impressions of the pair. One was clearly a clever and dangerous man. Titus said little, smiled a lot, and could viciously press home a point or change the subject in the bat of an eyelid without the unwary even being aware that they had just made a mistake.
Phasaei, on the other hand, Barbara continued to twist around her little finger. Even a basic knowledge of the contradictions contained within the Old Testament was all that was needed to destroy any of the arguments that he attempted.
And, what was even more amusing, he didn't even seem to be aware that he was being manipulated and thoroughly set up.
Titus was, though.
After the meeting, once again Hieronymous warned Barbara to be careful when dealing with the men, particularly Titus, but this time he was more encouraging with the way in which she had used chapter and verse against Phasaei's bombast.
In fact, Barbara had the uncomfortable feeling that everything she was doing, from the simplest of household tasks, was impressing Hieronymous more and more.
Too much, in fact.
She had asked Hieronymous if he harboured any desires towards her and the priest had blustered and squirmed his way out of the question with clear embarrassment.
So, she went back to thinking about how it might be nice, for once, not to be spending New Year's Eve alone this year, with a small box of Quality Street and a bottle of Babycham and endless turkey sandwiches.
She had seen nothing of Gabrielle, Hieronymous's daughter since their brief and tense meeting almost a week ago.
So she was quite surprised to hear a female voice drifting up the spiral stone stairwell to her bedroom early one morning.
Cautiously, and not wishing to announce her presence, Barbara crept to the top of the stairs and eavesdropped on the conversation taking place.
'I have been worried about you,' Hieronymous was saying. ‘I was not certain of whereinsoever you were.'
'You made no significant effort to find out,' Gabrielle replied, harshly.
'Not so.’
'I was abiding but five minutes away, Father. At the dwelling of Esther, the widow of Joachim the carpenter. You could have discovered that