Doctor Who_ Byzantium! - Keith Topping [70]
`Yes,' she replied with a slight pout. 'That is the way that things work around here.'
Ian laughed. 'Well, not with me, sweetheart. I'm my own man with my own needs. And one of them isn't to end up with my head stuck on a pole for committing indiscretions with you.
Understand?'
For a moment she said nothing, then she allowed her hand to fall away from Ian's shoulder. There was regret in her big brown eyes, but also something else. Something hard and nasty floating beneath the surface.
'You should know that I have many powerful friends both in this city and in Rome itself, Briton. I can make life very difficult for you whereinsoever you may wander.'
Ian had just about had enough. 'I'm sure you can, darlin', and frankly I don't give a damn,' he said as dismissively as he could. 'It's nothing personal, but I'm nobody's toy, I stand alone.’
As Antonia left, a red velvet curtain behind Ian rippled and Gaius Calaphilus stepped out, grinning like a Cheshire cat,
`That was,' he said With a painful slap on Ian's back, ‘ the funniest jape that I have e'er witnessed in all of my life to this date. It is high and proper time that such a deceitful bitch as the lady Antonia were to be given a taste of her own bitter medicine.'
`Does everybody in this city spy on everyone else?' Ian asked, genuinely interested,
'Yes,' replied the general, in all seriousness, 'although this was, in actual fact, a bonus, I was about this place to see Fabulous and I thought it wise that anyone entering be unaware of my presence within the villa, You have made a bad enemy there, Briton, for everything that the m oecha Antonia says is highly true. I would not wish to be her enemy for she has many dangerous friends. But you have made a friend in me. and I admire your bravery I salute you,'
Calaphilus strode towards the door, then stopped and turned to give Ian a parting thought.
'Watch your back. Briton. But if you need anything, then come to me. I shall not fail you as others within this household would.’
EPISODE FOUR
INFAMY, INFAMY,
THEY’VE ALL GOT IT IN FOR ME
And he taught them many things by parables, and said unto them in his doctrine
Mark 4:2
Chapter Twenty-One
Perfume (All on You)
Arise, and take up thy bed,
and go thy way into thine house.
Mark 2:11
The depression that had seized the Doctor in its stranglehold after the discovery that the TARDIS was missing took several days to lift, despite his determination in the face of Hebron's illness not to wallow in the depths of self-pity. The Doctor knew that life could have dealt him a much worse fate; knew that there were worse places to be stranded and alone than first-century Earth in a tropical climate.
But, as ever, the wanderer in him champed at the bit of freedom. His feet itched and he longed to have the ability to travel to far and distant worlds and increase his knowledge of the universe and how it worked. If he had wanted to locate in one place, a mute observer of the passage of time, then he could have stayed on his home planet where time had less meaning and revolved at its own pace.
They had little time for revolutions in the realm of the Lords of Time.
That idea, in itself, had depressed the Doctor enough to flee his roots.
And now, he found himself in a situation of stunning similarity.
Only, this time, he had nowhere to run to.
After a further burst of switching locations, the Christians finally settled for a longer period in a cave close to the peak of one of the Byheomentalah hills. Byzantium, in the distance, still glistened like a jewel, but now the Doctor had to strain his eyes to see the city's details. It was fading, like the passing of a memory, first into a half-remembered dream state and then, finally, into oblivion.
In the cave next to the one in which James and his followers now found themselves, the Doctor was introduced to three earnest young Christian scribes who lived in this most desolate and isolated of places