Doctor Who_ Byzantium! - Keith Topping [79]
Despite the long and tedious hours spent poring over the hundreds of pages of text, the Doctor was in no way bored with his task. On the contrary. he was fascinated.
‘In which way?' asked Rayhab.
`He writes like a novelist,' noted the Doctor. `There is a haste in the narrative. A rapid-moving flow to the words, as though the writer was describing the events from the perspective of someone within the eye of a hurricane. He uses
"immediately" and "at once' an awful lot. His Christ was a man in a hurry, clearly.'
Reuben shrugged. `Mark was there,' he noted. 'In the midst of all of the madness that surrounded the Messiah. He saw these things occur.'
Ì would really have enjoying meeting his Jesus,' said the Doctor in a reflective moment. 'And Mark himself, where did you say he is now?'
`He was last heard of with Peter in Babylon,' said Reuben. `Perhaps he is back in Rome, now.'
Amos stirred the fire and added, Ìt is said that he hides from Zealot death squads who roam the empire attempting to silence him and others like him That is the fate of many of the prophets of Christ's church.'
'Zealotry is a curse,' the Doctor noted sadly. Ìn this or any other age.'
Vicki was trying hard to fit in. Really, she was.
It was an effort at times, having to constantly bite her tongue instead of giving her opinion where it clearly wasn't wanted.
But two or three days of being seen but not heard had an impressive effect. Particularly on Evangeline, who had seemingly taken it upon herself to help Vicki understand the culture of the Greeks better than she had managed so far.
‘Now add the flour,' Evangeline told Vicki as the girl continued to knead the sticky yellow dough that glued itself to her fingers.
`How long do I have to keep doing this?' Vicki asked impatiently. Ìt feels like I'm handling brains. I'm sure I'm doing it all wrong.'
Evangeline shook her head. `No, you are not. You live life in far too much of a hurry, little one,' she said. 'Carry on until you have pushed all of the air out of the dough. You will know when the time is right.’
Well, that explains everything, thought Vicki, but she kept her silence. 'I can't believe you get bread from this,' she said at last. For Vicki, bread was something that either came out of an oven, hot, or out of a food machine in the TARDIS corridor just outside the console room, sort of lukewarm and tasting ever so slightly of almonds. The Doctor was always telling her that he would get it fixed one day...
With difficulty, Vicki cleared thoughts of the Doctor from her mind. All in the past.
All long in the past.
Meanwhile, next door to where Vicki and Evangeline made their bread, the seemingly friendly neighbours of the Georgiadis family, Dorothea and Damien, were at that precise moment entertaining a recently arrived guest.
Ìt had better be worth my while coming all of the way to this place, Greek,' said centurion Crispianus Dolavia, removing the black cloak from his head and shoulders. 'I am a busy man, and my time is money.'
`Have I ever let you down before?' asked Damien quickly.
‘I am the best spy you have, centurion, and you know it.'
`Keep your voice down,' Dorothea shrieked. 'Do you want the whole neighbourhood to know of these matters?'
The Roman soldier gave the couple the kind of look that he normally reserved for something that had just crawled out from under a stone. 'Can you voice your objections a little louder, woman?' he asked Dorothea. ‘For it is my belief that there is a deaf man in Antioch who did not quite hear your shrillness.'
Bitterly, Dorothea turned away from the men and sloped off into a corner to brood on the insult. The centurion considered, briefly, threatening her with a savage whipping for her insolence towards him, but decided that this could prove counter-productive.
'I am still waiting, potter, to know what information you have that was so urgent it could wait no longer before I heard it?'