Doctor Who_ Camera Obscura - Lloyd Rose [60]
A small, alert part of his mind noted that they travelled for over an hour and at some point crossed the river. The rest of him lay limp as the sacking he was under. He shivered as he slept, and when he decided to wake up, he discovered that he had drawn himself up with his hands beneath his coat for warmth. The cart had stopped. The sacking was whisked aside and the Doctor squinted into a lantern flame. He smiled affably and let Scale help him out of the cart. ‘Nice... you to help...’ he mumbled.
‘Just going to give you a lie down,’ said Scale, pulling him along. It was very dark. The breeze was fresh and the Doctor felt grass brush his ankles. The blurred glow in the distance must be London; they were in the fields that still existed south of the city. The Doctor looked up and traced the Summer Triangle among the many stars. ft was comforting to see something so familiar before he stepped off into the unknown.
‘Watch yourself here,’ said Scale. The circle of lantern light fell on unstable looking, fold-down wooden steps that had once been yellow. These led to a door that still retained most of its bright paint. Scale’s caravan. Scattered around in the dark were other bulky shapes, and the Doctor heard the shifting and snort of horses and smelled a recently put-out fire. This must be where the carnival people, or some of them, camped.
Scale led him up the shaky steps and through the door into the stale-smelling interior. Illuminated, this was cramped and messy. The Doctor saw a bunk with tossed-back, filthy sheets, crammed built-in cabinets, shutters fastened tight over small windows. Scale propped him carefully against the wall and tore the mattress off the bunk, revealing that its support had been a long, battered wooden box. The Doctor eyed this without enthusiasm. He wasn’t crazy about being locked up in any case, but he was particularly averse to being locked up in tiny spaces. He wondered whether, if he slid to the floor in an apparent faint, Scale would settle for just tying him up there and leaving him. Probably not. Scale had heaved the lid open. The inside looked awfully narrow to the Doctor. Narrow as a coffin.
‘A nice little lie down,’ said Scale cheerily, as if to a particularly slow child. The Doctor put on his particularly-slow‐child’s smile and consented to be led to the box, though he balked at actually being pushed into it, insisting on lowering himself in with some vestige of dignity. ‘That’s good,’ said Scale soothingly. ‘Very good.’ He took the Doctor’s wrists and tied them together with a strip of rag. ‘Now, I’ll wager you’d like a nice sleep, wouldn’t you?’ He produced another rag, this one slightly damp. The Doctor smelled laudanum. He turned his head aside, but Scale caught him easily and pulled the cloth over his lace. ‘There,’ he cooed, knotting it in place, ‘that’ll keep you nice and peaceful.’
Not likely, thought the Doctor, and as soon as the lid closed he worked his hands up to his face and jerked the cloth away. The box still stank of laudanum but he’d have to put up with that. As he began freeing his clumsily-tied wrists, he heard a bolt shoot home on the outside of the box, then the mattress and bedcovers being replaced. Not a very sophisticated prison, but an effective one. The Doctor listened to Scale descend the creaky steps, then