Doctor Who_ Halflife - Mark Michalowski [50]
‘Go on then,’ she said, her voice barely a whisper. ‘Maybe I can spare you a little time to get it back.’
Despite Farine’s repeated protestations that she was ‘just behind them’, or that
‘she’ll catch us up in a minute’, Trix wasn’t just behind them, and didn’t catch them up. Only when it was patently clear that they’d lost her did Fitz start to worry. What worried him more, ironically, was the fact that he hadn’t worried much before that. He tried to blame it on his amnesia, but that didn’t make him feel better. Trix had been surprisingly patient and good-natured – for Trix, at any rate – since she’d found him, bathed him and dragged him into the city in search of the Doctor, and to have abandoned her now seemed the height of rudeness. Of course, he could always blame it on Farine, since she seemed to have been lying to him shamelessly about Trix’s whereabouts, but he sensed, beyond the curt, selfish façade, a shadow of fear or anxiety in the girl.
‘Since you’ve managed to shake Trix off so well,’ he said heavily, refusing to give in to her pulling hand, ‘now might be a good time to tell me why you’re so interested in us. And me in particular. I don’t think it’s Mr Ego talking, but Trix isn’t the one you’re interested in, is she?’
‘Please,’ Famine said, a nasty little whine creeping into her voice, like a child sensing the imminent refusal of a long-planned trip to Disneyland. ‘I’ll tell you everything – just not here.’
Fitz looked around: they were in yet another of Saiarossa’s innumerable little squares. At the centre, a waterless fountain squatted sullenly; two old 92
women, their arms folded resolutely, sat against it, swathed in black like extrusions of the shadows around them, and stared, saying nothing. Fitz could hear the sound of revellers, just a few streets away, but that simple distance lent them an unreachable, other-worldly aspect. A cat slunk past the women’s legs, unheeded.
‘No,’ said Fitz. ‘Tell me now, or I’m going straight back to look for Trix.’
He set his hands on his hips, realised how camp it probably made him look, and folded them instead. Until he caught sight of the women clutching their own bosoms, and shoved his hands in his pockets.
Farine’s shoulders fell, a parody of a spoiled and sulky child.
‘All right,’ she said gracelessly. She reached up and pulled the beret away with an almost comic flourish, revealing tightly braided black hair, wrapped up in a fine, silvery coronet, a filigreed circle that looked like half a skull-cap.
She stared at Fitz with a ‘Well?’ look.
‘Well?’ said Fitz obligingly.
‘It’s me,’ she said.
‘Hello you.’
Fitz would have found it hard to believe that her shoulders could have dropped any further, but they did.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Am I supposed to know you?’
Farine paused and screwed up her face unpleasantly.
‘The Imperial Princess,’ she said with a hint of expectation. When nothing was forthcoming from Fitz, she added: ‘Princess Sensimi?’
‘Never heard of her,’ Fitz said.
‘It’s me!’ she said through clenched teeth. ‘Princess Sensimi!’
‘Ah!’ said Fitz in mock realisation. ‘Princess Sensimi!’
She gave a relieved little sigh.
‘Never heard of you,’ said Fitz.
‘What? Where are you people from?’
‘We have only just arrived,’ he reminded her. ‘It’s been a bit hectic.’
‘Well, I’m Princess Sensimi anyway.’
‘A real live princess,’ said Fitz after a moment, trying to inject just the right amount of awe into his voice, hoping that it would mollify her. She seemed to cheer up. ‘Although,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘most of the princesses I meet end up trying to kill me.’
Sensimi’s face suddenly looked shifty and her eyes slipped away from him.
‘You’re not planning on killing me too, are you?’ asked Fitz. ‘Only it doesn’t do much for the reputation of your lot if every one I meet has it in for me.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t try to kill you.’
Fitz flashed a smile at her. He wasn’t convinced.