Doctor Who_ Lungbarrow - Marc Platt [70]
'When the planet was cursed and became barren?' said Leela.
'And we've been in post-matricidal trauma ever since. There are plenty more muffins if you want them.'
'Strewth,' said Dorothée. 'The Old Time. I remember the Doctor carrying on about that once. He got real y worked up.' She noticed that the stack of muffins on the dish had been completely polished off, and she had only eaten one.
Romana, who had been watching Leela, continued, 'These days we have the Matrix of course, which pretty well serves the same oracular function. The thing is that Gallifrey moves at a different time speed to the rest of the Universe. That's what sets it apart, but for a long time its metabolism has been running down. In Earth terms, it's like a clock that's losing perhaps a second every hour and it's getting slower all the time.'
'What's that got to do with me?' said Dorothee. 'You stil haven't told me about this Lungbarrow place.'
'Haven't I?' Romana said, her eyes reflecting the clouds and the sky in the deep, deep water. What do you think it is?
102
'It's his House,' said Dorothée without thinking at al . 'On the slopes of Lungbarrow mountain. Mount Lung in the mountains of Southern Gallifrey.'
Yes?
'Yes, I'd forgotten. There are Cousins, because there are no children. They're all born from the Family Loom. Do you all have families like that?'
And?
'Well, it's ...' She faltered, shocked by the next revelation. She put down her tea. 'Jesus, I didn't remember that bit before.'
'It's true,' said Leela. 'That's what K9 and I discovered.'
'But that's crazy. A whole House can't just vanish. There'd be a crater or something.'
'There might wel have been,' said Romana. 'The trouble is that the House of Lungbarrow's last official entry on any record was almost seven hundred years ago. That was the Deathday of the House's Kithriarch, the head of the Family. A guard captain was dispatched to carry out certain official duties, but there's no record of his return, or of any investigation.'
'The captain was a Cousin of Andred's,' said Leela.
'The Castel an?' grinned Dorothée. She had just stopped herself cal ing him Leela's toyboy. 'Are you married then?'
'Like Housekeepers to Houses? No. We are. . . together.'
'In fact, until Leela started to investigate, no one had even noticed that the House was missing.'
'Does he know? I mean, he didn't cause...'
Romana shrugged. 'I sent a message to his TARDIS. Just please come home, really. I thought the ship was less likely to ignore it than the Doctor was. You know what he's like.'
Dorothée picked up her tea and swirled it in the cup. 'Look, I know we're talking about seven hundred years ago, but was he there?'
'No,' said Romana. 'K9 found records that said he'd been disowned and disinherited by that point. Technically and legal y, he had no Family.'
And yet he was always lecturing me about my mother, thought Dorothée. No bloody wonder.
'Besides which, we know that he was in the Capitol at the time,' Romana added.
'And of course, he never answered your message.'
A sudden breeze stirred the willows and the tablecloth. Dorothée shivered. Romana stood and walked to the lake.
'He didn't come to me, no. But I put a let-pass with the message and last night his TARDIS came through the transduction barrier system.'
'Then where is he?' said Leela.
Dorothée rapped the table with a teaspoon. 'Give you one guess. OK, so you want me to go and find him.'
'And the House, please. It's absurd, but I can't be seen to be involved.'
'Romana,' said Leela quietly. She nodded across the water.
103
A man was watching them from the bridge. He was dressed in a black robe.
'It's him,' Leela muttered. 'The one who held me captive. He is a serpent.'
'Ferain,' said Romana. 'How did he get in here?' She pointed over the edge of the idea of the bank. 'Dorothée, please reach