Doctor Who_ Lungbarrow - Marc Platt [85]
And you ran down to the orchard to find her, but when you reached the well, there was no one there. Only fruit bobbing on the water and a scent of roses.'
'The rose woman,' said Innocet. 'I hadn't forgotten. I imagined it was an omen for the good of the House. Perhaps I was wrong. I've never known who you really were.'
'I don't believe in omens. Omens are empty thunderclouds with no drop of rain. The portentous sound of people grasping at broken straws.' He reached to support himself on a shelf, and then thought better of it. 'What can I say, Innocet? I don't remember killing Quences, but we've just seen it happen. It was me, the first Doctor. But I never came back here. That poor old man loved me, I think. And he was a bully and a tyrant too. But I could never kill him.'
'Then where were you?' she said.
'I wasn't here,' he replied. 'I was far, far away.'
'Where?'
He rapped his finger on the window pane in frustration. 'I can't remember. Sil y real y.'
Chris looked from one to the other. They were both staring at him. Piercing eyes that sheered away his thoughts and exposed the darkness underneath.
He knew who the woman by the well was. She had sat at the Door to the Past and she had the scent of roses.
129
Chapter Twenty-two
The Quickness of the Hand
Alarms were sounding across the Capitol. Through a window, Innocet could see the sky. She had forgotten its vastness. It frightened her, filled with black storm-laden clouds against which the Citadel rose, a mountain forested by towers, turrets and bridges al lit gold by the evening sun. This was more than her imagination, more than a vision. She was there - her mind was transported to another place and another time.
Suddenly the Doctor was hovering beside her. She made as no resistance he took her hand and turned her to look at the room.
The study was full of old-fashioned books and papers. At a desk sat the first Doctor. His white hair was swept back over his head. He wore a dark-green tunic. Perched on his nose was a pair of multifocal spectacles.
He grimaced sourly and put down the document he was studying. It bore the crest of the House of Lungbarrow -
two silver-leaved trees, their branches reaching over to intertwine.
The Honourable
Quencessetianobayolocaturgrathadeyyilungbarrowmas
422nd Kithriarch to the House of Lungbarrow
expects your attendance on his Deathday
for the reading of his will and during his interment
The word ‘expects’ had been crossed out and ‘demands’ had been scrawled next to it in black ink.
The first Doctor flicked on a plasma screen. It displayed a perfunctory message : Your application for duteous advancement has been considered and rejected. You wil continue in your current duties as Scrutationary Archivist. It was stamped by the Registrar of Continual Observation.
He clasped his hands over his chest, apparently finding much amusement in the situation. 'It's a conspiracy. That much is clear,' he muttered, but his fierce eyes told a different story. 'We'll soon see who'l dance to your tune, eh?'
He was cackling quietly to himself when there was a heavy thump at the door.
He froze. Again, the thump.
Before he could even move, something as big as a coffin slid through the surface of the closed door. A battered, black box floating about waist-high above the carpet.
Astonished, he grasped his cane and approached the object.
It whirred and clicked at him. Little pulses of UV shifted on its surface.
The old Doctor tapped it gingerly with his cane. It whined plaintively like a lost