Doctor Who_ Nightshade - Mark Gatiss [38]
unnerved. Jackson looked at the creaking beams and black
‘Sweet mercy, save us!’ cried Todd, pawing at Jackson’s stonework. They seemed to quiver and distort as though he legs.
were drunk, swooping, blurring and bending out of shape.
‘What is it! What ails thee?’ Jackson laid a kindly hand on The air was charged. Jackson shuddered.
the boy’s shoulder.
A vast tendril of boiling energy began to crackle around Todd looked up fearfully. ‘We are bewitched!’
the battlements like St Elmo’s fire, seeping down the stained Jackson frowned and then turned swiftly to his walls and licking at the edges of the gateway. Every stone in subordinates, ordering them to treat their prisoners with the castle shone with unearthly radiance.
care and kindness. Then he mounted his horse and set off at Jackson lost no time, staggering down the steps and across a gallop for the castle.
the empty hall which was bucking like a ship in a storm. He Within minutes, the skeletal towers loomed above him pounded through the gates, dodging to avoid Ralph Grey’s and he slowed to a gentle trot. The doors were wide open body, and threw himself on to his horse, flogging at it and horribly inviting. His horse snorted and pulled back a madly until he had put half a mile between himself and the little. Jackson glanced down and gasped as he saw Ralph castle.
Grey’s broken body staring up at him, neck lolling to one Light began to rip and twist at the stonework. Jackson cast side.
back glance after glance, urging his horse onwards with Jackson dismounted and stepped over Grey’s body. The stabs of his spurs.
hall before him was silent and dark. He glanced around, trying to pick out shapes from the confusion of black shadows. Up on the battlements, there seemed to be the faintest trace of light, like the dying embers of a fire.
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terrible that not a stone remained come the morning. Certainly there is no trace of Marsham Castle today but the visitor may enjoy a fine view of the ancient battlefield from the hill which remains.
The Doctor closed the second book which the Abbot had given him and frowned deeply.
‘Interesting?’ said Winstanley, still pottering about the shelves.
‘Arresting,’ said the Doctor. ‘Tell me, what’s become of this... hill that the castle stood upon?’ Winstanley ran his hand along a line of gilt-embossed books. ‘Oh, it was just a local beauty spot for years...’
‘Is that all?’
His men and the prisoners were gazing at the castle in Winstanley looked up from the brown pages of a awe.
spineless tome and thrummed his fingers against his side.
Jackson’s horse thundered into view and he thrashed his
‘Well, until they built the radio telescope on it.’
arms about in frustration.
‘Down! Get down! Lest you lose your wits!’
Great pulses of energy seemed to flood across the moor from the castle which blazed like an Armada beacon against the night sky. Jackson threw himself clear of his horse and rolled under the trees, tucking his head under his folded arms. The soldiers followed suit and scurried for shelter, crying out in distress as a tumultuous explosion stunned their senses. Then the sky seemed to split apart as though the sun had disintegrated.
The original castle, which had stood empty for many hundreds of years, was eventually destroyed during the Civil Wars, just after the battle of Marston Moor. The cause of the fire was unknown but contemporary reports speak of a conflagration so 108
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Storey’s natural successor. To his chagrin, the power vacuum had been filled, not only by a stranger, but by a woman. His working relationship with Dr Christine Cooper was always tense but he found himself thriving on the Chapter Five
frisson between them. Before long, the ebullient scientist commanded his respect and loyalty. Now they were together again, in what Hawthorne was sure must be the bleakest corner of England. Nevertheless, it was England.
He had hated Australia. Hated the flies, the heat and the