Doctor Who_ Set Piece - Kate Orman [18]
There was a piece of the puzzle missing. No matter how many times she put the picture together, there was always a piece missing.
Mum came in when she was looking under the bed for the third time. ‘Into bed with you,’ she said. ‘And stay there.’
Little Dorothy lay tucked between the laundry-smelling sheets, listening to the rain on the window, listening to the sounds from downstairs. In Ace’s memories the men’s voices blurred together, blending into the sound of the television, a muttered buzz as comforting as the warm clasp of her bed.
Tiny hands gripping the bedclothes. Listening to her own heartbeat. Convinced that any second the internal sound was going to stop.
Ace slept around the clock twice, her skin peeling off. When she awoke, there was coarse, bitter bread, with tiny bits of stone mixed into the dough, and pale-tasting onions. When she was able to sit up properly, they brought her roast duck and a bowl full of beer that tasted like sandpaper.
She lay in bed, eyes tracing the wall paintings, and listened to the sounds of the household. The servants wandered in and out of her room without taking much notice of her. They were short, shorter than her in most cases. Her rescuer’s nutrition was better, evidently.
In other rooms people spoke in liquid syllables, the words rolling in their throats. Outside, there was the honking of geese, shouts and laughter, the incessant grinding of stone on stone as flour was made from grain.
One night there was a party. Ace lay in the bed, listening, the wicker pressing into her back through the linen. The music was unfamiliar, but the sound of people getting drunk wasn’t. Half-asleep, she half-expected to hear 37
the sound of her mother’s voice rising into an angry whine, and the muffled thumps that might be furniture or fists.
After a week, she stumbled out of the room, wandered into the walled garden, and fell into the pool.
When she surfaced, plucking lily pads out of her sodden hair, the Lord Sedjet was watching her.
He didn’t seem to understand her urgent need for clothing. After all, the servant girls who brought her a shift and tunic went about naked all the time.
He was seated by the pool, tickling a pet monkey under its chin, politely waiting. She tugged on the foreign garments, embarrassed by her embarrass-ment as Sedjet watched her. It wasn’t an unfriendly gaze, not like the rake of restaurant eyes over her body.
The servants brought her a stool and she sat on it awkwardly.
Silence for a bit. Sedjet’s monkey jumped into his lap, yawned pinkly and went to sleep.
‘Is it always this hot?’ she said at last.
‘It is much colder where you come from,’ he replied, formally. The physician who had visited her twice had spoken like that, when he’d said anything, in between feeling her elbows and peering at the whites of her eyes.
‘You want to know all about me,’ she said. ‘My name is Ace. I come from a distant land called Perivale. My friends and I travel from place to place. We were attacked in the desert, and the bandits left me for dead.’
Sedjet took this in, nodding to himself. She’d been rehearsing it, taking it from the servants’ gossip. Desert brigands were apparently a serious problem.
‘I am sorry,’ he said, ‘but we did not find anyone else in the desert. Nor any bodies.’
‘You didn’t find anything, er, unusual?’
‘Only you,’ smiled Lord Sedjet. It was a good smile. She had to admit he rated at least an eight. There were muscles under that skin – not the iron muscle of combat, but the firmness of exercise. He was wealthy, and had a lot of leisure time. He wore nothing but a kilt and jewellery – armlets and collar of semi-precious stones.
A servant brought Ace breakfast, bread and dates. ‘Tell me,’ said Lord Sedjet. ‘Where is the land of Perivale? Is it very cold there?’
‘Yeah,’ said Ace, around her mouthful of food. What year is this? Where the hell are the Doctor and Benny? ‘People from Perivale don’t feel the cold. But this heat!’
‘Why did you leave?’
‘Long story,’ she said. ‘I was bored.’
‘Are you