Doctor Who_ Set Piece - Kate Orman [62]
slowly chewing on his apple, the Doctor did not even notice the child’s cool stare.
Perhaps, a little while later, he looked up at the vague sensation he was being watched. But the littleboy had gone to its bedroom. There was nothing but a solitary mouse skittering along the floorboards until something went snap.
In the morning, it was Thierry who found the Time Lord curled up under a tree, a mile and a half from the mansion. Dew was forming on his hair and coat. The Frenchman knelt and gently shook the Time Lord’s shoulder.
‘Oh dear,’ said the Doctor. ‘Did I escape again?’
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Chapter 10
Please Do Not Step on the Butterflies
Time goes, you say? Ah no!
Alas, Time stays, we go.
(Austin Dobson, The Paradox of Time)
Pharaoh sat with a bowl of wine in his hand. From time to time he took a sip.
This evening, at this moment, the wine tasted especially good.
A woman was fighting his trio of guards, turning and twisting like a dust devil. She was silent, making no sound when a blow struck, even when the tip of a khopesh cut a long gash in her leg.
Pharaoh had wondered briefly if this was some sort of audition. He’d heard about a foreign woman who fought like a soldier, and who wanted to join his army.
That was before she killed the first guard, ripping his own sword out of his hands and slamming it right through his chest. The hooked point protruded from his back, and he stumbled backward, gurgling, and fell onto a table. A pair of wine jars shattered beneath his body, and redness spread onto the floor around him.
She fought the way a dancer might fight. She ducked and wove, almost too quickly for his eyes to trace her movements. His bodyguards’ bulging muscles and heavy swords were no use in such close, agile combat.
She jammed an elbow into the throat of one of the remaining guards. In the instant he spent being startled by the pain, she had flicked the arch of her foot into his groin, twisted her hips as she slammed her knuckles into his bruised windpipe. He fell, knocking his companion down.
The remaining soldier scrabbled away from the woman, snatching for his fallen sword.
‘Who fails the test,’ said the woman, ‘feeds the Devourer.’
She grabbed the khopesh away from his groping fingers and slashed it through the air, once, twice. The third arc sliced through the guard’s cheek, cutting a second mouth. She had slit his throat with the point before he was even able to scream.
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The battle finished, she straightened, turned to Pharaoh. Her hair was wild and stuck to her forehead and face, her pale skin was flushed. She held her blade like a butcher.
Pharaoh started to laugh.
Bernice lay on a stretcher in Vivant’s tent. He had been watching her around the clock, sleeping beside her on a military cot, bringing her water and changing the dressing on her wound.
She had been sleeping solidly for two days – or was it three? There had been no dreams. Good. There was only the song in the back of her mind.
Come here, come here, come here.
She stirred. Vivant was by her side in moments, laying a wet compress on her forehead. ‘Don’t try to get up,’ he said.
Benny felt around her shoulder. ‘How bad is it?’
‘Not very bad at all,’ he said soothingly. ‘Our surgeon says that the bullet struck at an angle, and did not penetrate deeply. The skin is torn, there was a lot of blood, but it will not be necessary to amputate.’
‘Amputate!’
‘ Une plaisanterie, ’ said Vivant. ‘Just a joke. Do lie still.’
‘My diary!’ she said. ‘Oh no, Vivant, they took it. They killed those poor men. They smashed the wall, they took the sketch I made.’
‘They also killed the bartender – perhaps because he told me where you had gone. Qu’ ils aillent au diable, ces Mahométans!
Benny shook her head, angrily. ‘They’re not Islamic. They’re some sort of Dynastic survival. An underground cult dedicated to the return of Set survived into the twentieth century.’
‘Is that so?’ said Vivant. ‘Perhaps you should have another glass of water.’
‘Er, yes,