Doctor Who_ Set Piece - Kate Orman [67]
After a while she got up off the floor. ‘Oh,’ she said, out loud, ‘I am covered in blood.’
She went for a shower.
The Doctor watched Thierry through one of the second-floor windows. The Frenchman was quietly getting plastered on several bottles of homemade wine. When he was satisfied his host wasn’t going anywhere for the moment, the Doctor left the spare bedroom and went down the stairs.
The door to the cellar wasn’t locked. He knocked, quietly, waited for an answer. Nothing. Carefully, he pushed the door open, and padded down the stairs.
It wasn’t dark; a single tallow candle lit the cellar with ghost-story light.
Low ceiling, not much space. Brick pillars and wooden wine-racks outlined in the pale yellow radiance. Soft light, soft sound: a woman sobbing.
Gently, gently. The Doctor allowed himself to make a little noise, just enough that she’d realize someone else was there without being startled. She stifled her crying, looking around her in the dimness.
‘It’s alright,’ he whispered. ‘It’s just me.’
Mme Thierry was sitting up on an improvised bed, just a mattress and sheets stacked against the wall. She was primly dressed, but her hair hung down over her face in limp curls, and her shoulders were slumped in exhaustion. ‘ Que voulez-vous? ’ she murmured.
He came close enough that they could see each others’ faces. The bruises were mostly on her shoulders and arms, where they’d be less likely to show under the bulky nineteenth century clothing. She drew her shawl around herself, but she was staring at his face, and the Doctor realised that she was looking at the purple mark on his left cheek.
He sat down, making no sudden movements, his back to one of the brick pillars.
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ she said, after a while.
‘Why don’t you summon your husband?’
She was too tired even to smile.
‘Do you need medical attention? I’m a doctor.’
128
‘I know that,’ and now she did smile, with irony. Her face was much older than it should have been, and there was a strength in her eyes that flashed in the candlelight. ‘I am not seriously hurt. But I am ashamed.’
The Doctor shook his head. ‘Sometimes you can’t help it. Sometimes, no matter how hard you resist, they can still do things to you.’
‘It is not that. Je réve, ’ she said, in a low voice. ‘I imagine – terrible things.’
His eyes were pulling the explanation from her, but she looked away, became silent again. The Doctor said, ‘Killing your husband?’ A tiny, bird-like nod of the head. ‘Why do you stay?’
‘Because,’ sighed Mme Thierry, ‘he would kill me if I left. He has told me, many times. And even if he did not, where would I go? I would starve, or be blown apart by a shell. There is no sanctuary, he is doing nothing unlawful, nothing wrong.’
But the Doctor was shaking his head from side to side, agitatedly. ‘You should leave, you should go, just go and keep going –’
She stretched out a bony hand, touched him lightly on the wrist. He looked into her eyes. ‘You have been tortured. Haven’t you?’
‘Dozens of times,’ said the Doctor dismissively. ‘Captured hundreds of time, escaped hundreds of times. It’s like saying the same word over and over; it stops meaning anything after a while.’
Mme Thierry nodded, nodded with understanding. ‘Perhaps one day he will hit me until I lose my mind,’ she said grimly. ‘And then all my dreams may come true.’ She raised a finger. ‘You must not drink any of the wine he gives you.’
‘I know that too,’ smiled the Doctor.
Mme Thierry hesitated, then reached under the bed and drew out a strong-box. She pushed it across to him, and he picked the lock with a bit of wire.
The box was full of gold. He pulled out a bracelet that had to have come from Mesopotamia, pieces of eight, a cheap gold watch from the twentieth century. The Ants had plundered history to pay their servant. Given their power, Thierry was thinking very, very small.