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Of course, the Doctor said nothing. So Scarlette stood, taking a deep breath, and turned to face those warriors who’d assembled here in the chamber. She opened her mouth, ready to deliver what she must have intended to be her last and most impressive speech. It had to be. It could only have been a mass for the dead and dying.

It’s impossible to guess what Scarlette might have told her audience. Because as things turned out, her jaw froze as soon as it had opened, and her attention strayed to one of the many great archways which ringed this most magnificent (if broken) of chambers. The attention of the others soon followed.

It’s not known how Sabbath entered the palace. The memoirs suggest that he didn’t enter the chamber by the same route as the others, so possibly he’d worked out some path into the heart of the palace which circumvented the gateway, the apes and the flames. He stood there in the high archway, his greatcoat flapping around him in the hot breeze from the entrance, his shaven head lowered so that he faced the chamber like a bull about to charge. Juliette stood at his shoulder, attentive and alert, so neatly turned out in her black dress (and with her long hair scraped back across her head, a tidiness unknown during her stay at the House) that she might have been mistaken for a soldier.

It was the first time Scarlette and Sabbath had come face to face since the horrors of 1780. They regarded each other for a while, it’s said, Scarlette with her head held high and her jaw set firm. According to one source, she actually hissed when she saw him, like a feral animal protecting its territory. It’s possible that the territory in question was the Doctor. As for Juliette… Scarlette refused to even acknowledge her.

Without a word, Sabbath stepped forward. Even the most hardened warriors in the chamber, even elementals like Fitz and Anji, couldn’t help but take a step back. Only Scarlette stood her ground, especially when it became clear that Sabbath was walking towards the Doctor. Yet all he said, when he was a mere three yards away from the prone body, was:

‘I know what’s wrong.’

If he’d said anything else, if he’d greeted her or called her by her name or made any attempt to talk himself into her favour, then things might have been different. But when he spoke those words, Scarlette paused for only ‘the briefest of moments’ before she stood aside. Surely Fitz and Anji must have tensed their muscles, or felt like crying out, when Sabbath moved to stand over the Doctor’s body?

In the silence which followed, Scarlette glanced at Juliette – still standing in the archway – just the once. If anything passed between them, then it isn’t recorded.

And what Sabbath did next isn’t recorded either, at least not accurately. It’s unthinkable that those present might have left the room at this point, with the fire and the apes bearing down on them. So there’s no real explanation for the fact that nobody, not even Scarlette herself, ever wrote of Sabbath’s actions in full. The only account which can be called an account came from Lucien Malpertuis, who’d been one of the last Maroons to enter the chamber.

Lucien had a penchant for exaggeration and metaphysical imagery. What follows is his testimony, but it must not be taken literally. Though it’s unquestionably based on real events, it’s a fairy-tale version of the story, drenched in symbolism. That Sabbath performed some form of operation is clear, but even Sabbath himself wouldn’t have claimed the supernatural powers invested in him by this account. The reader should make his or her own mind up about the true nature of the procedure.

The Man Sabbath stepped to the fore so that his shadow fell across the body of this Doctor… the Doctor was so sick by this time [that] his eyes were black as pitch, and all knew that soon he would be dead. The Man Sabbath had no feeling or sentiment on this. He knelt to one side of the Doctor’s body, without hesitating, and he lifted his arm which we saw was sheathed in a glove of black