Doctor Who_ The Adventures of Henrietta Street - Lawrence Miles [29]
A response would be appreciated at some time prior to December.
Acts of Magic
A city which might have been built for human beings, but with the rooftops collapsing into rubble and the bleak, endless weather wearing down the walls; buildings that once might have looked as fine as those of the Grand Tour cities, of Florence or Venice, faded to grey and reduced to drab, endless ruins; ditches full of bones where there should be canals; a dry, never-ending wind; the scent of animal dung and blood-matted fur on every corner; a hundred thousand idiotic apes, scratching and mating and chewing at each others’ pelts in the debris; bloody, rheumy-eyed baboon-creatures lazily spreading themselves over the streets of bone; the all-pervading sound of grunting and howling, as the residents feed and sweat in the wreckage of a dead civilisation…
This was what lay ahead, according to the Doctor. Juliette is known to have dreamed of it on more than one occasion, as is Rebecca, and Lisa-Beth, and possibly even Scarlette herself. Perhaps the biological rhythms of the House’s women had already started falling in line by April, synchronising their dreams as well as their bodies. Or perhaps the influence of the Doctor had pressed the importance of their mission on them so greatly that they couldn’t help but dream the same dreams.
Or perhaps it was a kind of prophecy. At various times between March and May, the Doctor apparently changed his mind about whether the destroyed city was the fate that would befall the world if the House failed in its task, or simply the place from which the babewyns had come. But what’s inarguable is that the vision disturbed Juliette greatly.
Right from the time when Scarlette obtained the House, Juliette had been given the room at the top and the front of the four-storey House, a cosy boudoir with a large window overlooking the narrow, cobbled byway of Henrietta Street. As the only woman in the House who wasn’t available for hire by the gentlemen of the city, Juliette must have spent many an evening watching the men get out of the hackney cabs outside and nervously stroll up to the front door, wondering whether she’d eventually be asked to take up the same occupation as the other girls (although, as she must have known, she was expected to remain a virgin at least until the marriage ceremony). Dutiful as she might have been, it’s not surprising that Juliette felt anxious and restless. She knew she was to be an important part of something, but she had no immediate role to play and nothing to do but assist the Doctor in his cellar. Did the dreams start to play on her mind?
Thanks to Emily, it’s possible to say that the answer was a definite yes. Because from March onwards, Juliette was performing her own form of ritual in the privacy of her upstairs room. The Doctor was unaware of this, and at least once Scarlette had explicitly warned her not to attempt any kind of ritual without the guidance of the Master or the Mistress of the House. But like Scarlette herself, Juliette was inquisitive, and literate in both English and French. Alchemical texts were her favourite form of reading matter. She consulted several of the works in Scarlette’s office, books in which Scarlette herself had only a passing interest. When she was sure that nobody in the House was likely to disturb her, she’d often sneak materials out of the Doctor’s cellar and perform her own small experiments behind closed doors. Again, it’s important to note that this wasn’t out of any kind of ambition or personal desire. Juliette felt herself to be part of