Doctor Who_ The Myth Makers - Donald Cotton [13]
Agamemnon pondered the logic of this. ‘Yes, I quite see.
But on the other hand, if we don’t kill you, and then you prove to be a spy after all, the same thing might happen, so you must appreciate my dilemma. What do you think Menelaus?’
‘I don’t know,’ quavered the abject latter. ‘I wish I did, but I don’t. Either prospect terrifies me. Can’t we arrive at a compromise?’
‘Kill him just a little, you mean? Typically spineless advice, if I may say so! But for once, I’m afraid you’re probably right!’ He turned to the interested Doctor. ‘Yes, having looked at the thing from all angles, I propose to place you under arrest.’
‘Arrest? How dare you? You’ll be sorry, I promise you that!’
‘Yes, I suppose I may be – but we must risk it. And it will be a very reverent arrest, of course. In fact, if you prefer, I could describe it as a probationary period of cautious worship. So you mustn’t be offended. After all, most gods are, to some extent, the prisoners of their congregations. And meanwhile we shall hope to enjoy the benefits of your experience and advice, whilst you are enjoying our hospitality. How about that?’
The Doctor made the best of it, as usual. He could hardly do otherwise. ‘Very well, that sounds most acceptable,’ he said,
‘even attractive. Thank you.’
‘Excellent! Then do sit down and have a ham-bone.’
And there for the moment the matter rested. Or rather, seemed to.
8
An Execution is Arranged
Because, of course, Odysseus had only seemed to storm off into the middle distance. For he was never a man to let his judgement be clouded by controversy, however boisterous, and he had been much struck by the Doctor’s claiming to be a man alone – and therefore harmless.
He didn’t believe for a moment that the Doctor was harmless, and therefore assumed logically that he was probably not alone, either. And he felt he should have thought of that before – and went scouring the night for the support forces.
It was this sort of reasoning which made him the most dangerous of all the Greek captains; this, and an arrogant independence of spirit which made it difficult at times to diagnose his motives, or to forecast which way he would jump in a crisis.
Well, on this occasion it was Steven he jumped on.
Personally, I was well concealed in a clump of cactus I wasn’t too fond of; but Steven had elected to climb into a small tree, where he looked ridiculously conspicuous against the rising moon, rather like a ’possum back on the old plantation. And the hound-dog had him in no time at all.
Oh, a well set-up fellow Steven may have been, who’d done his share of amateur athletics during training, but he was patently no match for Odysseus who was like nothing you’d meet in the second eleven on a Saturday knock-about. So he was hauled from his perch in very short order and with scant ceremony.
‘So, what have we here?’ said the hero, grinning like a hound-dog that had thought as much. ‘Another god, perhaps?’
You couldn’t blame Steven for not rising to the occasion as he might have done had the circumstances been different – and if he’d known what Odysseus was talking about.
‘I am a traveller,’ he announced, lamely. ‘I had lost my way, and I saw the light.’
Very likely, I must say. He didn’t look as if he’d seen the light. Odysseus snorted, to indicate his opinion of this closely reasoned alibi.
‘Come,’ he said, having concluded the snort, ‘at least you are the god Apollo to walk invisible past sentries?’
Steven attempted injured innocence. ‘What sentries?’ he inquired, ‘I saw no sentries.’
‘Did you not? Well, maybe they are sleeping – and with a knife between their ribs, I’ll wager! Shall we go seek them together? Or would that be a foolish waste of time? Well, the light attracted you, you say? Then little moth, go singe your wings.’
Of course, no twelve stone man likes to be called