Doctor Who_ The Myth Makers - Donald Cotton [14]
– but there’s not much he can do about it, if he’s hurtling through a tent-flap, like an arrow from a bow. So he let the remark pass for the moment, and presently found himself in the centre of a circle of surprised but interested faces – one of whom, he was glad to notice, was the Doctor. Nevertheless – difficult, the whole thing.
‘And who is it this time?’ asked Agamemnon, reasonably enough. His tea was being constantly interrupted by one air-borne, hand-hurled stranger after another.
Odysseus positively purred with complacent triumph. ‘My prisoner, the god Apollo,’ he announced, smiling. So might Pythagoras have murmured QED, on finding he could balance an equation with the best of them. ‘Achilles, will you not worship him? Fall to your knees? He is, of course, another Trojan spy –
but of such undoubted divinity that he must be spared.’ He was enjoying his little moment. Steven did his best to spoil it for him.
‘I’m not a Trojan,’ he asserted firmly, ‘I did tell you I’m a traveller – well, a sort of traveller – and I lost my way.’
Well, it did get a laugh, but not the sort he wanted, by any means. Sarcastic, it was. They looked as if they’d heard that one before. In danger, he realised, of losing his audience, he appealed to the Doctor. ‘Look here, you seem to have made friends quickly enough. Explain who I am, can’t you?’
‘Ah,’ chirrupped Odysseus, ‘so you do know each other then? In that case no further explanation is necessary. You must certainly be from Olympus and the gods are always welcome. I ask your pardon. Drop in any time.’
‘Well,’ enquired Agamemnon of the Doctor, packing a wealth of menace into the syllable, ‘have you nothing to say?’
Surprisingly, especially to Steven, the Doctor looked puzzled.
‘I have never seen this man before in my life!’ he lied stoutly, with a dismissive wave of his ham-bone, ‘He is, of course, merely trying to trick you.’
Steven, for his part, looked as if he’d aways expected his ears sometimes to deceive him – and now his friends were adopting the same policy.
‘How can you sit there,’ he stammered, ‘and deny –’ Words failed him, and just as well too, because Agamemnon had heard quite enough of them to be going on with...
‘Silence,’ he barked, clarifying this position. ‘Take him away, Odysseus. Why must I be troubled with every petty, pestilential prisoner? First cut out his tongue for insolence, then make an end!’
But Odysseus was after bigger game. ‘Softly now. Suppose we are mistaken, and the man is just an innocent traveller, as he told us? I could never sleep easily again, were I to kill him while any doubt remained. Remorse would gnaw at my vitals – and I wouldn’t want that. All-seeing Zeus – this man who presumptiously claimed your friendship... is he a spy or not?’
The Doctor looked bored with the whole subject. ‘I neither know nor care. I must say, it looks very much as if he is.’
‘And shall he be put to death?’
‘I would strongly advise it,’ recommended the Doctor, blandly, ‘it would be very much safer, on the whole. Can’t be too careful, can you?’
An air of business having been concluded pervaded the meeting. Open season on spies having been declared, Achilles and Odysseus, unanimous for once, drew their swords and advanced on the wretched Steven.
At which point, the Doctor rose imperiously. ‘Stop,’ he commanded not a moment too soon, ‘Have you lost your senses the pair of you?’ The two heroes paused in mid-execution.
‘Ah, now we have it,’ grinned Odysseus, ‘On second thoughts, Zeus decides we should release him to return to Troy!’
‘Do not mock me, Lord Odysseus! What, would you stain the tent of Agamemnon with a Trojan’s blood?’
Personally, I didn’t think one stain more or less would be noticed, but rhetoric must be served, I suppose, and the Doctor warmed to his theme accordingly. ‘I claim this quavering traitor as a sacrifice to Olympus! Bring him therefore to my temple in the plain at sunrise tomorrow, and then I will show you a miracle!’
Here he contrived a covert wink at Steven, who seemed to think it was about time for something