Doctor Who_ The Myth Makers - Donald Cotton [16]
Odysseus tapped a sandal impatiently. ‘Yes, fling a thunderbolt – or do something to rise to the occasion.’
The Doctor was beginning to run out of steam. ‘But I tell you, the sacrifice can only be performed within the temple.
Didn’t I mention that?’
‘Yes, yes, yes... which temple is now in Troy, and therefore will we give you leave to go there? Just so. Well, I, for one, have heard enough. Perhaps Lord Agamemnon here will still believe... until he reads your war memoirs.’
The game was obviously up, and the Doctor knew it. He looked at the vicious circle of angry, disbelieving faces and he smiled sadly. ‘Yes, quite so. There is no need to labour the point.
I am not Zeus, of course, and this man is my friend. But I ask you to believe that neither of us is a Trojan.’
Brave of him, I thought, but his honesty proved useless.
‘I care not who you are,’ roared Agamemnon. ‘Seize him! It is enough that you have trifled with my credulity, and made me look a fool, in front of my captains.’
‘Oh, don’t say that,’ soothed Odysseus, pouring oil on troubled flames. ‘Rest assured we shall never hold it against you.
A song or two, perhaps, about the fire, telling how Agamemnon dined with Zeus, and begged a Trojan prisoner for advice. But nothing detrimental!’
Agamemnon controlled himself with the difficulty he always experienced. ‘Well – very well, Odysseus, enjoy your little joke. I shall not forget your part in this – you brought them both to camp, remember! Now, finish the business, and be brief. And do not bring their bodies back. Let them rot here, disembowelled and unburied, as a gift to the blow-flies and a warning to their fellows...’
‘Aye, in a very little while, O great commander. But first, Lord of men, since we have two Trojans all alive, may I not question them? Just a formality, of course, unimportant trifles, like their army’s present strength and future plans.’
‘As you wish. Drag what information you can from them, and as painfully as possible. Then report to me – and don’t delay. The sun is up; patrols are out, and, much as I might welcome it myself, we can’t afford to lose you – at the moment!’
‘You are very kind,’ smiled Odysseus, with a mocking bow; and Agamemnon splashed angrily off through the mud, at the head of his sniggering soldiers.
Odysseus watched them go. Then, turning to his two terrified prisoners, he drew his great bronze sword, and wiped it thoughtfully on his sleeve.
They watched the manoeuvre with fascinated horror. He plucked a hair from his beard, and tested it appraisingly on the blade’s edge. It fell in two, without a detectable struggle. They closed their eyes and waited for the end.
‘It’s all right,’ said Odysseus, ‘I was only going to lean on it.’
He did so, folding his tattooed arms on the ornate hilt.
They opened their eyes, wondering if perhaps there was a future to face after all. ‘And now then, mannikins, first of all, tell me who you really are!’
I told you he was different from all the other Greeks, didn’t I? You never knew where you were with Odysseus.
10
The Doctor Draws a Graph
‘But I thought you’d already made up your mind who we are,’
said Steven, after a surprised pause. ‘Trojan spies, I think you said?’
Odysseus laughed, in that sabre-toothed, ceramic-shattering way of his. ‘Aye – and so at first I thought. And so, later, I was content to have that fool, Agamemnon, believe.’
‘Well, I’m glad you’ve revised your opinion,’ said the Doctor. ‘So who do you think we are now?’
‘I do not know. Your costume is not Trojan, and your posturing as Zeus was so absurd, I do not think Trojan wit could sink so low.’
‘I did not posture. How dare you! I merely met Achilles, and...’
‘He thrust the role upon you? This I can believe. That musclebound body-building Narcissus fears his shadow in the sunshine, will not so much as comb his hair until he reads the new day’s auguries. He is so god-fearing that he sees them everywhere – and trembles at ’em all. But I am not Achilles...
No, and you are not a Trojan. So, I ask again, who are you?’