Doctor Who_ The Myth Makers - Donald Cotton [41]
And so Steven crawled through the hatch, and joined the company – looking rather foolish. Well, I suppose we all did: the opening was obvious enough, now it had been pointed out.
‘Only don’t try to start anything,’ warned Troilus, ‘because I’ve got my sword; and I’m just longing for an excuse to use it!’
You could tell he was: he kept easing the thing in and out of its scabbard. Steven hastened to assure him that he deplored violence in any form – especially that one.
Troilus sneered. ‘I suppose that’s why Paris was able to capture you? I thought you looked as if there was something lacking!’
Vicki sprang to Steven’s defence: ‘Look here, Troilus, if you’ve just dropped in to insult my friend, you can jolly well go back where you came from! I can’t think what you’re doing here, anyway. I’m sure I don’t want to see you.’
‘Oh, don’t you? Very well – in that case I’ll just take your food back to the kitchens.’ He picked up a hamper he’d dumped by the door... Our stomachs rumbled as one stomach. He turned in the doorway, and relented. ‘Look, are you quite sure you don’t want some of this? I’ve been to an awful lot of trouble to get it – and the others would be furious, if they knew.’
My heart bled for the boy. Love isn’t easy at the best of times
– and this wasn’t one of them.
‘Oh, please, Troilus,’ said Vicki, ‘I’m sorry if I was rude – but you were being so silly, and all over nothing. Diomede is just my friend, aren’t you, Steven?’
‘I try to be,’ said Steven Diomede, ‘but sometimes you make it very difficult.’
‘She does, doesn’t she?’ agreed Troilus. ‘I’d noticed that.
Well then, everything’s all right. I say, do you mind if I join you?
I haven’t eaten since I got back from patrol.’ And he fell upon the salamanders in aspic like a wolf unfolded.
We hastened to compete. At this rate, there wouldn’t be a lot left.
‘Patrol?’ enquired Vicki, between bites, ‘Surely you’re not mixed up in the fighting, are you? You’re too young!’
‘These days, military service begins as soon as you can wrestle your weight in wild-cats! Which I can,’ he added, unnecessarily. ‘Anyway, I’ll bet I’m older than you are?’
It was agreed, after some discussion, that they were both eighteen next birthday: and the earth-shattering coincidence of this, seemed to take their minds off everything else for the time being. They chattered away to each other like a couple of budgerigars who’ve been at the cuttle-fish a bit. Steven and I looked at each other, and shrugged: youth!
Youth! Quite nauseating!
But at length Steven decided that, although young love might be all very well in its way, it was time to return to the matter in hand.
‘I say, Troilus,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry to interrupt, and all that; but since you two seem to have so much in common, do you think there’s any chance you might persuade your father to let us out of here?’
That put a damper on the proceedings, as I could have told him it would. A cloud passed rapidly across the young prince’s face and settled in the region of his eyebrows.
‘I’m afraid not,’ he sighed, ‘unless Cressida comes up with a brilliant idea for the war-effort. Don’t be misled by those twinkling eyes of his – they’re ice-crystals, those are; as most of us have good reason to know. I suppose you haven’t thought of anything, have you?’
Vicki shook her head, sadly; and I was afraid that under this new-found infatuation of hers, she might be tempted to blow the official secrets act wide open, and tell Troilus what the Doctor was preparing for their entertainment. Love can sometimes play the devil with old loyalties. So I persuaded my mind to race in some last despairing circles and – do you know? it found something, and pounced on it with a glad cry! Of course – there was a way in which Vicki could seem to have helped the Trojans, without putting the Doctor at risk. There was one vital little piece of information, which I had forgotten to pass on to them.
‘Oh, I don’t know, Cressida,’ I mused, ‘I thought that plan of yours for persuading the whole Greek