Doctor Who_ The Romans - Donald Cotton [5]
Must close now, as I think I see the innocent victim approaching down the Assissium Road, and I have to get my dagger drawn, et cetera.
But will let you know how things turn out in my next.
Till then I can only remain,
Your unusual but affectionate son,
Ascaris.
DOCUMENT IV
Second Extract from the Doctor’s Diary Vicki and I set out for Rome this morning with a brisk step and high hearts; for there is nothing, to my mind, more calculated to bring a spring to the leg muscles and a tone to the torso than the prospect of a day or two spent in the exploration of ancient monuments and the deciphering of hieroglyphics; followed, as I hope, by an evening or so in the company of one of the most unscrupulous and blood-soaked tyrants in History!
What an unrivalled cultural opportunity I am providing for the child, as I keep explaining to her. Why this should be necessary I do not know, but I suppose her somewhat subdued manner to be occasioned by the temporary but unavoidable separation from her two refractory friends, Ian and Barbara, of whom she appears to be quite fond.
I must say that the latter have hidden their disappointment at being excluded from the expedition with well-simulated equanimity; but I ant not so easily deceived, and am confident that this relatively brief period of being, as it were, confined to barracks will prove to be a salutary lesson for them. As we left they were breakfasting al fresco in the rose arbour by the ornamental lake, affecting to enjoy some silly syllabub or other, washed down with some rather inferior local wine, and pretended not to notice our departure. No doubt words failed them - a disability from which, mercifully, I have never suffered; and I was still chuckling at my small disciplinary triumph when Vicki and I refreshed ourselves at the roadside with some really delicious crab-apples, ripe as they would ever be, and a bowl or so of only slightly sulphurous pond-water; in which I admit I detected, almost too late, the remains of a somewhat anaemic frog or toad.
Since these raddled remnants first manifested themselves in Vicki’s portion, I was at first inclined to attribute her expression of frozen horror to that circumstance - for she is sometimes over-squeamish in dietary matters - but on following the direction indicated by her quivering forefinger, I observed an upturned and blood-stained human foot protruding from the thorny undergrowth in which we had hitherto been relaxing. Her subsequent scream was, in these circumstances, quite understandable, and I therefore saw fit not to rebuke the girl.
A cautious examination proved the foot to be attached to the leg of an emaciated corpus delicti, detectably done to death by a knife which still protruded from the rib-cage, and probably, I deduced, the victim of some rogue or foot-pad; such as, I now remembered, were a notorious hazard in the Italian hinterland at this time, and I therefore resolved to keep a sharp lookout in the future.
The body was that of an elderly man, whose fine, distinguished, intellectual features somewhat resembled my own: and it was to this coincidence that I at first attributed Vicki’s claim that she recognised him.
‘Nonsense,’ I said, ‘how could you? But if you inspect him closely, you will see that he and I have several points in common, prominent amongst which are the handsome, aristocratic face, and the long sensitive hands. It is this which has misled you.’
She gave me a look which under other circumstances I would have described as impertinent, but no doubt she was still distraite from her discovery, so I overlooked the matter.
‘I tell you, Barbara and I saw him in the market only yesterday,’ she said; ‘and, if you remember, I told you so at the time. It’s the lyre-player who sang that embarrassing song about Lucretia! Very vulgar, it was!’
I agreed that, on second thoughts, the resemblance was not so strong as I had supposed; for I now noticed a lubricious curl defacing the dead lips, which I had hitherto taken to be a symptom of the death-agony. But I was still