Doctor Who_ The Room With No Doors - Kate Orman [24]
He crawled out and pulled on his straw shoes. He didn’t bother with his topknot, just wandered out of the hut, holding his swords.
Joel had kneaded and stroked his shoulders until he’d drifted back to sleep.
He had hoped that he’d already done the Room thing for one night, that, if he had to have another dream, it would be about something else.
But he had found himself back in there, and he’d just huddled in a corner of the Room, forehead on his knees, waiting for morning. Hoping for morning.
He shoved the swords through his sash, awkwardly. He was halfway across the square when he realized that there was a samurai blocking his path.
‘You there,’ said the man. ‘What do you think you’re doing, wearing two swords?’
The man was weathered-looking, maybe in his forties. He had two coal-black eyes and a small moustache and beard. His hand rested on the hilt of his katana.
‘Not again,’ murmured Chris, glancing around. There was no sign of the Doctor. The few villagers he could see were carefully ignoring them.
‘Speak up!’ snapped the samurai. ‘Are you afraid to face me?’
Chris found his mouth twisting up in irritation. He walked forward, but the warrior moved to block his path. ‘You are a coward!’ said the man. ‘Why don’t you draw your sword and defend yourself?’
‘I’ve got no quarrel with you, whoever you are,’ said Chris. ‘Let me past, please.’
‘Or you’ll do what?’
‘Ask you again,’ said Chris.
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The samurai grinned. ‘Wherever you come from,’ he said, ‘you’re made out of iron.’ He clapped an armoured glove on to Chris’s shoulder. ‘I know Japanese samurai who’d have drawn their sword at lesser provocation. But sometimes it takes more strength not to draw your sword.’
Chris’s scowl mutated into a helpless smile. ‘Kuriisu,’ he said, ‘at your service,’ and bowed.
‘I am Kame,’ said the samurai.
While he was bowing, Chris tripped him up. The samurai looked up at him from the dust in astonishment.
They both started to laugh.
Penelope glanced over at the Doctor, who was listening quietly while the headman spoke, his eyes focused on nothing. She was trying to guess his age.
Sonchou-san, the headman, had the largest house in the village. A proper house, made of cedar, not one of the rough thatched huts that did for most of the peasants. The drawing room, where they were sitting – the Doctor had murmured the suggestion that she sit with her legs to one side, instead of painfully trying to kneel – had an alcove with flowers, a wall hanging, and even a bookshelf.
Sonchou’s wife had served them green tea and cakes at the low table. Like those of the other peasants, her clothes were simple linen, but clean and cared for.
Penelope was trying to copy the Doctor, who seemed to know what he was doing, waiting until their host drank before he started on the tea, holding the cup in both hands. He had even brought Sonchou-san a visiting gift, a small bundle wrapped in white paper.
‘The stone is not Kannon herself,’ said the old man. His beard was just beginning to grey. ‘But an image sent by her. It fell into the rice one night.
The earth trembled, and fire leapt into the sky. When we went to see what had happened, the rice around the statue was fully grown, almost a quarter of the field. It was the Bodhisattva’s gift to us.’
Penelope said, ‘Tell him about your leg.’
The old man smiled, inclining his head in a small bow. He was kneeling, but now he unfolded himself, standing and lifting the leg of his trousers with a murmured apology.
There was a wide white scar across his left shin.
‘I was dying when the stone fell,’ he said. ‘I had fallen from my horse. My leg was broken so badly that the bone was protruding from the flesh. I would have bled to death. But when the stone was brought into the village, my wound was miraculously healed.’
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‘That would tend to catch one’s attention,’ said the Doctor. ‘Had the bone been set?’
‘No,’ said the headman. ‘I felt intense pain as it was moved back into place, and further pain as my flesh healed before