Doctor Who_ The Room With No Doors - Kate Orman [42]
‘Are you saying we should allow one of the daimyo to take her from us?’
‘No,’ said Chris, ‘that can’t be right. . . ’
‘Then what do you believe we should do?’
Chris hesitated. ‘I don’t know, Sonchou-san. I just. . . we have to do something. What do you think?’ Goddess, he sounded like an idiot!
‘I think we should trust in her,’ said the headman. ‘I think we should have faith in her, and not be afraid.’
Chris didn’t know how to answer that. Sonchou-san said softly, ‘For as long as I have been alive, we have been their victims. Our crops have been taken as taxes, our young men as soldiers, our women as spoils of war. This village has been partly destroyed twice, once by fire set by soldiers, once by a pitched battle. Now, at long last, we have something as powerful as the lords and their retainers – more powerful than them.’ He looked Chris deep in the eye.
‘Do not ask us to give it up.’
Chris found himself at the back of the village. He looked up at the fence, putting a hand to it, as though checking it one more time.
Behind him, the village was sleeping. Safely enclosed by its fence, safely watched over by. . . its god. Or something.
Chris sat down, leaning forward until he was looking through the fence into the darkness. He did something he had not done for a very long time.
‘Hello Goddess,’ he whispered. ‘I need help.’
He stopped, looking around, as though suddenly embarrassed that someone might be listening. There was no one there.
He started again. ‘You must have had something in mind when you sent me to travel with the Doctor. You wanted me to be there, in all those different times and places. . . and I’ve been trying to do what you want. Fulfil my Adjudicator’s oath. And be a hero.’
He rested his forehead against a log in the fence, rough, dry wood against his skin. ‘Only I’m not a hero. I guess you know that now. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I thought this was just going to be an adventure. That’s what the Doctor said, but he’s. . . you know what he’s like. There’s always a deeper meaning.’
83
He took a deep breath. ‘I can’t do this. I can’t do this any more. I can’t do it.’
There was no answer. Chris said, ‘Look, Goddess, I know I promised. I promised to enforce justice and uphold fairness and all of it. But I was wrong.
I’m not up to the job. Let me off the hook. Get the Doctor back here where he belongs, looking after everyone. I promise I’ll just get him to drop me off somewhere where I won’t be able to screw things up.’
No answer. Not from inside or outside.
‘OK. I know that’s pretty pathetic. I’m feeling pretty pathetic. OK, I’m not good enough, I found that out in Turkey, and you know it, so what do you want me to do? If anything goes wrong, it’s your fault!’ he hissed into the silence. ‘Not mine! It’s up to you what happens here! Whether there’s Justice or not! You, not me! Do you hear me?’ No answer. ‘Do you hear me?’
But there was no answer, because he was alone.
He got up. In the moonlight, the village looked tiny. He sighed, and started making his way back down to the house.
He turned back for a moment. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘by the way why did Kosen’s pupil call that scribble a masterpiece?’
84
In Penelope’s dream
It was autumn.
She was in a Japanese garden, surrounded by trees and rocks, randomly placed to suggest the wilderness.
She wore her travel clothes, men’s clothes made of strong cloth. Her boots clicked against the stepping stones that formed a snaking path, leading her deeper into the garden.
Penelope hugged herself. Her breath was just visible in the chilly air. She ought not to be here. She ought to be at home, in her workshop, or even by the fire in the kitchen. She did not belong in this different world, different time.
But instead of turning back, she went on, through the sound of singing cicadas, towards the sound of trickling water.
She almost shouted as a great