Doctor Who_ The Room With No Doors - Kate Orman [8]
The TARDIS, was so quiet, now that he was its only passenger. They still dropped in on Benny from time to time, and the Doctor had a millennium’s worth of friends to visit. . . But it was just Chris and the Doctor now. Archery lessons and cookery lessons and long chats about anything and everything.
The Doctor and Chris, adventuring through space and time, stopping here and there to save the universe.
Chris felt his smile fade away, remembering last night’s half-written note.
The Doctor leant against a tree, waiting for his companion to catch him up.
“There’s a monastery at the base of the mountain,’ he said. ‘We should be able to stay, briefly, while we track down the temporal distortion.’
‘Hey, great, maybe I can get some tips on my shooting.’ Chris mimed drawing a bow.
The Doctor scowled. ‘Zen archery isn’t a matter of technique, I’m always telling you. . . ’
‘I know, I was joking. How long do you reckon we’ll be here?’
‘Objectively or subjectively?’
‘Subjectively.’
‘You know,’ said the Doctor, ‘when we get to the monastery, you must talk to the Roshi, the old master, about subjectivity. He’ll tell you one of those marvellous little Zen stories. Once upon a time, two monks called Tanzan and Ekido encountered a young woman in a silk kimono, who couldn’t get across a muddy road. . . ’
Whenever Chris lived through a fifth of September, he just counted it as another birthday. He’d had five in the last two years. He suspected that the Doctor tried to land in September whenever he thought Chris needed cheering up.
The Doctor was still telling his story. ‘Tanzan picked the woman up in his arms and carried her over the muddy road.’
Roz Forrester, of course, had been rather annoyed by all the parties, but she always came along anyway, usually to get brain-stompingly drunk.
‘Ekido was puzzled, but he didn’t say anything until that evening, back at the monastery. “You know monks don’t go near women!” he said. “Why did you do that?”’
18
If Roz was here now, Chris supposed, she would say she was the oldest one out of the three of them. And the Doctor would point out his several centuries of seniority, and Roz would say that she was dead and you can’t get any older.
‘And Tanzan said, “I left the girl there. Are you still carrying her?”’
Chris looked at the Doctor, who was leaning against a tree, gazing down the hill.
There was a real path there, widening at one point to accommodate a small shrine – like the one near the Castle: a rock with a small carving. Someone was standing before it, a figure in a robe and a broad hat that hid his head and shoulders.
‘A travelling monk,’ said the Doctor.
‘Heading for the monastery?’
The Doctor made his way down the steep slope, using tree trunks and limbs for support. Chris followed, carefully. The figure didn’t look up until they reached the road.
It was a short, elderly man, with sharp eyes but a friendly smile. He held a fallen tree branch in one hand, leaning on his improvised walking stick.
‘ Hajimemashite,’ said the Doctor, with a bow. ‘Are you headed for Doa-no-naiheya Monastery?’
The man nodded. ‘Please accompany me,’ he said, ‘and I’ll show you the way.’
The pilgrim didn’t say anything for another half an hour. Despite his age, he walked down the mountain as though he was taking a stroll around a garden.
‘Tell me,’ he said suddenly, startling Chris, ‘tell me about yourself.’
When the Doctor didn’t reply, Chris realized the monk was talking to him.
Here we go, he thought. ‘My family were Dutch. I was brought up by a samurai family after being orphaned in a shipwreck.’
The monk didn’t look around. ‘Now tell me who you really are.’
Chris glanced at the Doctor, who nodded slightly. Chris took a deep breath.
‘Actually I was born about fourteen hundred years from now. I was – I’m an Adjudicator, a sort of policeman.’
The monk nodded. ‘Why did you give up your profession to follow the Doctor?’
‘I didn’t have any choice,’ said Chris.