Doctor Who_ The Stone Rose - Jacqueline Rayner [29]
‘Wouldn’t have said it was, Thermus,’ said Flaccus, standing beside him, holding the dungeon key. ‘I’d have said that was more the way of an ungrateful wretch who doesn’t appreciate all we’ve been doing for him.’
‘What?’ said the Doctor.
‘You must have influential friends, sir,’ continued Thermus, as the key was turned in the lock. ‘We’ve been told it’s all a big mistake and you’re to be set free. I believe Rufus intends to apologise to you personally.’
Gracilis! thought the Doctor. He knew people in Rome, he must have arranged things. He felt a surge of gratitude towards the old man.
‘Right. Well, good. I’ll just have a few words with my friends –’
‘No time for that, sir,’ Flaccus told him. ‘More than our job’s worth to keep a man like you here with all of these criminals.’ Thermus took hold of the Doctor’s arm and escorted him firmly, if rather more respectfully than before, out of the cell.
‘Remember what I said!’ the Doctor called back over his shoulder. ‘Work together!’
* * *
The two guards led him through the dingy corridors. They passed an alcove in which stood a table with several flasks of wine and a few dice on it, obviously the guards’ personal space. There was something else on the table too – a small cloth bag. The Doctor darted over and grabbed it.
‘Mine, I think,’ he said.
Thermus shrugged. The Doctor could tell by feel that they’d taken most of the coins he’d carried in it, but he wasn’t going to start a fight over that. They’d left the sonic screwdriver, that was the main thing – he wondered what on earth they’d made of it.
They weren’t retracing their steps from the night before; the Doctor was being led in a different direction now. The noise from the arena was getting louder and he thought with a pang of guilt about the men he’d just left behind. Despite his encouraging words to them, he knew it was unlikely that any of them would ever see their families again.
‘Who arranged this?’ he asked the guards. ‘Was it Gracilis?’
‘Gracilis?’ said Thermus. ‘Yes, I believe that was the name, wasn’t it, Flaccus?’
‘I think it was indeed,’ said his colleague. ‘He’s been a good friend to you, that Gracilis.’
‘He has,’ said the Doctor.
‘In fact, I think he’s waiting just outside to meet you. Just up here, sir.’ Flaccus indicated a ramp. There was a door at the top.
The three of them walked up the ramp. Thermus opened the door – and, in an unpleasant echo of the night before, the Doctor found himself suddenly shoved through. As the door slammed behind him, he heard gales of laughter coming from the two guards.
Gracilis was ‘not waiting to greet him.
No one was waiting to greet him – unless you counted the tens of thousands of cheering Roman citizens.
The Doctor was inside the arena.
* * *
The arena was huge, bigger than a football pitch. The floor was covered with fine white sand – to soak up the expected blood. Four tiers of seating held shouting Romans, a marble wall topped with a fence protecting the nearest spectators from the events occurring in front of them. The Doctor spotted the satisfied face of Lucius Aelius Rufus in the bottom row of seating.
The Time Lord’s eyes flickered around the arena, searching for something – anything – that he could use to help himself. He could wield a sword with the best of them – but he had no sword. No weapon of any kind. Trees had been fixed in the arena floor and he ran over to one, not that he expected it would provide much protection from whatever he had to face.
There was a scream of delight from the crowd. A trapdoor had slammed open at the edge of the arena, followed by another and another. Slowly, reluctantly, animals were forced through the gaps. Lions, tigers, bears.
‘Oh my!’ said the Doctor, as the trapdoors slammed shut again.
The animals looked skinny and lethargic, half starved. They didn’t want to attack, not yet. But the Doctor knew it wouldn’t be long. There was still a scent of blood in the arena from the earlier mass slaughter, and it would make them look at him in a whole new way in a minute. And