Doctor Who_ The Stone Rose - Jacqueline Rayner [8]
* * *
It was dusk by the time they reached the villa, but I here was just enough light left for Rose to see what it was like. She had been expecting something resembling a stately home, but it was more like a farm, even if an incredibly posh one. There were a number of buildings covered with rather ugly stucco decoration surrounding a courtyard with fountains and fish ponds. There were elaborate mosaics and elegant statues. There were fields of crops, an orchard of peaches and almonds bursting with blossom, stables for donkeys and yards for chickens and geese.
‘Not a bad place, this,’ murmured the Doctor, as they went inside.
A short, dumpy woman came running to meet them. She looked as if her natural state was kindness and jollity, but at the moment her face was drawn and anxious. ‘Did you find him?’ she cried, ignoring everyone but Gracilis.
Gracilis shook his head sadly, then introduced the woman as his wife, Marcia, mother of Optatus. ‘But these good people are here to help!’ he told her. ‘This slave –’ he indicated Vanessa – ‘is a prophet of great power. Once she has discovered more of Optatus, she will find him for us.’ He paused for a second. ‘Is there word from Ursus?’
‘He assures me it will still be ready for tomorrow, as promised,’ Marcia answered.
Marcia offered them food, but they had eaten on the way. The light was now fading rapidly and the few oil lamps did not really offer sufficient illumination – it would seem it was the habit to retire early and rise with the sun.
‘Tomorrow I will show you my son,’ Gracilis promised as he summoned slaves to show the Doctor and Rose to guest rooms. ‘I am sure you will prove to be the answer to my prayers.’
But Rose, as she tossed and turned in the unfamiliar – yet thankfully clean – bed, wasn’t sure of that at all.
* * *
The Doctor was already out and about when Rose II made her sleepy way downstairs the next morning. She finally found him in an orchard, sitting beneath a tree as peach blossoms sprinkled his hair like a snow shower.
‘Way to go for the detective work,’ she said.
‘Hercule Poirot could solve any case by just sitting back and thinking,’ he told her.
‘You with a twirly moustache!’ She laughed. ‘Go with the sideburns, that would.’
‘I expect it would make me look even more sophisticated,’ he said haughtily.
Rose grinned. ‘Go on, then. Grow a twirly moustache. I dare you.’
‘Fine!’ he said, gesturing at his upper lip. ‘I’m growing one now. Look!’
She peered closely, pretending to believe him, but collapsed in a gale of laughter after a moment, and the Doctor joined her. ‘Maybe not,’ he said.
‘So, what’s the plan?’ Rose asked after they’d both calmed down.
‘Gracilis is preparing something,’ the Doctor told her. ‘We’re to meet him in half an hour.’
They talked of nothing in particular until a slave came to fetch them. He led them to a grove near the villa’s main entrance. Proud peacocks strode across I he grass and through the neat, ordered flower beds, and water trickled from the mouths of stone nymphs and fauns into a little pond. The only discordant note was struck by a human being; a tall, thick‐set, scowling man, alien in this environment of richness and beauty. He was slumped against the base of a statue – at least Rose assumed it was a statue; it had a sheet draped over it.
Gracilis, Marcia and Vanessa were approaching the grove from a different direction and the unpleasant‐looking man struggled to his feet as he saw them arrive.
‘Ah, Ursus, my dear fellow,’ said Gracilis. ‘I trust all is prepared for the unveiling?’
The man nodded curtly.
‘Excellent!’ Gracilis turned to the Doctor and Rose. Rose noticed that Vanessa pretty much didn’t exist in his eyes, unless he was actually talking about or to her. ‘This is Aulus Valerius Ursus. He’s a local lad but is fast becoming the talk of the Empire! I think I may say with little fear of contradiction that he is one of the greatest sculptors of our day. He rarely undertakes commissions for private citizens, so I was greatly