The Empire of Glass - Andy Lane [109]
"Show off," the Doctor grumbled, and pulled the piece of ribbon that the TARDIS key was attached to from his pocket. As he fumbled it into the lock, he turned and gazed at Steven. There was sympathy in his eyes, and wisdom, and understanding. "Perhaps we should get you a key as well, my boy," he murmured, too soft for Vicki to hear.
"Thanks," Steven said, surprised at the offer. "But... but why now?"
"Because you've grown up."
The Doctor pushed the TARDIS door open and gestured Steven to enter. Steven nodded briefly, then turned to where Vicki was gazing off towards the sketchy lines of Venice on the horizon.
"Come on, slowcoach," he yelled, "or we'll go without you."
"The first thing I'll do when I get in," Vicki said as she trudged across the sand, "is to have one of those wonderful ultrasonic shower things. I've been dreaming about having one all the time I've been here. What about you, Steven?"
Vicki's head blocked his view of the Doctor's eyes for a moment, and when he could see them again the sympathy, the wisdom and the understanding had vanished, and the Doctor was just a senile old man again. Had he ever been anything else?
"I'm going to the TARDIS library," Steven said softly. "There are some plays I want to read." He gazed out to sea, trying to get one final look at the towers and domes of Venice, but the mist had closed in around the island. It was as if Venice had never existed, and Steven's time there had just been a dream.
He shook his head, and walked into the TARDIS. There would be other dreams.
Flambeaux illuminated the wide thoroughfare, and their glare made it difficult to see down the narrow alley that parted from it like a twig from a tree trunk. Sperone Speroni cursed. The lapping of water echoed back and forth between the alley's walls, and he thought that he could hear a man groaning somewhere in the darkness. "Are you sure?" he asked the Nightwatch guard beside him.
The guard was just a youth, and he was sweating with nervousness. "Yes sir," he said, his voice catching in his throat.
"That's where they are all right."
"And one of them is wearing a Cardinal's robes?" Speroni let the scorn in his voice show.
The youngster quailed. "That's what it looked like to me, sir."
"And the other was Galileo Galilei, who was killed by Tomasso Nicolotti yesterday?"
"Yes, sir." The youth's voice was almost a squeak by now.
Speroni rubbed his hand across his bald head. These past few days had been odd to say the least: why should tonight be any different? "Well, let's get this over with," he muttered, and followed the guard down the alley. "I don't know about you, but I'm tired, and I'm cold, and I'm hungry, and I want to go home at some stage tonight."
At the far end of the alley a bridge arced over a small canal. A rat sat on the bridge, washing its whiskers. As Speroni and the guard approached it glanced up and looked them over for a moment before walking slowly in the opposite direction.
"Damn pests." Speroni spat after it. "Damned if I know what's worse; rats or Turks. Well, where are they then?"
The guard pointed to a patch of shadows just before the bridge.
Speroni crouched down and waited until his eyes adjusted properly to the darkness.
Two men were slumped together in the lee of the wall. One of them was undoubtedly Galileo, although Speroni had five witnesses who said that the Paduan had been killed the day before. Dead he wasn't, but he was snoring fit to wake those that were. His face was covered in bruises. The other man looked at first glance like Cardinal Bellarmine, but what would a Cardinal of Rome be doing slumped, blind drunk, in an alley?
"Did you know I used to build ships?" Speroni said suddenly.
"Sorry sir?" the guard said, but Speroni wasn't really listening.
"Fifteen years I spent