The Empire of Glass - Andy Lane [12]
Baldassarre's body was twitching like a man in the grip of St Virus's Dance. Foam frothed from his lips and splattered the floor around his contused head. His eyes were starting from their sockets. One hand rose up, clenched as if to grasp something that only he could see, and then he slumped back lifelessly to the floor.
It was all over in a handful of seconds.
Instinct took over, and Galileo was out of the door and halfway down the alley before anybody thought to turn around and look for him.
"Keep going. Only a few moments more," the Doctor encouraged.
"Perhaps those people on the embankment are waiting to meet us." As Steven turned to glance at the approaching fire-lit scene he noticed the way the flames emphasized the cruel smile on the Doctor's face.
There was a sudden jar as the dinghy hit wood, and the Doctor and Vicki were scrambling past him and onto the nearest jetty.
"Don't mention it," he muttered as he levered himself up on paralysed arms. "Glad I could help."
Stone steps led up the side of the embankment to the promenade on top. Even Steven, tired as he was, felt something stir in his chest at the scene that greeted him. The travellers were standing between two stone pillars. Before them, the light from the flaming torches illuminated a square that was halfway between a market and a carnival. Women in long dresses and men in elaborately brocaded costumes paraded between stalls that sold food, clothes, animals, statues and all manner of other objects. The smells of wood smoke, cooked meat, overripe fruit and rotting vegetables made Steven's stomach rumble. The people and the stalls were set against a backdrop of elaborately arched and colonnaded stone buildings, each a masterpiece of architecture jostling with its neighbours for attention. To their left was a small building attached to a tall tower of red brick. Shouts and laughter echoed back and forth between the buildings, the individual words blending together to form a mlange of sound.
"St Mark's Square," the Doctor proclaimed. "Birthplace of my old friend Marco Polo, and the gateway for trade and travel between Europe and the mysterious Orient."
Vicki nudged Steven's arm. "Somebody's seen us," she whispered, pointing towards a knot of men who were approaching them.
"Don't worry," the Doctor said, "I'm sure they mean us no harm."
He stepped forward as the men approached. "I am the Doctor," he proclaimed. "Perhaps you are expecting me."
One of the men stepped forward. He was small but broad-shouldered, and he was bald. His face held a cynical expression.
"By the power invested in me by the Doge of Venice and by the Council of Ten," he growled, "I arrest you as Turkish spies."
"Wait!" the Doctor cried imperiously. He raised one hand in admonition. Behind his back he was making urgent gestures to his companions. "Is this how you treat visitors to this great city? Well, is it? I mean, what's the world coming to when travellers cannot come and go freely, as and when they wish?"
What did those gesticulations mean? Steven wondered. Run?
Hide? Attack the guards? Perhaps the Doctor's earlier companions, Ian and Barbara, would have understood instantly, but Steven hadn't known the Doctor for long enough to be able to interpret him.
The bald guard frowned. "Step forward," he said, "into the light."
The Doctor did as he was instructed, and the frown on the guard's face was replaced by an expression of confusion, and embarrassment.
"Cardinal Bellarmine!" he cried, kneeling on the stone esplanade.
"We didn't... I mean, we weren't... "
The Doctor's face froze for a moment. "Expecting us?" he said finally, smiling. "No, that is perfectly apparent, isn't it? Well, the journey from... the journey went quicker than we had expected.
And this is how you greet us!"
"Who's Cardinal Bellarmine?" Vicki hissed from beside Steven.
"I've got no idea," he whispered. "And I