Part 1 (1/2)

DOCTOR WHO.

THE Ma.s.sACRE.

by John Lucarotti.

Prologue.

The Doctor sat in the garden which always reminded him of the Garden of Peace when Steven, no, not Steven, his granddaughter, Susan, and that nice young couple, Barbara and Ian, had their adventure with the Aztec Indians aeons ago. But his reminiscences were elsewhere as he browsed through a copy of Samuel Pepys's famous diary of a Londoner's life in the second half of the seventeenth century. He chuckled at a succinct observation and laid the open book down beside him on the bench.

He looked around contentedly. His journeys through time and s.p.a.ce in the TARDIS had come to a temporary halt. His differences, as he chose to refer to them, with the Time Lords, of which, after all, he was one, were more or less resolved. This celestial retirement was a far from unpleasant condition when one's memories were so rich.

He had had more than his fair share of adventure and secretly he believed that his fellow Lords were a mite jealous of his achievements.

'As well might they be,' he murmured to a pa.s.sing b.u.t.terfly.

That was the moment when he heard their voices all around him.

'Doctor,' they intoned in unison.

He looked up at the blue sky. 'Yes, gentlemen?'

'There is a certain matter we would ' they continued but the Doctor cut across them.

'Just one spokesman, if you don't mind,' he said testily, 'I'm not deaf.'

'The subject concerns your activities ' one of them began.

'Ah,' the Doctor interjected.

' on the planet Earth in the sixteenth century,' the voice continued, 'the year 1572 Earthtime, to be precise.'

'My memory's not quite what it was, gentlemen,' the Doctor replied, remembering in full his involvement in the momentous events of that year. 'Perhaps a further indication would help me to recall exactly where the TARDIS landed.'

'Paris, France,' the Time Lord said.

'Paris, France,' the Doctor repeated slowly as if he were concentrating. 'Yes, I do seem to remember some kind of technical malfunction in the TARDIS which deposited me there but only briefly, I think, an hour or so in their time, was it not?'

'Several days, Doctor.'

'Really? As long as that?' The Doctor did his best to sound surprised.

'We shall accord you a period of time for reflection, Doctor,' the spokesman continued, 'but be warned, our research into the affair reveals that your conduct was highly suspect.'

'Indeed?' the Doctor replied, and wondered how best to extricate himself from yet another 'difference'...

1.

The Roman Bridge Auberge

The TARDIS landed with a jolt which almost threw the young astronaut Steven Taylor off balance but the Doctor did not seem to notice as he studied the parameters of the time/place orientation print-out on the central control panel of the time-machine.

'Earth, again,' he observed and waited for the digits of the time print to stop as they clicked by. But they didn't, at least not the last two. The first settled at 1 and the second at 5 but the last two fluctuated between 0 and 9 indiscriminately. 'In the 1500s, we'll know exactly when in a moment,' he added hopefully. But it was not to be. The numbers kept flickering by on the screen.

'No one should allow a kid like me to go up in a crate like this,' Steven joked but his humour was lost on the Doctor. 'Perhaps we should ask Mission Control for permission to return for an overhaul.'

'I am Mission Control,' the Doctor replied sourly and ordered Steven to open the door as he switched off the main power drives, leaving the interior lighting on the auxiliaries.

Steven obeyed and the stench of putrefaction which hit him in the face almost made him ill on the spot. Under a fierce sun in the clear blue sky the TARDIS stood in the middle of mounds of decomposing rubbish. There was also a wooden fence a little higher than the TARDIS which entirely surrounded them and had a door in it.

'Perfect,' the Doctor observed as he looked out. He wore his cloak over his clothes and his astrakhan hat was on his head. In one hand he held his silver-topped cane, in the other a handkerchief to his nose. 'Putrescence, just what we need,' he added as someone on the other side of the fence threw several rotting cabbages over it. 'Couldn't be better.'

'Your logic escapes, me, Doctor,' Steven replied.

'My dear boy,' the Doctor said indulgently, 'people throw their rubbish over the fence rather than bring it in which means that the TARDIS will remain un.o.bserved here whilst we ' he gestured airily, ' explore.'

'What's to explore?'

'The other side of the fence since the aromas on this side of it give me a clue as to where we might be.' The Doctor momentarily lifted a corner of the handkerchief.

'Garlic, definitely, garlic,' he said and then told Steven to fetch a cloak to wear so that they could begin their exploration.

With the TARDIS locked behind them, the Doctor picked his way delicately through the refuse towards the door.

'We'll need to use the EDF system when we return,' he said just before they reached it.

'What's that?' Steven asked.

'The External Decontamination Function,' the Doctor replied.

'A sort of spatial car-wash,' Steven joked. The Doctor glared at him, opened the door cautiously and peered out.

The fence was on a square of land on one side of the unpaved, pitted street, rutted by carriage wheels. The refuse that had not been thrown over the fence lay there and was being picked at by emaciated dogs. The buildings on both sides were mostly adjoining, between one and two storeys high with overhanging eaves and slated or thatched roofs. The walls were braced with woodenbeams and from most of the small open windows with slatted shutters came pungent odours of cooking.

The people on the street, and they were many, stood or walked under the eaves or in the middle of it. There were hawkers pus.h.i.+ng carts laden with meats, vegetables, fish and crustaceous seafoods of every kind. There was a knife-sharpener with his grinding wheel, a carpenter with his mobile lathe and the remainder of his tools in a leather haversack on his back. There were also vendors with their trays slung by straps from their necks, filled with every variety of cheaply-made knicknack, and all of them were selling their wares simultaneously at the stop of their voices. They wore breeches, billowing s.h.i.+rts and clogs.

Most of them had shoulder-length hair, frequently gathered in a bow at the back. Several had gaudy, gipsy-like bandanas on their heads and a few wore curled, wide-brimmed flat hats.

The women to whom they sold their goods wore full flowing skirts and blouses and their hair was mostly tied back with ribbons. Both buyer and seller negotiated with shouts and yells, shoulder shrugs, arms akimbo, the language of hands and the turning of backs, but each side knowing that shortly the bargain would be struck.

The Doctor stood in the middle of the street, sniffed and announced, 'France.'

Steven smiled. 'French is is what they're speaking, Doctor,' he said. 'But when? And where?' what they're speaking, Doctor,' he said. 'But when? And where?'