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 Did I not see with my own eyes how you sullied the
hospitality of my house by passing a secret message to my
kinsman under my very nose?
So that was it!
The Barone was holding up the piece of vellum she had
given to Maximilian.  Master Vilmius has explained to me
how these base words are but a fraction of a spell to raise
the spirits of the dead! Necromancy is the work of the
Devil; and those who practise it the Devil s servants.
Sarah could see that Maximilian s lips were twitching.
The gleam of triumph in his eye was more than she could
bear.
 You ve got it all wrong! she cried.  It s not the Doctor
who  
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A shudder and a gasp ran right through the whole
assembly.
 Silence, villain!
It was the officer who had arrested them who spoke. A
servant had no rights. If it were possible, she d made
matters worse.
 May I speak, my lord? said the Doctor, quietly.
 Why should I listen to yet more of your lies? It is
within my power to have you hanged this very hour.
However, to show the people the mercy of their lords,
enjoined on them by the word of God Himself I shall grant
the lenity your foreign deviltry ill deserves. Tomorrow you
will be taken to Palermo, there to await the question of the
Holy Inquisition.
The Doctor bowed.  You are most kind, he said for all
the world as if he were thanking him for telling him the way
to Piccadilly Circus.
 Take him away. Throw him into the deepest dungeon,
where he cannot practise his evil art; and take his catamite
with him.
The soldier seized the Doctor s arm, but at a gesture
from the officer stepped back. With a slight inclination of
his head, the Doctor moved in dignity towards the door.
Sarah followed close behind, but could not bring herself to
forego a last glance at Maximilian Vilmius.
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He was openly smiling.
For a long time after the door slammed behind them,
they said nothing. What was there to say?
 I m sorry, the Doctor said at last.
Sarah grunted.
 All right, all right, said the Doctor, after another long
pause.  There s no need to go on about it. My strategy was a
mistake. It was aimed at flushing him out, making him
reveal himself; and it has succeeded in producing exactly
the opposite result. It seems our discussion about the rights
and wrongs of intervention was a trifle academic. We re
effectively barred from any action whatsoever.
She couldn t even say, I told you so, thought Sarah,
because she hadn t. It had seemed so obviously a daft thing
to do, letting Max see that they were on to him.
The Doctor seemed more despondent than she d ever
known him. Well, serve him right. Let him stew for a bit.
Oh yes. One more thing&
 Does catamite mean what I think it does?
 I m afraid so.
 Ah, said Sarah.
They were sitting in the semi darkness of an
underground chamber which Sarah guessed would become
Umberto s (or more strictly, Mario s) wine cellar. The only
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light came from a brick sized opening high up the wall near
the ceiling. When they came in she d had to dodge thick
cobwebs which hung down like noisome stalactites; and the
stink of the years caught at her throat.
Silence.
 I suppose there s a good reason why you re not using
your fancy screwdriver contraption to open the door.
 There is. It only works on locks. This door is barred
and bolted.
 I thought that might be it.
More silence.
 So what do we do now?
 There s nothing we can do but wait.
 Where have I heard that before? said Sarah bitterly.
As the hours crawled by, Sarah s anger subsided, to
give way to a sort of resignation. Yes, that was the word,
she decided. It certainly wasn t acceptance, but there wasn t
a lot of point in giving yourself indigestion over something
that couldn t be changed.
Indigestion? Huh! Chance would have been a fine thing.
It was hunger as much as anything which was making her so
ratty, she decided. In the normal course of events, those
servants who waited on table would have their food
afterwards; what with one thing and another, the moment
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for bringing up the question had never seemed to come; and
the so called breakfast on board the TARDIS seemed days
ago. But it wasn t really fair to take it out on the Doc.
She listened to the faint striking of the tower clock and
automatically counted its chimes& nine, ten, eleven. Only
an hour to go.
The Doctor had obviously had the same thought.  It s
remarkable how accurate they manage to keep that clock, he
said. They must check it every day against a sundial. In fact,
it s remarkable that they have a clock at all. It can only have
been put in very recently  even after they built the tower
and the extension at the back of the keep.
 How do you know it s accurate? said Sarah
indignantly.  Did you bring a watch with you, after all?
The Doctor shook his head and smiled wryly.  If you
want to know the time, ask a Time Lord, he said.
How could he joke at a time like this? All their efforts
had gone for nothing; and there was nothing they could do
about it.
Maximilian had won.
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Seventeen
Guido Verconti finished writing the letter:  & and begs your
blessing and forgiveness. Your loving son&  , and signed
his name. He put down his quill and sanded the wet ink; and
as he read over what he had written, the tears at last began
to flow.
Images sprang up in his mind, images from the long lost
time when the child could dream his days away Without a
care, cradled in his mother s devotion and his father s pride;
and he wept for them all.
But Jack Smith had said the truth of it. To live a lie, was
that the way he said it? Aye, to be a lie; that s what he said;
like a rogue at a goose fair who played a part the better to
cozen you of your purse. Would that redeem his sin, the
cruelty of his absence for these many years? And yet& .
He d left his father celebrating still, in the privacy of his
chamber, long after the end of the feast in honour of the
prodigal, on the promise of his return to share the last of the
flagon. His mother had long since retired, quite worn out by
the hours of joy  and the years of sorrow, to which he
would now be adding another lifetime of grief.
He sealed the letter and addressed it to his mother with
a heavy heart; knowing that there was no other way;
217 
wishing that he could live his life again. But would he
choose a different course?
He lifted his head and listened as the clock chimed
eleven. Most of the castle would be asleep by now. Before
he faced his father with the truth, he had a debt to pay.
In class today we learnt more about penguins than we
wanted to know.
She knew exactly how the kid felt, thought Sarah,
having heard in detail what was in the secret document. She
was finding it hard to listen to anything other than her
shouting stomach.
 Mark you, the Doctor was saying,  if the alchemical
instructions are correct, he won t have long.
 No? Bread and water would do. Correction. Bread and
water would be scrummy.
 The crack in the barrier which will allow him to break
through into N-space will start to open shortly before
midnight, and seconds into tomorrow it will close again
That is perfectly clear. However, I must say that I m still
puzzled by the reference to the dragon.
 Under the wing of the dragon, said Sarah.  Yes, I
remember that. She remembered fish and chips, too.
Weren t they a sort of  what was that word again? Oh yes,
food.
218 
 The dragon in medieval alchemy is often confused with
the dragon of Christian mythology; the dragon slain by St
George; the evil one, to be mystically vanquished. And
sometimes its blood is referred to; a reference to red
sulphur. But this is an Egyptian text. I think it must refer to
Ouroboros. That s his Greek name, of course.
Perhaps her head was swimming with hunger.  And
who s Ouroboros when he s at home?
 A winged snake, crowned like a king, forever eating
his own tail. Another symbol of the unification of opposites [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]