She studied the gun that Lavel was aiming at her.

'I will shoot,' warned the terrified pilot.

The Queen smiled and placed her hand over the end of the muzzle.

Lavel saw that she could not escape. She began to weep as the trigger pulled at her finger.

The gun fired.

Morgaine opened her hand, letting metal dust trickle between her fingers.

Lavel tried to understand and failed. ' C'est impossible C'est impossible,'

she whispered and all her energy drained.

'Be silent,' said Morgaine quietly.

Lavel's mouth closed with a snap. Her gun clattered to the floor.

'Rest here and tell me,' crooned Morgaine.

The helpless woman sank to her knees and bowed her head in deference. Her temples were cradled in the hands of the Battle Queen, as a fretful child is soothed by its mother. Or a predator starts its feed.

Morgaine sighed as visions in her head clouded her sight. She closed her eyes.

Lavel started to scream.

'Hush, child. Gently, gently,' whispered Morgaine's voice, but it sounded an age away.

Lavel quietened and stopped trembling.

The stream of memories eased into a steady flow. A laughing child in the fields of a land called Brittany. Wide beaches of sand and distant fishing boats on the blue-grey sea. Frangoise Eloise Lavel. ' Non, je m'appelle Coisique Non, je m'appelle Coisique!'

Seabirds wheeled in the sunlight. ' Oh pet.i.te mere, je veux Oh pet.i.te mere, je veux voter. Voler comme une grande fleche. voter. Voler comme une grande fleche. ' '

'Valkyrie 9 to Control. It's strange, but since I've been in UNIT I no longer think in French.'

'United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. It's worse than the Sorbonne with firearms! Top security de rigeur de rigeur...'

In moments. Morgaine understood the terms and resources of her enemies. The laughing child's thoughts were her thoughts. She inherited new memories of a past that was stolen. And with these were the joy and heartbreak of another's life.

Adieu, adieu, ma pauvre pet.i.te. Mairaenant to es avec moi.

She released the head, leaving Lavel kneeling in motionless catalepsy.

'Now we know, Mordred,' said the Queen, and she turned to leave.

Elizabeth Rowlinson tried to pull Pat back to safety as he rose warily from behind the bar. 'You can't just leave her like that,' he cried in a rage.

Morgaine stared at him. A peasant that dared raise its voice to her. 'You are right,' she said coldly.

She threw out her arm towards Lavel in a gesture of dismissal. There was a blaze of light in which the mindless body of Frangoise Eloise disintegrated and dispersed to nothing. A choking smell of burning hung in the air. Only a shadow where Lavel had knelt to the Queen remained, scorched on the floor.

Morgaine turned to the peasant and his wife. They were shaking with fear. 'Did my son drink well?' she asked in the most condescending of tones. She glared at Mordred and at the empty gla.s.ses. 'I see that it is so. I must...' She searched for a phrase. ' L'addition L'addition. I must pay the bill.'

The peasant's wife searched the air for him with her fingers. Morgaine frowned and advanced on the woman.

'Get away from her, you witch!' shouted Pat, but at a gesture from Morgaine, the words froze in his throat.

For an instant the Queen pressed the palm of her hand to Elizabeth's forehead. She smiled, glanced back at Pat and swept out of the lounge, followed by her son.

Elizabeth clamped her hand to her eyes and started to cry out. Pat clutched her tightly, rocking her in his arms.

She wept, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up her eyes because she could not bear or dare to look at the light that exploded against her senses.

'I can see. Oh my G.o.d, Patrick. I can see!'

Chapter 4.

The Knight Commander spread his forces like a net to make a broad sweep across the woodland. But the main group he flanked along the length of the road.

Reports from his men muttered in his helmet as they advanced. The umberere screen in his visor threw up maps of their positions and pinpointed the placings of the enemy.

A scout group had reached the ground overlooking the lake. They relayed enhanced images of activity among the soldiers on the bank.

As was honourable before combat, the commander considered a challenge, but the Queen had herself presented such a credence to Merlin the previous night.

Swords had been crossed, gauntlets exchanged. War had been declared.

Amongst the distant figures illuminated across his visor-relay. he recognised the errant traitor Ancelyn ap Gwalchmai: a Knight General deserter already stripped of his office, skulking amongst the enemy.

The commander vowed that his sword would answer this treachery with Ancelyn's blood.

There was movement beside the lake. An ugly beetle-shaped carriage was scuttling away from the encampment.

The commander called his men-at-arms into readiness and set them to spring the trap.

'See you at the hotel,' shouted the Doctor.

Winifred Bambera watched Peter Warmsly's packed car setting off along the road. Warmsly was in the back seat with the two young women. Lethbridge-Stewart was driving with the Doctor firmly ensconced in the pa.s.senger seat.

Since Lethbridge-Stewart had decided that all civilians should be cleared from the exclusion zone, it became increasingly apparent to Bambera that this exercise was not going to be a shared command. But when she looked from the old Brigadier to the Doctor, she could not decide which one was really in charge.

'They could have waited,' she muttered in her annoyance, half to Ancelyn, more than half to herself. She had favoured a convoy party with Major Husak to bring up the rear. One solid bolt through whatever was lurking in the woods.

Husak had been sent on ahead with more instructions from Lethbridge-Stewart.

Bambera shouldered her automatic rifle with resignation. 'Come on, Ancelyn. Looks like we get the deckchair.'

She climbed into the driving seat of Shou Yuing's 2CV and opened the other door for the knight.

'Let's hope there's enough methane in this old crock,'

she said, as she searched for the keys.

They were not in the lock. 'Oh, shame!'

She heard jingling beside her and saw Ancelyn holding up a set of car keys for her.

'Do you seek these?' he said merrily. 'The Brigadier bid me give them to you.'

'I'm a brigadier too,' she said and took the keys.

He sighed to himself. 'These Old Times are not easily endured.'

'What?' said Bambera.

'Old legends that return to find us. I have Merlin and Arthur. You have your Lethbridge-Stewart.'

'Do you think we live up to their expectations?' she said.

He grinned. 'Do they live up to ours?'

She smiled back at him. 'At least mine isn't family!'

The old crock started first time and purred smoothly away from the lake.

'Winifred isn't following,' said Ace from the back seat.

'Good Lord, is that her name?' said Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.

There was a cold silence, which the Doctor took to mean: I wasn't talking to you!

Peter Warmsly sat silently, clutching the sword Excalibur in his hands, still dreading the moment when he might eventually wake up and find that all this was true.

'We may run into trouble,' said the Doctor cheerfully.

'Really, Doctor?' said the Brigadier. 'You surprise me.

At least it looks as though Husak got through all right.'

'Brigadier Bambera'll be along in a moment,' the Doctor added. 'Probably just having another tiff with Ancelyn.'

'A tiff?' asked Shou Yuing. 'What, you mean like...?'

'Not while they're on duty,' interrupted the Doctor.

'Besides which, he's a perfick gentil knight.'

Ace shook her head. 'Winifred and Ivanhoe. Struth!'

They drove on for another minute and were just pa.s.sing the parked TARDIS when the Doctor said, 'There's something wrong.'

'What?' they chorused.

'We haven't been attacked yet.'

Something exploded directly in front of the Range Rover.

Earth showered down on the windscreen as the Brigadier swerved violently through the smoke. The car mounted the verge and missed the fresh crater in the road by half a metre.

The Brigadier pressed hard on the accelerator.

'Everyone down!' he ordered and they slouched as deep into their seats as possible.

A row of men-at-arms blocked the road, their handguns raised against the oncoming vehicle. Beside them, the Knight Commander lifted his sword.

'Fire!' he yelled.

Lethbridge-Stewart swerved the Range Rover into a fish-tail. The skid caught three of the men-at-arms and knocked them into the bracken.

The car swerved clear off the road as the Brigadier skilfully changed the gear and trod on the accelerator again.

He was aware of the air exploding with fire and smoke around them. He saw an opening in the trees, looked through the gap and took the car the same way, bouncing and jolting along a rough path, leaving their attackers in disarray.

'That surprised them,' he chuckled. In the rear view mirror, he saw the glint of their armour as they ran to and fro in confusion.

'Good car, Warmsly,' he shouted above the din.

The back window imploded, showering them in safety gla.s.s. The clatter of the blown-off rear b.u.mper receded into the distance. They swerved a corner out of reach and were immediately back on the road.