The two men shook their heads at the terrible viper's nest of corruption and decadence they had just described.

Oh well,' said Ian, breaking the silence that had settled over the library 'It has most of the things that a decent soap opera requires. Power, corruption, lies, s.e.x. I think I'm going to like it here.'

Thalius Maximus was reading the reports of the military concerning the impressively co-ordinated quashing of the attempted rebellion of the Zealots in the market square. It was a mundane task, the language was stale and couched in bloodthirsty euphemisms.

'No, no, no,' he said angrily, throwing down the parchment scrolls and kicking them away in disgust. 'It will not do.'

Gemellus bowed, deeply. 'The praefectus praefectus is, of course, expressing what many within the community in this state feel. is, of course, expressing what many within the community in this state feel.

I should caution the praefectus, praefectus, however, that there are an equal, if not a greater number who do not share the however, that there are an equal, if not a greater number who do not share the praefectus's praefectus's concerns.' concerns.'

'You are saying that the civilians want this kind of...

bloodshed?'

That was an interesting question, thought Gemellus, and one that deserved a considered answer. 'Many believe that the alternative to such aggressive and brutal tactics is that they run the risk of having their throats cut in their own beds by Zealot gangsters,' Gemellus offered. 'In such a climate, then I should say that yes, this is the view of the majority.'

'But do you you agree with it?' asked the agree with it?' asked the praefectus praefectus quickly. quickly.

The advisor never had the chance to answer. The doors behind him crashed open and Drusus entered and cast the governor a wearied and apologetic glance. 'The lady Antonia Vinicius, wife of senator Germanicus of Byzantium, humbly entreats an immediate audience with his most high excellency,' he said, rolling his eyes heavenward.

At his heels, Antonia strode into the room without waiting for an invitation. She gave Gemellus a look of unadulterated contempt. 'You may go, little man,' little man,' she announced. 'You too, Drusus. The she announced. 'You too, Drusus. The praefectus praefectus and I have matters of great import to discuss. And we shall not wish to be disturbed.' and I have matters of great import to discuss. And we shall not wish to be disturbed.'

Both men stayed exactly where they were and looked at the praefectus praefectus who waited for a few seconds before casually dismissing them with a wave of his hand. who waited for a few seconds before casually dismissing them with a wave of his hand.

When the door was closed, Thallus rounded on his former wife.

'I will not have good and loyal members of my staff spoken to in such a manner by the likes of you, Antonia. You have no power or position within this household anymore, no matter whose bed you are currently occupying. And when you march in here as if you still own the place with your demands and your outrages, I would ask you to remember that.'

There was a look of amus.e.m.e.nt on Antonia's face.

'Marriage to that vapid creature, Jocelyn, has made you bold, Thalius. Can it be that you have finally found a woman who can satisfy your unique needs?'

If Thalius felt belittled by such outrageous innuendo, he chose to hide it under a blanket of moral disgust. 'You are nothing but a common wh.o.r.e, Antonia,' he chided. 'A pathetic moecha moecha of alleged maturity trying to recapture the splendour of her youth in ever more desperate ways.' of alleged maturity trying to recapture the splendour of her youth in ever more desperate ways.'

Antonia gave a short, harsh laugh and threw back her head, shaking her mane of rich, brown hair. 'You weak and flaccid fool, Thalius,' she berated him. 'Lingua faciosi, inertes 'Lingua faciosi, inertes opera. opera. I have heard about the ways in which that old idiot Gains Calaphilus is making you look like the half-man you truly are. And always were.' She turned and flounced towards the door. She had simply come to insult Thalius and, this having been done, she was leaving. I have heard about the ways in which that old idiot Gains Calaphilus is making you look like the half-man you truly are. And always were.' She turned and flounced towards the door. She had simply come to insult Thalius and, this having been done, she was leaving.

'Goodbye Antonia,' Thalius called. And may all of the afflictions that blight you be major and painful ones.'

At the door, Antonia threw it open to be confronted by Gemellus and Ian, whom the counsellor was waiting to introduce to the praefectus praefectus once he had finished his audience with his former wife. 'Lady Antonia,' Gemellus said flatly. 'I have the honour of introducing to you Ian Chesterton, a guest of the once he had finished his audience with his former wife. 'Lady Antonia,' Gemellus said flatly. 'I have the honour of introducing to you Ian Chesterton, a guest of the praefectus praefectus and of the city, from Britannia.' and of the city, from Britannia.'

'Charmed,' said Ian, remembering what Gemellus had said earlier but with enough home counties breeding to take the lady's offered hand and kiss it.

a Briton?' asked Antonia with a scorpion-like speed that startled both Gemellus and Ian. 'I have heard reliable information that all of the men of the Isles are brutes and savages.'

'You were, therefore, clearly misinformed, my lady,' said Ian who felt wonderful after he'd said it.

a pity,' noted Antonia, wiping the sn.i.g.g.e.r from his lips, as she continued to stare at Ian for several l.u.s.tful seconds before patting him on the cheek. 'We shall meet again, in less formal circ.u.mstances, Briton. Be sure of it.'

Somewhere on the other side of the Roman barracks that surrounded the Villa Praefectus, Villa Praefectus, a furtive meeting was taking place. a furtive meeting was taking place.

When the door was locked and bolted to prevent sudden interruption or discovery; the conspirators removed their cloaks and hoods.

I hate this subterfuge,' said Marcus Lanilla, angrily casting his cowl aside. 'Sneaking around like rats in the gutters of Rome. We are n.o.ble men, soldiers, pure of body and heart and mind, we should not be skulking in the shadows.'

The others nodded their agreement.

'Sadly,' continued Marcus, 'circ.u.mstances force us not to reveal ourselves too early in the game, lest the hunters become the hunted.' He paused, making sure that his three acolytes were following his grandiose p.r.o.nouncements.

'We should use stealth instead of ignorant haste?' asked Fabius Actium, very pleased with his own cleverness.

'Yes,' noted Marcus. 'We mast plan for the time when we shall be ready to act.'

The two other tribunes with Marcus and Fabius were Honorius Annora and Edius Flavia. Part of the same social group, they were slightly younger but from the same cadet academy as their more ill.u.s.trious companions, equally ambitious with a l.u.s.t for power that made them dangerous men. They were calculating and knew that their route to leadership and, ultimately, to Rome lay initially in the death of their general.

'The praefectus,' praefectus,' spat Marcus with disgust, 'has taken issue with the way in which the insurrection was put down. spat Marcus with disgust, 'has taken issue with the way in which the insurrection was put down.

Politics, gentlemen. The business of compromise. Of weakness in the face of aggression. I should sooner deal with the Zealot leader, one-on-one, face-to-face, with my sword at his throat than trust the ditherings of a transient governor at the eleventh hour of his reign.'

'We shall have Basellas's head on a pike soon enough,'

noted Edius.

Fabius sensed that Marcus might have other plans for Basellas and motioned his young comrade to silence. 'The plan is not so simple,' he suggested. 'Is this not so, Marcus?'

'All in good and ample time, my fine friends. For are we not Roman? Do we not reveal our hand until it is the one that carries the sword to make the striking blow, and seals our victory in all things?'

Again, there were nods of agreement and echoed shouts of 'Victory'.

'The praefectus praefectus and Calaphilus are mutual thorns in our side. And to remove the one without the other will bring neither satisfaction nor the redress that we seek for all of the wrongs that both have done upon us, and our men, and our people.' and Calaphilus are mutual thorns in our side. And to remove the one without the other will bring neither satisfaction nor the redress that we seek for all of the wrongs that both have done upon us, and our men, and our people.'

What followed was a strange and mesmerising silence, as though the full implications of what Marcus was proposing had failed to penetrate the closed minds of his ambitious but shortsighted colleagues. After a moment of waiting for a reaction, Marcus added a punchline in the hope that this would provoke some sense of what they could achieve.

'We are the knights of Byzantium. And Byzantium shall be ours,' he said with a gesture of solidarity and strength.

That went down very well indeed with his three friends.

EPISODE THREE.

WINDOW SHOPPING FOR.

A NEW CROWN OF THORNS.

Whatsoever thou shalt ask of me, I will give it unto thee, the half of my kingdom.

Mark 6:23

Chapter Fifteen.

Pale Shelter

For it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered. and the sheep shall be scattered.

Mark 14:27

It took Vicki approximately a day to become used to the idea that in all probability she would never see Ian, Barbara or the Doctor again. That part of her dilemma, in truth, didn't take a lot of accepting. She was, after all, well used to losing those people close to her. She was grateful that the TARDIS crew had saved her life on Dido from the madman Bennett and his deranged schemes. After that, she swore that she would never trust anyone other than her rescuers again. But circ.u.mstances change all the time The concept of Byzantium being her permanent home, with Georgiadis and Evangeline and Iola, took a little more effort for her to become enthusiastic about, however.

Certainly the Greek shopkeeper and his family were nice enough people, and she was genuinely obliged to them for saving her life yet again. But, she reflected, she was now stuck in a time two-and-a-half thousand years before she had even been born. She came from an age of computers, electronics, s.p.a.ce travel, interactive learning, virtual reality, chemical stimulation, instant maturity. She was fourteen, going on 108, yet to these people, for whom all of the things of her world that she took for granted were greater and more astonishing than all of the seven wonders of their own put together, she was what she appeared to be to the naked eye: a mere child. child.

There would be trouble somewhere along the line, Vicki was sure of it.

Iola didn't talk very much. Vicki had to literally drag out the first few conversations that she had with the girl.

'Let's be friends, 'Vicki said, considering that a young ally in this place, as opposed to adults who merely tolerated her eccentricities, could be really useful. Someone with whom she would share secrets and hopes and aspirations.

Someone whom she could use as a barrier, a protective shield against the outside world. More importantly, someone to keep her right on etiquette, laws and required behaviour.

Gradually, after two or three stilted and embarra.s.sing attempts at striking up a conversation, a rapport of sorts had developed. Iola, younger than Vicki by six months, but in reality by about a lifetime, was a shy and introverted girl, who clung to her mother's skirts quite literally. Though one or two of the things that she said made Vicki sense that beneath the opaque exterior was an imaginative and playful soulmate just waiting to burst out.

On the morning of her second day with the Georgiadis family, Vicki began to explore the world of the Greeks into which she had been so unwillingly thrust. Iola offered, in the spirit of their new-found friendship, to take Vicki around the local market streets. Actually, Vicki suspected, her parents had told Iola to do this. Whatever, at least it meant that she would see a little of Iola's world, and that could only be a good thing.

In reality, it wasn't. Within minutes Vicki was bored to tears with a seemingly endless round of 'this is the butcher, and this is the baker'. She nodded and smiled whenever Iola looked in her direction, but she longed for something exciting to happen. Vicki was also introduced to Dorothea and Damian, the immediate neighbours of the family. They were, as with most of the people she met, seemingly good-natured and friendly. Damien, she learned, made pottery whilst his wife was a bookbinder.

They chatted about trivialities for several moments, and both of the neighbours were interested in Vicki telling them about Britannia. So Vicki lied through her teeth, using a mixture of outrageous stories and the few facts that she remembered from her studies about the Romans in Britain or that she had learned from Barbara's frequent verbal essays on the culture that surrounded them.

Poor Barbara.

Vicki kept coming back to that...

The girls left the house of their neighbours just as a rank of Roman soldiers marched by on the other side of the cobbled street. Iola froze, her hand gripping Vicki's arm tightly and making Vicki yell out in surprise and pain. One or two of the soldiers gave the girls an ominous glance, but they were obviously on their way to do something important that would most likely involve arresting or killing someone, so they moved off whilst Vicki and Iola watched them go.

'Whenever you see the Romans coming,' Iola hissed, despite the fact that the men were, by now, well out of earshot, 'get away if you can. Run for all you are worth. There are alleys and pa.s.sages that can be used. Learn them, well.

If you have no obvious means of escape, then stand still, do not move, never avoid looking directly at them because that will make them suspicious. Above all, act as you would normally.' There was a terror in Iola's voice as she spoke what seemed to be a well-learned litany of rules. What she was telling Vicki wasn't a suggestion or an advis.e.m.e.nt, it was The Law.

Vicki was nonplussed. She knew that the Roman soldiers were a nasty bunch of black-hearted rapscallions. Quasi-n.a.z.is with a s.a.d.i.s.tic streak a mile wide (at least according to Ian Chesterton on day one of their stay in Byzantium), they had bullied their way across most of Europe and large chunks of the Middle East. But surely their idea of suspected terrorists and insurgents didn't include a couple of teenage girls? 'Why, what will they do to us?' Vicki asked, expecting anything but the answer that she got.

'If the luck of the G.o.ds is with us, and I mean by that, real real luck,' luck,' Iola said softly looking at her shoes and visibly shaking at the thought, 'four or five of them will take us into a side-yard and take their pleasure upon us. If we are not so fortunate, they shall probably kill us for mere sport.' Iola said softly looking at her shoes and visibly shaking at the thought, 'four or five of them will take us into a side-yard and take their pleasure upon us. If we are not so fortunate, they shall probably kill us for mere sport.'

Vicki began to laugh. Then she saw that Iola was completely serious and was appalled. 'They do that?' she almost screamed.

I have seen such things happen with my own eyes,' the girl confirmed. 'Many, many times. To friends of mine. To Greeks. To Jews. To the Bedouin. Life is cheap in Byzantium. Life is cheap everywhere that the Romans are.'

Vicki didn't know what to say. After a moment, the jaw-dropping horror of what she had just been told fully sank in.

'Come on,' she said. 'Let's go home.' Suddenly, the boring streets of Byzantium didn't seem nearly so dull after all.

During the evening, several of Georgiadis's friends and acquaintances called at the house. Word had clearly circulated within the Greek community that the Georgiadis home now had a new and interesting attraction to be viewed.

So they came to stare at the girl of Iola's age with the pale skin and the strange accent - chattering women, who talked to Evangeline in hushed bursts of whispering, and men who would give Vicki a cursory glance and then talk to Georgiadis about the cost of living in these most difficult of times.

Vicki was thankful that they didn't want to prod her as well, but she smiled and made all of the right noises as a succession of Greeks to whom she was introduced asked her some ba.n.a.l questions about where she was from, commented upon how good her language skills were, complimented her on her beauty and her good manners, and then left. Several of the visitors also had news for Georgiadis.