'Her sailor fled with a girl he met in a dance hall. That was years ago. I don't know what happened after that.'

'Didn't you offer to take her back?'

'No. Perhaps. I don't know. It's all a blur sometimes.' They'd reached the old hunting lodge at the end of the drive. Joan, seeing that Smith was uncomfortable, decided not to pursue the matter further, and changed the subject.

'We were talking about Timothy Dean. What do you make of him?' She let go of Smith's arm and watched him fumble for his key.

'Eh? Oh yes. Very precognitive. I mean precocious. Very sensitive.' Joan sighed, realizing that she wasn't going to get any sense out of Smith about this topic.

'Well, perhaps you and I could play a hand or two tomorrow evening. Would you like me to cook?'

'Yes.' Smith, still failing to open his door, turned and gave her a shy smile. 'That would be good.'

'Is there anything you don't like?'

'Burnt toast.'

'Well, I certainly shan't risk that. I'll see you tomorrow at seven then, unless our paths should cross beforehand.'

'Good. Wonderful.' Smith leaned back jauntily on the door.

Which was, of course, the point at which it opened, he fell inside.

Joan walked off down the lane, waving and laughing.

From the diary of Prof Bernice Summerfield That night I had one of my doldrums.

I'd picked up a copy of Le Morte D'Arthur Le Morte D'Arthur from the cottage bookshelf. I wasn't thinking, obviously. Mind you, since one of the alternatives was from the cottage bookshelf. I wasn't thinking, obviously. Mind you, since one of the alternatives was A Study in Scarlet A Study in Scarlet, perhaps I should count myself lucky. I could have found myself on the morning train to London, aiming for a tour of the old folks' homes. Doubtless that would have resulted in me being pursued by a bathchair and its occupant having a heart attack.

I curled up in bed with the bit where Bedivere throws Excalibur back into the lake.

When I was a girl, hiding out alone in the forest (and I have spent so much of my life alone, I've just realized that), Mallory and the like were a great comfort. I expected it to be again, and I was, in an odd kind of way, because, almost without realizing that I'd started, after ten minutes I found that I was sobbing my heart out.

I was crying for a past that had never really existed, some terribly British notion of the previous land, where things were better, and all deaths were n.o.ble, and the twilights were presumably golden. My family is British, after all, so I have a right to sob about what was lost. Loss is my heritage. Before the war that took Mum, before all the wars, before the Fall, I suppose, we were comfortable and happy and glad. And then They came, and They had some sort of big plan that We didn't really understand, and just Them being Them made us, who had been all sorts of things, into We.

Same old story, and it is full of its own terrors, and flawed, and has that terrible male triumphalism about it that causes boys to line up and be slaughtered. But it can still make me cry.

And that night it connected with my own situation, and it affected me, rather.

The night lasted about ten days.

Diary Entry Ends Dr Smith ignited the oil lamp, settled down at his desk and picked up a pen. He tapped his teeth with it thoughtfully.

It would have been good if Joan had stayed for dinner that night. She was different.

Full of life. She made him happy in strange ways. She made him want to write.

He'd always thought he'd had a novel in him, ever since he and Verity had walked down to the sh.o.r.e and they'd danced on the rocks in the moonlight. She'd kissed him then, and whispered something in his ear. Both ideas seemed odd: the whisper and the kiss. He couldn't remember what she'd told him, or what being kissed had been like.

All that was because he'd got his Uppers results that day. It looked certain that he could be a teacher.

He pulled a blank piece of paper from the drawer and stared at it. Very white. Very blank.

He thought for a moment. He could show the story to Joan. She'd suggest changes, they'd work on it together. That would be good.

He put his pen to paper and began to write.

The Old Man and the Police Box Long ago, and far away, in the reign of Queen Victoria, there lived a silver-haired old man, who had a very good idea. He had thought of a shelter for policemen, old man, who had a very good idea. He had thought of a shelter for policemen, with a telephone, so that anybody who was in trouble could call for help. And that with a telephone, so that anybody who was in trouble could call for help. And that was clever; because n.o.body knew what a telephone was, back then. was clever; because n.o.body knew what a telephone was, back then.

Because there had to be a lot of room inside the shelter; the old man invented a way to make a lot of s.p.a.ce fit into it. Because the shelter had to be able to chase way to make a lot of s.p.a.ce fit into it. Because the shelter had to be able to chase criminals, he made it so it could disappear and then appear again somewhere else. criminals, he made it so it could disappear and then appear again somewhere else.

The old man was very clever; but very lonely, and so, before he told anybody else about his invention, he used it to go exploring. He visited another world, a place about his invention, he used it to go exploring. He visited another world, a place called Gallifrey. called Gallifrey.

There, he found a tribe of very primitive people.

Smith stared at the paper in annoyance. It had flowed out of him, but he couldn't show it to her. Far too childish. Even for children. And where was it going? He didn't even have a plot. He'd sleep on it.

He retired, extinguishing the oil lamp on his desk with an irritated jerk of the valve.

As he moved about in the bedroom of the little lodge, a boyish hand silently picked up the first page of the story. After a moment, there was the sound of stifled laughter.

Smith ducked out of the bedroom in his nightgown and cap. He glanced around the place. But all was as it should be.

All that remained of his visitor was a gentle breeze from an open window. It sent the papers scudding to the floor.

Smith retrieved them, and, shaking his head in puzzlement, went back to his bed.

'What do you think?' Greeneye had his feet up against a tree, his back to the hillside above Bernice's cottage. Hoff sat beside him, staring through a pair of advanced binoculars.

The image he was watching was of Benny pacing her room, in blue against white, seen through the wall of the building. 'Native to this planet, a touch of Artron energy, therefore she's been in a TARDIS. Yes, she's the companion. Professor Bernice Summerfield, the subject told Laylock. Sometimes called Benny. There are a few other details in the files.' He pulled a gun from his belt. 'Coming?'

'What? No, Hoff, no! What would be the point of that?'

'We grab her, interrogate her, find out where the Pod is, and we're home before first light. What's your problem?'

'It won't work! She's a Time Lord's human a.s.sistant, therefore she must be somebody of particular qualities and abilities.'

Hoff raised his eyebrows. 'Oh yes?'

'She would resist our efforts, try and escape, all of that. No, we must do this in a subtle way.'

'You're attracted to her, aren't you?'

'Well, she has got a nice shape. For a humanoid.'

'I don't believe it. If it's got a corporeal form, you'll cruk it.'

'All I'm saying is, let me do it my way. Tomorrow.'

'All right.' Hoff slipped the gun back into his belt. 'But if it doesn't work, I'll have the hot irons ready.'

Chapter Three.

Boudiccan Destruction Layer

The next morning, Smith walked into the cla.s.sroom, dressed in the mortarboard and gown in which he always looked so awkward. Silence fell, as it always did.

The Captains sat at the back, and the boys at the front, and all of them stood to attention as he entered. He caught a paper dart happily, glanced at it, tweaked the wing a notch and threw it back, straight into the hands of the boy who threw it.

'Good morning, cla.s.s.'

'Good morning, Dr Smith,' they chorused.

'Sit down.' As they did so, Smith opened his briefcase. 'I put a notice up on the board in the corridor. The cricket team.'

Hutchinson held up his hand. 'Excuse me, sir, but weren't we going to talk about that?'

'Were we? I thought we had. Sorry. Oh well, it's only a game. Now, destruction, murder, people impaled on posts - '

'Sir?' Captain Merryweather put his hand up. 'Aren't you going to take the register, sir?'

'Abbot, Andrew?' Smith muttered, flipping open the register. Each boy answered his name, until: 'Alton, Clive Ian?'

'Sir.'

'Dean?'

Timothy was staring out of the window at the terrible greenness of the cricket pitch. Anand nudged him in the ribs. He looked up. 'Sorry, what?'

'Timothy Dean?' Smith grinned at him. 'I don't know why I'm asking, I can see you're there.'

Hutchinson glanced at the stern looks on his comrades' faces, nodded and stood up.

'Sir, that's not right.'

'What?' Smith peered myopically between Dean and Hutchinson. 'Can't you see him?'

'Missing one's name in a roll call is a disciplinary offence, sir, under the rules of the school. Aren't you going to do anything about it?'

'Why, what do you think I should do?'

'The standard punishment is ten strokes of the slipper, sir. Perhaps you weren't aware of it.'

'Aware?' Smith looked uneasily round the cla.s.s. 'Yes, I knew that. But this is my form room. Can't I change the rules?'

'None of us can change the rules, sir. Even if we'd like to. If you'd prefer it, I could administer the punishment myself.'

Smith fiddled with the air, thinking. 'Yes,' he decided. Timothy opened his mouth in horror. Last time Hutchinson had punished him, he hadn't been able to sit down for three days, and couldn't get to sleep for the pain of the bruises.

Hutchinson stood up. 'May I have the slipper, sir?'

Smith was fumbling inside his briefcase. 'I wondered why I had to bring one of these to every lesson. I nearly wore it, but I'd have ended up walking in circles.

Ah!' With a flourish, he pulled a fluffy pink slipper from the bag, and experimentally slapped it across the back of his hand. 'Yes... that shouldn't hurt.'

He looked up at Hutchinson. 'Ready?'

Hutchinson had walked up to the desk. Now he stopped, stiffly turned and headed back to his place. 'I think we can defer the punishment, sir.'

'Oh good.' Smith looked puzzled, dropped the slipper back into his bag, and smiled at the cla.s.s. Many secret smiles were directed back at him, except from the Captains, who were staring at him with a mixture of incredulity and distaste. 'Now.

Destruction, murder, people impaled on posts. All of these are a feature of Boudicca's rebellion against the Romans, circa circa AD 62.' AD 62.'

[image]

Atkins put his hand up. 'Please, sir, do you mean Boadicea?'

'Yes. Boudicca was her real name. She was a Celtic queen, the Queen of the Iceni, who lived around here. She was the widow of Prasutagas. He was the old king.

When he died, he left his land to his daughters and the Roman empire jointly. This is when the Romans ruled Britain. He thought that would work. But Roman agents came and tried to take over the place. Why?'

'Because girls couldn't rule a kingdom?' suggested Merryweather.

'That might be what they thought. We don't know if they were acting officially.

Paulinus, the Governor, was away fighting in Wales. That might have been the idea. If they'd failed, n.o.body could blame him. A lot of governments work like that.'

'Not European ones, surely?' Alton murmured, a sly smile on his face.

'Perhaps. In Bosnia - but never mind that. The agents raped the daughters and molested Boudicca herself. So she - what? What's the matter?'

A murmur had rippled round the cla.s.sroom: 'Sir, what did they do to the daughters again?' asked Phipps.

'Raped them. Had s.e.x with them against their will. Isn't that in the dictionary?

Now...' He ignored the murmurings and turned to the map. 'Boudicca's immediate reaction was to do - what to the agents? Hadleigh-Scott?'

Hadleigh-Scott looked up from nudging his deskmate and giggling. 'To make them marry the girls, sir?'

'What? No. Strange. No, she had the agents skinned alive and impaled on posts with their intestines - most texts say intestines - in their mouths. Very nasty. Then, because they'd given the impression they were working on Imperial orders, she called the Iceni to war, and declared that they were free. They didn't have to do what the Governor said any more. The tribe attacked Colchester, St Albans and London, and burnt them all flat. There was so much destruction that archaeologists know when they've got down to AD 62 in those towns, because there's a layer of broken things and ash. Finally, Paulinus returned, got his troops together and defeated the Iceni. Boudicca killed herself. The question is: was this great British heroine, a favourite of Queen Victoria, right to rebel? Hutchinson?'