by Doctor Who
With a last grunt of effort, the Doctor reached the apex of the hill, by his faithful TARDIS.
Rory was sat cross-legged on the grass a way off, hands on his head. Two men were standing there: a really rather young farmer (flat cap - such a cliché, but it dated him, somewhere mid twentieth century, most likely) and a gentleman (tweeds, breeches, equally clichéd but cut very well - this was between the wars, definitely).
'Hullo,' he called cheerily. 'See you've met my mate Rory. Sorry, are we trespassing, I didn't see the signs and Rory, well, I'm not sure if he can read.'
He tapped the side of his head. 'Not really all there, dropped on his head as a baby, I reckon.'
'Oi,' moaned Rory. 'I can hear you, you know.'
The Doctor shook his head. 'I was attempting to be charming, disarming even. Putting these fine people at their ease. And giving them a good reason not to blow your brains out.'
'Oh. Sorry.'
The Doctor walked over to the gentleman -
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landowner, maybe - casually brushing past the shotgun as he did so and somehow easing it from the young farmer's hand, breaking it, tipping the shotgun shells out onto his palm before pocketing them, closing it and handing it back - so it was once again aimed at Rory, albeit impotently. All in one fluid movement, topped off with a friendly nod.
'Stay put,' he told Rory. 'Just to be polite.'
The farmer lowered the useless shotgun, but Rory stayed put.
The Doctor offered his hand to the gentleman.
'Lovely field you've got here. I'm the Doctor.
That, as you may have gathered, is Rory Williams.
Somewhere around here should be another chum, Amy Pond. Tall, redhead, Scots - but we try not to hold that against her too much. Very nice. She and Rory are getting married in about seventy-five years, give or take.'
The gentleman didn't proffer his hand in return but just nodded. 'I see. Name's Porter, Nathaniel Porter. I own this land.'
'Yes!' exclaimed the Doctor, pleased he'd guessed correctly. 'Smokin'.'
No one reacted other than Rory, who sighed, rather melodramatically.
'OK, another word crossed off the list, Rory,'
the Doctor acknowledged. He looked at Nathaniel Porter and winked, then gestured expansively.
'Nice land to own, I must say, and I'm terribly sorry we trespassed. Allow me to assure you it was quite THE GLAMOUR CHASE
unintentional.' He leaned in to the landowner.
'I blame Rory. He always leads us up the wrong path.'
'What's that doing here? Setting up a campsite, were you?'
This came from the young farmer with the flat cap and useless shotgun. He was pointing at the TARDIS.
The Doctor produced the wallet that contained his psychic paper and showed it to Nathaniel Porter, who stared at it and nodded. 'Benson,' he said, 'Take a look at this, young man, and see if you agree with the credentials.'
The young farmer crossed to them, read the paper and raised an eyebrow. 'Scotland Yard? Is it about the dig? The complaints?'
The Doctor nodded. 'We were trying to set up a small outpost, but I think we ended up in the wrong field. Wanted it to be hush-hush.' The Doctor reached out and helped Rory up. 'Rory's on loan from Gloucester University's geological department.'
'Sorry about the sheep dip,' Rory said to Benson.
'The Doctor must have slipped as we set our police box up.'
The Doctor smiled at Rory. 'I get clumsy when I'm in the countryside. Bit of a city boy, really.' He looked back at Nathaniel Porter and stared at him, just for a split second too long. Then spoke. `So, anyway, we need to find WPC Pond.'
Benson frowned. `WPC?'
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'Yeah,' Rory said. 'Always wanted to join the force, ever since she was a little girl. Looks great in the uniform.'
The Doctor threw Rory a look. 'The Stanley look isn't her favourite, actually, so she's in civilian clothing whilst we're here. Trying to blend in.' He sighed at the jeans and Space Invaders T-shirt Rory was wearing. 'An art not everyone has mastered, it seems.'
'What's she wearing?' Nathaniel Porter asked.
'Benson can get his fellow farmhands to keep an eye out. Won't have wandered far, but the villagers are a bit... unsure of strangers.'
The
Doctor
nodded.
'Absolutely.
Rory?'
'Umm...' Rory tried to remember. 'Blue baggy top, short black skirt. Trainers.'
'Oh that's so very 1930s,' the Doctor muttered, adding to Benson, 'All the rage in London. Probably won't take off here for, oh, lots of years.' He sniffed.
'What's that smell?'
'It's you,' answered Rory. 'Sheep dip.'
'You need a bath, Doctor,' said Nathaniel Porter. 'Follow me back to the Manse, soon get you sorted.'
The Doctor and Rory nodded and started to follow.
'I'll find your Miss Pond,' Benson called. 'And when I do, I'll point her in your direction.'
The Doctor turned and shook his hand. 'Thank you.'
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Benson shook it back and wandered off.
Keeping a distance between Nathaniel Porter and themselves, the Doctor and Rory were able to talk quietly.
'So, one shakes hands and one doesn't,' said the Doctor. 'That's two odd things about our host.'
'And the other?'
'Oh, think about what you saw, Rory. Think and realise.'
Rory frowned as he mentally skipped through the past few minutes, but shrugged.
With a smile, the Doctor waved his wallet with the psychic paper in it. 'He's the landowner, probably runs the entire village, lives in a Manse, may be the Vicar as well. Bet he's a magistrate, they always were in these days. So why'd he show our documentation to the hired help?'
'The farmer? I don't know. Maybe Porter can't read.'
The Doctor sighed. 'I doubt that's the problem.'
Then Rory nodded. 'Because the psychic paper didn't work on him. He needed the farmer to see what it said. To him, it was just blank.'
'You're learning, Rory. I'm proud of you.'
Rory started to smile, then frowned. 'Don't patronise me, Doctor.'
But the Doctor was lost in thought. `So, either he has the most closed mind on Earth, or he's a genius, or he has no imagination, or... or he's trained not to be psychic-papered. Which is pretty rare in 1930s DOCTOR WHO
Norfolk, I reckon.'
'1930s?'
The Doctor dug his hand into his pockets and brought out the shotgun cartridges. 'Didn't make them like this till the late twenties; by the time war broke out, they'd changed again.' He put his finger into the cartridge then out again, licking tiny fragments of shot off it. 'Yup,' he said, licking his lips rapidly, like a lizard, to get rid of the taste. 'Vile stuff. 1930s. Deffo. 1936, I reckon.'
Rory pointed ahead. 'Nice village, though. Like home.'
The Doctor nodded. 'One more thing. Our host lives in a Manse. What's missing from that view?'
Rory gazed at the village in the bowl-like area beneath them as they started down a small hill towards it. 'Shopping mall?' he said lamely.
'No church. How many typical English villages have you been to that don't have churches but have a Manse?' The Doctor stared at Rory. 'You know what a Manse is? Posh vicarage. All the rage in villages in England in the 1930s. Well, those with churches. No need for a vicarage if there's no vicar, I'd've thought.
You agree?'
If Rory was about to point out he'd never actually been to a village in the 1930s at all, let alone thought about the significance of manses, churches or otherwise, he never got the chance because the Doctor was grabbing his arm excitedly and pointing at a couple of conjoined red-brick buildings on the 56
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far left of the place. To one side of that, within its grounds, a huge pile of earth had been built up.
<
br /> 'It looks like Time Team,' Rory said.
The Doctor nodded. 'An archaeological dig in the playing field of what I'm guessing is the local school. How exciting is that?'
'Oh. Very, Doctor,' Rory lied. 'You said we'd come here cos of a distress beacon the TARDIS located,'
he added under his breath.
Suddenly Nathaniel Porter stopped, perhaps because he'd seen what the Doctor had seen.
Hopefully not because he'd heard Rory mention distress beacons.
'One imagines that is why you are here, Doctor.
To sort out the problems created by the dig?'
'Unpopular, Mr Porter?'
Porter nodded. 'You could say that. Enola has had no end of trouble from some of the locals and a number of out-of-towners. That's why we sent for the police in the first place.'
'Enola?'
'My wife,' he said proudly. 'My second, and most beautiful, wife. And the most thrilling archaeologist of the day.'
'I can't wait to meet her,' the Doctor said.
'The Manse is this way,' Nathaniel Porter said, pointing towards the opposite end of the village from the school. 'Have a good scrub down, and you'll meet her when you join us for dinner tonight.
I say, you got lodgings sorted?'
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'Not yet,' said Rory.
'Marvellous. The three of you can stay with us then. Plenty of rooms at the Manse,' Porter called after them.
'Oh, thank you, Mr Porter,' said Amy Pond, linking an arm through Rory's. 'That saves everyone a lot of problems.'
'Hullo, Amy. “The Doctor smiled. 'Where did you get to?'
'You missed the Doctor trying to talk to a sheep,'
Rory laughed.
'Really? Wow, now I bet the sheep gave as good as he got.'
Rory shrugged. 'I think they were on the same level, certainly. Intellectually as well as physically.'
'Oi. You don't know me well enough to insult me, Rory Williams.'
'You insult me all the time,' Rory protested.
'That's true, you do,' Amy nodded. 'And he's my hubbie-to-be, so I have to defer to him on this one or he may leave me at the altar.'
The Doctor laughed. 'If you ever get to the altar.
I may just abandon you here in 1936. Yeah, bet you didn't consider that when you were thinking up new ways to insult the poor old Doctor.'
Rory was going to respond but Amy winked at him then rested her head on the Doctor's shoulder.
'Awww, is poor ickle Doctor getting picked on by the nasty humans?'
'Yes he is. I wonder why I always think this is 58
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my favourite planet. It's full of horrible people.' He grinned. 'But I suppose there are one or two who are better than the rest.'
'Could be worse,' Amy said. 'Imagine if Mars was your favourite planet. No one there to travel with you.'
The Doctor's smile faltered just for a second.
'Doctor?' Rory said concerned.
'Nothing,' he said. 'Mars. Not my favourite, to be honest.' He looked at Amy. 'And you'd be surprised what you can find on Mars, go back far enough.'
Then he grinned a marvellously huge grin and threw his arms around the shoulders of his friends.
'And now my best friends are covered in sheep dip too!'
They laughed together and kept walking, taking in the English countryside as they headed towards the village. Then the Doctor stopped. His companions stopped too, because they could sense the Doctor's sudden... trepidation?
'What's up?'
The Doctor held up a hand to shush them, cocking his head slightly.
'I can't hear anything...' Rory started, but the Doctor waved him quiet.
'No, Rory, you're right,' he finally said. 'We're in an English village. On a Sunday morning. With a dig. And three strangers arrive in a field in a big blue box. And no one's making a sound. Quietest village in the world, I reckon.'
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'P'raps they're all watching telly in the pub?'
offered Rory.
'1936,' countered the Doctor.
'Listening to the radio?'
'1936,' said Amy. 'Not much on.'
'BBC's quite new,' the Doctor explained. 'And out here, the radio market's not quite so big.'
'So why is it so quiet?'
The Doctor smiled at his friends. 'Let's find out.'
'Or... I have a better plan,' said Rory.
'What's that then?' asked Amy.
'Let's ask Nathaniel Porter.'
The Doctor turned to see their host a little way behind them, just standing there. Watching them.
'Now, what would be the fun in that?' he said. 'I bet he has all the answers.'
'Umm, we want answers?' Amy said.
'Ah yes. Well, yes, we do. But, ask yourself this, do we want his answers or our answers?'
'You're sure they'd be so different?'
'Of course I am. He's the headman, the big boss, the lord and master of whatever this quaint little place is called. He'll have the best answers going.
But I bet they're a bit boring.'
Nathaniel Porter caught them up, a big grin on his face. 'The Manse is this way,' he said, pointing away from the school, and down a long road.
He crossed in front of them and into the village, and the others followed.
As soon as they were on solid road rather than 60
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grass and mud, Rory felt... different. He couldn't explain it, so he chose not to say anything to Amy or the Doctor. But he felt something. Like someone had just walked over his grave.
He hoped this wasn't a portent.
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Chapter
5
They were greeted at the Manse, Nathaniel Porter's vast house, by a man who took great pains to point out, when the Doctor mentioned it, that he wasn't a butler but a gentleman's manservant.
Rory wasn't quite sure what the difference was, but decided that whatever kept the man happy was fine with him. He couldn't be sure if his name was Chidders or Chinners because he spoke with a broad Norfolk accent. (Well, Rory assumed it was a broad Norfolk accent - he wasn't entirely sure he'd know a Norfolk accent if he tripped over it - but it was an accent and very broad.)
Nathaniel Porter himself was a strange man. He was tall and powerfully built, and he carried himself much as Rory expected a Lord of the Manor to carry 63
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himself. Porter was explaining that the Manse had been personally designed by its original owner in 1824 to suit 'his eccentric attitudes'. As local legend had it, Porter told them, calling it 'the Manse' had been a sort of 1824 joke at the expense of a village with no consecrated ground and thus no church or graveyard. 'One of the mysteries of Shalford Heights,' he said pompously, which at least told them where exactly they were.
The Manse wasn't exactly a manor - it was mostly a one-level house, with the only two-storey element being at one side, up a grand staircase leading to what Nathaniel Porter told them were his 'personal rooms'. The front door took them into a semicircular hallway, to the right of which was a small door leading to the kitchen. Beyond that, ranged at equal points, were three corridors that seemed to go straight into darkness. Porter said each corridor led to what he termed a wing - the first led to his study and 'private rooms', and something in the tone of his voice told Rory it was off-limits. Rory knew that, if the Doctor thought the same, it was going to be the first place he'd be trying to explore.
The second corridor led to a small set of guest rooms. At the apex of this were two framed photographs.
'One is Mrs Porter, I imagine?' the Doctor mused.
Nathaniel Porter nodded. 'And my first wife. The staff like to keep them there, watching over them 64
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almost, and Enola doesn't mind. She's not threatened by my past.'
Rory thought that was an odd thing to say, especially to three v
irtual strangers. Perhaps Nathaniel Porter wasn't used to having house guests. Or perhaps he was just a bit weird.
'Wow, there's quite an age difference,' Amy said.
'You old dog,' she winked at their host, tapping the one of Enola.
Nathaniel Porter just looked at the Doctor and said that the third passageway led to a dining room and drawing room that looked out onto the
'magnificent walled garden'.
'And the fourth,' Porter concluded proudly, 'leads to a set of private rooms for my permanent guest.'
He sounded as if he was describing a beloved pet or a child. Whatever, Rory decided, it was a weird way to talk about a guest.
'His name is Oliver Marks. He was a... a friend of my first wife.'
'Ooh,' said Amy. 'So where is the first Mrs Porter?
Under the patio?'
The Doctor shot her a look. '1936,' he hissed.
Then he was all smiles to Nathaniel Porter. 'Ignore Miss Pond, Mr Porter,' he said. 'I'm sorry, we didn't mean to be rude about the first Mrs Porter.'
'These things happen, Doctor,' Nathaniel Porter replied. Then he glanced at Amy. 'And no, Miss Pond, not under the patio. But with no churchyard, she is not buried locally.'
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Amy gave Rory an 000h, I've done it now look, and he tried to smile comfortingly at her, but she was already back to staring round the hallway, spotting some paintings on the walls. 'So, who're this lot, then? Family portraits?' she said, moving on quickly from her faux pas.
Their host shrugged. 'To be honest, I have no idea. They were in the Manse when I obtained it and I have never enquired. I just kept them up as decoration.' He bowed slightly. 'If you will excuse me, I must freshen up before lunch. My man will show you your rooms, then Mrs Stern will provide us with platters of cold meats and salads, if that is satisfactory?'
'More than,' the Doctor said. 'Thank you.'
And Cheggers, or whoever he was, led them down a long, dark and thin corridor that seemed straight but, when Rory looked over his shoulder back to the hallway, he only saw darkness, meaning they must have veered slightly to the left or right without realising it.