Chapter 8
An Execution is Arranged
Because, of course, Odysseus had only seemed to storm off into the middle distance. For he was never a man to let his judgement be clouded by controversy, however boisterous, and he had been much struck by the Doctor’s claiming to be a man alone – and therefore harmless.
He didn’t believe for a moment that the Doctor was harmless, and therefore assumed logically that he was probably not alone, either. And he felt he should have thought of that before – and went scouring the night for the support forces.
It was this sort of reasoning which made him the most dangerous of all the Greek captains; this, and an arrogant independence of spirit which made it difficult at times to diagnose his motives, or to forecast which way he would jump in a crisis.
Well, on this occasion it was Steven he jumped on. Personally, I was well concealed in a clump of cactus I wasn’t too fond of; but Steven had elected to climb into a small tree, where he looked ridiculously conspicuous against the rising moon, rather like a ’possum back on the old plantation. And the hound-dog had him in no time at all.
Oh, a well set-up fellow Steven may have been, who’d done his share of amateur athletics during training, but he was patently no match for Odysseus who was like nothing you’d meet in the second eleven on a Saturday knock-about. So he was hauled from his perch in very short order and with scant ceremony.
‘So, what have we here?’ said the hero, grinning like a hound-dog that had thought as much. ‘Another god, perhaps?’
You couldn’t blame Steven for not rising to the occasion as he might have done had the circumstances been different – and if he’d known what Odysseus was talking about.
‘I am a traveller,’ he announced, lamely. ‘I had lost my way, and I saw the light.’
Very likely, I must say. He didn’t look as if he’d seen the light. Odysseus snorted, to indicate his opinion of this closely reasoned alibi.
‘Come,’ he said, having concluded the snort, ‘at least you are the god Apollo to walk invisible past sentries?’
Steven attempted injured innocence. ‘What sentries?’ he inquired, ‘I saw no sentries.’
‘Did you not? Well, maybe they are sleeping – and with a knife between their ribs, I’ll wager! Shall we go seek them together? Or would that be a foolish waste of time? Well, the light attracted you, you say? Then little moth, go singe your wings.’
Of course, no twelve stone man likes to be called ‘little moth’ – but there’s not much he can do about it, if he’s hurtling through a tent-flap, like an arrow from a bow. So he let the remark pass for the moment, and presently found himself in the centre of a circle of surprised but interested faces – one of whom, he was glad to notice, was the Doctor. Nevertheless – difficult, the whole thing.
‘And who is it this time?’ asked Agamemnon, reasonably enough. His tea was being constantly interrupted by one air-borne, hand-hurled stranger after another.
Odysseus positively purred with complacent triumph. ‘My prisoner, the god Apollo,’ he announced, smiling. So might Pythagoras have murmured QED, on finding he could balance an equation with the best of them. ‘Achilles, will you not worship him? Fall to your knees? He is, of course, another Trojan spy – but of such undoubted divinity that he must be spared.’ He was enjoying his little moment. Steven did his best to spoil it for him.
‘I’m not a Trojan,’ he asserted firmly, ‘I did tell you I’m a traveller – well, a sort of traveller – and I lost my way.’
Well, it did get a laugh, but not the sort he wanted, by any means. Sarcastic, it was. They looked as if they’d heard that one before. In danger, he realised, of losing his audience, he appealed to the Doctor. ‘Look here, you seem to have made friends quickly enough. Explain who I am, can’t you?’
‘Ah,’ chirrupped Odysseus, ‘so you do know each other then? In that case no further explanation is necessary. You must certainly be from Olympus and the gods are always welcome. I ask your pardon. Drop in any time.’
‘Well,’ enquired Agamemnon of the Doctor, packing a wealth of menace into the syllable, ‘have you nothing to say?’
Surprisingly, especially to Steven, the Doctor looked puzzled.
‘I have never seen this man before in my life!’ he lied stoutly, with a dismissive wave of his ham-bone, ‘He is, of course, merely trying to trick you.’
Steven, for his part, looked as if he’d aways expected his ears sometimes to deceive him – and now his friends were adopting the same policy.
‘How can you sit there,’ he stammered, ‘and deny –’ Words failed him, and just as well too, because Agamemnon had heard quite enough of them to be going on with...
‘Silence,’ he barked, clarifying this position. ‘Take him away, Odysseus. Why must I be troubled with every petty, pestilential prisoner? First cut out his tongue for insolence, then make an end!’
But Odysseus was after bigger game. ‘Softly now. Suppose we are mistaken, and the man is just an innocent traveller, as he told us? I could never sleep easily again, were I to kill him while any doubt remained. Remorse would gnaw at my vitals – and I wouldn’t want that. All-seeing Zeus – this man who presumptiously claimed your friendship... is he a spy or not?’
The Doctor looked bored with the whole subject. ‘I neither know nor care. I must say, it looks very much as if he is.’
‘And shall he be put to death?’
‘I would strongly advise it,’ recommended the Doctor, blandly, ‘it would be very much safer, on the whole. Can’t be too careful, can you?’
An air of business having been concluded pervaded the meeting. Open season on spies having been declared, Achilles and Odysseus, unanimous for once, drew their swords and advanced on the wretched Steven.
At which point, the Doctor rose imperiously. ‘Stop,’ he commanded not a moment too soon, ‘Have you lost your senses the pair of you?’ The two heroes paused in mid-execution.
‘Ah, now we have it,’ grinned Odysseus, ‘On second thoughts, Zeus decides we should release him to return to Troy!’
‘Do not mock me, Lord Odysseus! What, would you stain the tent of Agamemnon with a Trojan’s blood?’
Personally, I didn’t think one stain more or less would be noticed, but rhetoric must be served, I suppose, and the Doctor warmed to his theme accordingly. ‘I claim this quavering traitor as a sacrifice to Olympus! Bring him therefore to my temple in the plain at sunrise tomorrow, and then I will show you a miracle!’
Here he contrived a covert wink at Steven, who seemed to think it was about time for something of the sort.
‘A miracle, eh?’ mused Odysseus. ‘Well, that, of course, would be most satisfactory.’ Even Menelaus perked up, and looked quite excited at the prospect.
‘Conclusive proof, I would say,’ he judged; and then spoilt it all by adding, ‘of something or other.’
But Agamemnon wanted tomorrow’s programme itemised. ‘And exactly what sort of miracle do you intend to show us?’ he enquired.
The Doctor improvized... ‘Why – I shall – er – I shall strike him with a thunderbolt from Heaven! That’ll teach him!’
‘Oh, very spectacular!’ approved Odysseus. ‘Well, we shall see. Our weather is so unpredictable. And tomorrow, if there is no thunder on the plain, I have a sword will serve for two, as well as one.’
As if to confirm his doubts, the next day dawned to a heavy drizzle. But you can’t beat a good public execution for box-office; and in spite of the rain, quite a crowd of those concerned assembled to enjoy the spectacle.
The two principals, Steven and the Doctor, were there, of course. And both Agamemnon and Odysseus were in close support, together with a motley assemblage of the brutal and licentious, come to see the fun.
But Achilles wasn’t there – he was sulking in his tent again, having had his triumph postponed in favour of the major attraction.
And Menelaus wasn’t – he had a hangover.
And one other essential i
tem was missing: not a temple of Zeus was to be seen anywhere!
Overnight the TARDIS had vanished.
Chapter 9
Temple Fugit
At first, the Doctor and Steven took the panic-stricken assumption that Vicki had somehow dematerialized the TARDIS, by sitting down on the control panel, or something; but, in fact, she had done nothing of the sort – and just as well for everybody.
No, at that very moment, the poor child was being shaken about like a ticket in a tombola, as Prince Paris and a patrol of Trojans trundled the time-machine into Troy, as spoils of war!
Somehow they had contrived to get the thing up onto rollers, and were bumping it along in a way that boded no good to its already erratic mechanism – or to Vicki’s either, come to that.
But, of course, we weren’t to know that at the time, and the Doctor looked as foolish as a conjuror, who, about to produce the promised rabbit, discovers he’s left it in his other hat!
‘It should be somewhere here,’ he temporized. ‘Or perhaps further to the left... it’s extremely hard to say. These sand-hills are so much alike...’
‘Or, perhaps, Father Zeus, the weight of centuries has made you absent-minded?’ suggested Odysseus, nastily. ‘You’re quite sure, now, that you ever had a temple?’
‘Of course I had, you must have seen it yourself! Every god has a temple, has to have, or people stop believing in you in no time...’
‘Precisely my point. And what I saw yesterday didn’t strike me as being particularly ecclesiastical. More like a sort of rabbit-hutch,’ he explained to the others.
‘Nothing of the sort! Ask Achilles, if you don’t believe me; he saw it materialize.’
‘So he said. But then, Achilles will say anything to be the centre of attention. In any case, unfortunately for you, he’s not here. No doubt he felt he’d championed a losing cause and held it tactful to be absent.’
The skies had blown clear by now, but not before the rains had softened the ground, and Agamemnon was casting about for tracks, like an over-weight boar-hound. ‘ Something has been here,’ he admitted, indicating the furrows in the mud, left by the TARDIS, ‘Look...’
‘Aye, and someone, too,’ agreed Odysseus, ‘some several tracks which lead across to Troy! Enough of this foolishness! Your friends in the city have doubtless thought your ruse successful, and reclaimed their own.’
‘They’ve captured it, you mean,’ contradicted the Doctor, ‘you must help me to get it back – and at once.’
‘And walk into a trap, of course? Yes, you’d like that I’m sure. Admit your fault. Lord Agamemnon, these men are both spies.’
‘So it would begin to seem,’ said the general, reluctantly. ‘Very well, bring forward the prisoner. Now, Father Zeus, – you have but one chance left to prove yourself. Kill this Trojan, as you promised.’
Odysseus tapped a sandal impatiently. ‘Yes, fling a thunderbolt – or do something to rise to the occasion.’
The Doctor was beginning to run out of steam. ‘But I tell you, the sacrifice can only be performed within the temple. Didn’t I mention that?’
‘Yes, yes, yes... which temple is now in Troy, and therefore will we give you leave to go there? Just so. Well, I, for one, have heard enough. Perhaps Lord Agamemnon here will still believe... until he reads your war memoirs.’
The game was obviously up, and the Doctor knew it. He looked at the vicious circle of angry, disbelieving faces and he smiled sadly. ‘Yes, quite so. There is no need to labour the point. I am not Zeus, of course, and this man is my friend. But I ask you to believe that neither of us is a Trojan.’
Brave of him, I thought, but his honesty proved useless.
‘I care not who you are,’ roared Agamemnon. ‘Seize him! It is enough that you have trifled with my credulity, and made me look a fool, in front of my captains.’
‘Oh, don’t say that,’ soothed Odysseus, pouring oil on troubled flames. ‘Rest assured we shall never hold it against you. A song or two, perhaps, about the fire, telling how Agamemnon dined with Zeus, and begged a Trojan prisoner for advice. But nothing detrimental!’
Agamemnon controlled himself with the difficulty he always experienced. ‘Well – very well, Odysseus, enjoy your little joke. I shall not forget your part in this – you brought them both to camp, remember! Now, finish the business, and be brief. And do not bring their bodies back. Let them rot here, disembowelled and unburied, as a gift to the blow-flies and a warning to their fellows...’
‘Aye, in a very little while, O great commander. But first, Lord of men, since we have two Trojans all alive, may I not question them? Just a formality, of course, unimportant trifles, like their army’s present strength and future plans.’
‘As you wish. Drag what information you can from them, and as painfully as possible. Then report to me – and don’t delay. The sun is up; patrols are out, and, much as I might welcome it myself, we can’t afford to lose you – at the moment!’
‘You are very kind,’ smiled Odysseus, with a mocking bow; and Agamemnon splashed angrily off through the mud, at the head of his sniggering soldiers.
Odysseus watched them go. Then, turning to his two terrified prisoners, he drew his great bronze sword, and wiped it thoughtfully on his sleeve.
They watched the manoeuvre with fascinated horror. He plucked a hair from his beard, and tested it appraisingly on the blade’s edge. It fell in two, without a detectable struggle. They closed their eyes and waited for the end.
‘It’s all right,’ said Odysseus, ‘I was only going to lean on it.’ He did so, folding his tattooed arms on the ornate hilt.
They opened their eyes, wondering if perhaps there was a future to face after all. ‘And now then, mannikins, first of all, tell me who you really are!’
I told you he was different from all the other Greeks, didn’t I? You never knew where you were with Odysseus.
Chapter 10
The Doctor Draws a Graph
‘But I thought you’d already made up your mind who we are,’ said Steven, after a surprised pause. ‘Trojan spies, I think you said?’
Odysseus laughed, in that sabre-toothed, ceramic-shattering way of his. ‘Aye – and so at first I thought. And so, later, I was content to have that fool, Agamemnon, believe.’
‘Well, I’m glad you’ve revised your opinion,’ said the Doctor. ‘So who do you think we are now?’
‘I do not know. Your costume is not Trojan, and your posturing as Zeus was so absurd, I do not think Trojan wit could sink so low.’
‘I did not posture. How dare you! I merely met Achilles, and...’
‘He thrust the role upon you? This I can believe. That muscle-bound body-building Narcissus fears his shadow in the sunshine, will not so much as comb his hair until he reads the new day’s auguries. He is so god-fearing that he sees them everywhere – and trembles at ’em all. But I am not Achilles... No, and you are not a Trojan. So, I ask again, who are you?’
‘I think we’d better tell him, Doctor,’ said Steven.
‘A doctor now? Hippocrates are you? Have a care...’
‘Nothing of the sort – I am a doctor of science not medicine.’
‘A doctor of what?’ enquired Odysseus, puzzled.
‘Oh, dear me, this is obviously going to take some time. I mean, if I have to keep defining my terms.’
‘Define what you like – but remember the terms are mine not yours! And I shall be patient. Only this time, if you value your lives, do not lie to me.’
So the Doctor began to explain about the TARDIS. A difficult task, obviously, because how do you describe a time-machine to a man who has never even heardof Euclid, never mind Einstein? Of course, up till then, I’d never heard of them myself, but I must say I found the whole concept fascinating. Odysseus however seemed to be labouring somewhere between incredulity and incomprehension, and only brightened up when they came to the stories about their previous adventures – which he naturally would, being something of an adventurer himself
.
Nevertheless a longship isn’t a TARDIS by any means, and personally I wouldn’t have bet much on their chances of being believed, or of getting away with their skins in the sort of condition they would wish. I think the Doctor realized this, and eventually ground to a somewhat stammering standstill, leaving Steven to wind things up:
‘... and so really, we arrived in your time, Odysseus, quite by accident. Just another miscalculation of the Doctor, here.’
‘I wouldn’t call it a miscalculation, my boy! In fact, with all eternity to choose from, I think a margin of error of a century or so is quite understandable. No, I think I’ve done rather well to get us to Earth at all!’
‘I’m glad you’re so pleased with yourself! I suppose I should be grateful for being about to have my throat cut?’
Odysseus turned from a space-time graph which the Doctor had drawn in the sand, and erased it scornfully with his foot. ‘Now, now, no one has mentioned cutting throats!’
‘Of course they haven’t,’ said the Doctor, seizing on the vital point.
‘No,’ continued Odysseus, reassuringly, ‘I had some-thing rather more painful in mind – painful and lingering for the both of you.’ He scowled. ‘As it is, however, I haven’t quite decided.’
If the Doctor had a fault, it was that he never knew when to leave well alone. Interested in everything, he was. ‘Some form of ritual death, no doubt? That is quite customary, I believe, among primitive peoples. Fascinating.’
‘Doctor, will you please be quiet? I’m afraid I don’t share your admirable scientific detachment! Listen, Odysseus; my friend didn’t mean to imply that you were primitive.’
The hero roused himself from his reverie. ‘Didn’t he? Oh, but I am – extremely primitive! I have none of the urban sophistication of my friend, Agamemnon. In fact, some people have gone so far as to call me an uncouth, barbarian pirate! They haven’t lived long afterwards, mark you, but they’ve said it. And they were quite right. That, perhaps, is why I am tempted to believe you.’
Doctor Who: The Myth Makers Page 4