They made themselves as comfortable as possible – Clara thought sadly of the great soft bed back in the palace – but the day had been very long, and she quickly fell fast asleep.
Only to wake, suddenly, in the dead of night. She sat up, and peered around, looking for the ambassador, but there was no sign of him. Nor, she realised as she squinted into the darkness, was there any sign of his possessions – they were gone, as if someone had packed up and left. With a sudden insight, and rising sense of dread, she checked around her neck for Guena’s pendant that Guena had given her. Gone.
Clara jumped up. The ambassador could have taken one of only two routes. Either he was heading back down the mountain to the river, or else he was going on ahead. Clara hesitated. Perhaps he had a river route home. She had no way of knowing. All she knew for sure was that back might involve lasers, while ahead would eventually lead to Conrad. She packed hurriedly, and ran on up the mountain.
As it turned out, the ambassador hadn’t got very far. Taking the pendant must have been what had disturbed her sleep, and he was blundering uphill with a woeful lack of stealth. Soft-footedly, Clara slid up behind him, and tapped him on the shoulder. It nearly sent him into orbit. He swung round and stared at her in fright.
‘All right, sunshine,’ she said, as she might when speaking to a particularly irritating Year Seven specimen. ‘What’s going on? Where are you heading? And why have you nicked my necklace?’
For a moment, she thought the ambassador was going to make an undignified run for it. Then he pressed his hands against his chest. ‘Oh, my poor heart.’
‘Lay off the drama,’ she said firmly. The teacher voice was working well on this one. ‘Tell me what you’re up to and where you’re going.’
‘It’s difficult to explain,’ he said. ‘You won’t believe me.’
The first, faintest glimmer of dawn was starting to break through. ‘Try me,’ said Clara. ‘I can believe several impossible things before breakfast.’
—
The hall remained silent. Aurelian’s call to action hung in the air, but nobody answered.
‘What?’ my lord cried. ‘Is there not one of you who will meet this challenge? Where are the knights of Varuz? Have they abandoned their home, their hall, their Duke?’
How my heart went out to Aurelian. Here he stood, in front of his noble guest and those grim men, trying to rally his own knights, but not a single one stepped forwards at his request. He had not deserved this, I thought; for throughout his life, first as knight and then as Duke, he had tried to serve the land and its people. I saw tears in his eyes, but he spoke strongly still.
‘Shame on you!’ he cried, into the silence. ‘Are you nobles of Varuz? Where is your heart? Your strength? Your pride?’
I looked away. My own heart was filled with that shame, because I knew that their loss of faith in Aurelian was in no small part my fault. When I dared to look up at the other nobles, I could see the doubt in their eyes. The arrival of Lancelot had not made them completely forget the scene that had been unfolding beforehand. They knew that Aurelian stood alone. His wife no longer trusted him. And I – they knew – I too had shown that I no longer had faith in him…
‘Nobody?’ said Aurelian.
‘Nobody,’ muttered the Doctor. ‘And good for them. This should put a stop to this whole business…’
I could not bear this any longer. This was not what Aurelian deserved. Stepping forwards, I walked towards him. I saw the palace guard make a move, but I still carried enough sway that they would not touch me willingly, and I reached Aurelian unmolested. We stood face-to-face and eye-to-eye.
‘My lord,’ I said, quietly. ‘I know that you doubt me – and I cannot blame you. I have looked to speak to the representative of our enemy behind your back. I have sought to undermine your policies. But you and I…’ I held out my hands, hoping to make him recall our friendship. ‘We have been closer than brothers. Time and again, we have fought together under the red banner. For years, we walked together along the border passes, denying our enemy, protecting our people. You and I – we both love this land.’
Aurelian looked away from me. ‘And yet only one of us has remained true.’
‘I hope that one day you will understand,’ I said. ‘I am loyal, my lord – to Varuz. Above all I wish to see her people safe.’
Aurelian gave me an angry look. ‘And you say that I do not?’
I was conscious as we were speaking of three things. First, that there was a hushed silence, and my companions-in-arms were listening closely to this exchange. Second, I was aware of the intense scrutiny with which the Doctor was watching me. And last of all, and most strange, I could not help but be alert to the utter impassivity of Lancelot and his company as this scene unfolded before them. They were silent, incurious – almost as if they had absented themselves from the room whilst this exchange happened. They cared nothing for our heartache and our sorrows, for our sense of grief at our division and the strife between us. It meant nothing to them.
‘My lord,’ I said. ‘Of course you are true too – how could anyone doubt that? It is only that we disagree on what is best for Varuz—’
‘And so now you wish to lecture me, yes?’ he said bitterly. ‘You wish to tell me that this is a foolish quest, that I should give up on Varuz and hand her to Conrad? You are a wise man, Bernhardt, but sometimes wisdom leads you to passivity. You think yourself out of action.’
‘You misunderstand me, my lord.’ Slowly, formally, I knelt down before him. ‘Aurelian – you have asked whether there is one of your knights willing to ride with this company. And there is one. I will ride with them, if that is what you desire. I will take up their quest for this Grail, whatever that might be, if you require it. If you believe that this is how I can best serve Varuz.’
Guena, I saw, was shaking her head. But Aurelian said, ‘Yes. Yes, that is what I require.’
And so I lifted my voice so that all present could hear. ‘Knights of Varuz,’ I cried, ‘all of you gathered here – join me now. The Duke requires our loyalty and our unity. So let us show him how we share a common purpose – the love of our lord and our great land. Let us be the knights that we were born to be!’
Aurelian offered me his hands and, taking them, I let him lift me again to my feet. The court was now abuzz. The Doctor came across to me. ‘Bernhardt. You know better than this.’
‘I only know what my duty is, Doctor.’
‘But this is a waste of time! There’s no such thing as the Grail—’
‘What does that matter?’ I said back. ‘Look! Look at the men of the court! They are gathering together at last.’
And it was true. The knights of Varuz, who had been lost, were now taking behind the cause. I turned to Aurelian, and saw what I had longed to see – a glimmer of hope in his eyes where, for years now, there had only been growing despair. I thought, If we can bring some hope to Aurelian, perhaps we can still bring some hope to Varuz…
‘That’s all very well,’ said the Doctor, ‘But is anyone going to tell Aurelian how this story ends? Hey, Lancelot? Are you going to tell him or shall I?’
Now Lancelot spoke to him. Turning to the Doctor, he said, ‘The story has not ended. The quest goes on – and now it is strengthened with new blood.’
Chapter
6
Sitting on the hillside, with the dawn light steadily strengthening around them, Clara listened as the ambassador began his explanation. ‘First,’ he said, ‘I’m going to have to ask you to accept something marvellous and extraordinary.’
‘Go on,’ said Clara.
‘I know you’re a traveller, Clara, but I’m going to ask to you imagine that there are lands beyond the ones you know. Lands that are so distant, you could not travel there in your lifetime, even with the fastest vessel you could imagine.’
Clara smiled. ‘Are you talking about space flight?’
The ambassador stared at her. ‘What?’
‘You are talking
about space flight, aren’t you?’ She laughed. ‘You know, you can skip that bit. You really can.’
‘You know something about space travel?’
‘Oh yes. Chances are I know slightly more about that you do,’ said Clara, and decided not to mention the bit about travelling through time. That might well make things too complicated for now. ‘So you’re not from around these parts, eh? Join the club.’
The ambassador’s eyes widened in shock. ‘You’re not from this world either?’
‘Funny old business, life, isn’t it?’ Clara said. ‘Throws up all sorts of odd coincidences. Who would have thought? Big universe, small world. Yes, I’m an alien too. Just passing, and got all mixed up in something. As usual.’
The ambassador scratched his cheek. ‘This has never happened to me before. A lifetime of travelling, and this has never happened to me before.’
‘No?’ said Clara. ‘You need to get out more. Or visit a better class of planet. The universe is teeming with life. So, go on, what’s the deal? Why are you here? It’s a bit off the beaten track, isn’t it?’
‘It’s true that this world is something of a galactic backwater. But then I suppose that my interests are quite specialist.’
‘Specialist?’ Clara frowned. ‘That sounds like it could be dodgy.’
‘I am interested,’ said the ambassador grandly, ‘in strange and beautiful things.’
‘Well, who isn’t?’ said Clara. ‘But what do you mean, “interested”? Are you an art dealer? A treasure hunter? An archaeologist? You know, you don’t look very much like Indiana Jones.’
Now the ambassador was completely bewildered. ‘Indiana who?’
‘Forget it,’ said Clara. ‘It’ll only complicate things further. What kind of things are you interested in, and why?’
The ambassador gladly took refuge in the safety of this question. ‘I’m a collector,’ he said, proudly.
‘A collector? What do you collect? Stamps? Vinyl? Teapots?’
‘Sometimes, some of those. But mostly I collect interesting devices. Technology and gadgetry from all across the galaxy.’
‘You should come to Earth,’ said Clara.
‘Oh, is that where you’re from?’ The ambassador smiled. ‘That was a very interesting world. Full of trinkets—’
‘Don’t say digital watches,’ muttered Clara.
‘Well, yes, obviously, but not only. I’m interested in how things work, you see. I’m interested in the things that people build and why they make them. It’s usually to make life easier in some way – but not always.’
‘So what did you want with my pendant?’ Seeing the ambassador’s guilty expression, she went on, fiercely: ‘No, I haven’t forgotten, and I’ll have it back, thank you very much.’
Sheepishly, he dug into his pocket and handed it over.
Clara put it back around her neck. Death rays or not, it was hers, and she was keeping it. ‘What did you want this for?’ she said. ‘It’s not a gadget – it’s decorative. Ornamentation. Almost what you might call a frippery. So what do you want with a necklace, assuming you really aren’t just a jewel thief?’
‘I am most certainly not a thief,’ he said hotly.
‘Except for pinching my necklace.’
‘I am sorry. But it was so fascinating…’ His eyes lit up. Clara’s heart sank slightly – she could recognise when someone was about to talk about their hobby. At least it wasn’t football.
‘The technology on this world is very interesting,’ the ambassador said. ‘Not least because it’s localised around one area. A strip of land—’
‘Between the mountains and the sea,’ said Clara. ‘Varuz.’
He nodded. ‘That’s right. Now that in itself would be interesting, in that usually what happens is that technological advances get carried abroad and spread around, but that doesn’t seem to have happened here. Then add to that the fact that I’m not clear how much of their technology still works, and from my short time there it’s clear that the people of Varuz aren’t clear either…It’s all a great puzzle.’
‘They seem to have known how it worked once,’ Clara said. ‘But the secrets got lost.’
‘And sadly there’s not much information about Varuz in my databanks,’ the ambassador said. ‘But from what I’ve been able to gather, the craft to make these devices – the lights, the weapons, whatever else there might still be there – this knowledge was in the hands of a privileged few. Only they were allowed to study and to make – and over the centuries they made huge advances.’
‘What kind of advances?’ Clara said.
‘Well, there are stories that they got to the stars,’ said the alien, ‘but I haven’t been able to find evidence that they did. You’d expect to find some record of them elsewhere…but then this place is a long way out. Perhaps they didn’t meet anyone else while they were travelling. There are other stories too, about incredible weapons. Varuz was the great power on this world, once upon a time, thanks to its superior technology. But their influence waned, their knowledge disappeared, and only the artefacts remained.’
‘Do we know what caused their decline?’ asked Clara.
The alien shrugged. ‘Could be anything. Overreached themselves. Economic collapse. Plague. The usual things.’
‘And they left everything around for people to pick up…’ Clara touched her pendant.
‘And these were so well made that many of them continue to function,’ the alien said. ‘They must seem like magic now, to most ordinary people. But they’re not. They’re built. They’re crafted. And that’s what I want to study. Your pendant…’ He gestured towards it. ‘It will have some kind of purpose. I just haven’t had the chance to find out what that is.’
Clara clasped her hand around the jewel. ‘You know a lot about this.’
‘It’s not my main area of interest,’ he said, ‘but it’s an interesting side line.’
‘What do you do with all this stuff, when you have it?’ Clara said. ‘Do you sell it?’
‘What?’ He looked shocked. ‘Didn’t you hear me say? I’m a collector.’
‘A collector. So you hide it all away in a vault somewhere?’
‘I take care of it, yes,’ he said. ‘Under proper conditions.’
‘I can guess.’ Clara frowned. ‘Seems a shame for it all to disappear like that.’
He looked almost childishly hurt. ‘I look at my collection all the time, when I’m home,’ he said. ‘I take good care of it. I love every single piece.’
‘All right, I believe you! So what’s brought you here? You weren’t after my pendant, were you? And you said that Varuz was just an interesting side line…’ She sat back on her heels. ‘I don’t even know your name! I can’t keep calling you “ambassador”, can I? On account of you not being one.’
He smiled. ‘No, I suppose not. My name is Emfil.’ The last syllable was lengthened: Em-feeeel. ‘And, no, it wasn’t your pendant that brought me here, although, as I say, it’s very interesting.’
Clara looked down at it uneasily. ‘The Doctor said it was emitting some kind of energy.’
‘It is. It’s also stuffed with circuitry.’
‘Is it?’
Emfil nodded. He reached over to his pack, and pulled out a gadget which Clara assumed was a scanner of some sort. He ran this over the jewel, and then showed Clara the image on the screen: a complex pattern of tiny wires and links, as intricate as the metalwork on the setting, and obviously engineered in some way.
‘Definitely not frippery,’ she murmured. ‘So what does it do?’
Emfil shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea. Didn’t the Duchess say?’
Clara shook her head. ‘She might not know herself, if what you said about lost secrets is true. She might think it’s just a necklace.’ She glanced at Emfil. ‘But that isn’t what brought you here, you said. So what did?’
Emfil looked very uncomfortable. ‘I can’t say.’
‘Oh, come on,’ Clara said. ‘No secrets between
fellow alien visitors to distant worlds who’ve accidentally got themselves banished by the local feudal lord.’
Emfil looked serious. ‘You promise you won’t laugh?’
Clara put her hand on the pendant. ‘I swear upon my mysterious jewellery.’
‘All right,’ said Emfil. ‘As long as you promise not to laugh.’ His voice went quiet, and very serious. ‘I’m looking for a treasure more precious than any other,’ he said. ‘A treasure with more legends and stories attached to it than any other.’ His voice dropped so that she could barely hear. Clara leaned forward. ‘It’s called,’ said Emfil, ‘the Glamour.’
‘The what?’
‘The Glamour.’
Clara frowned.
Emfil leaned in eagerly. ‘Have you heard something about it?’
‘No,’ said Clara. ‘I thought you were going to say something else.’
—
My decision made, I took myself to my rooms, and contemplated the quest to which I had committed myself. Was this course folly? Would it only hasten the end of our dear land? To take away the knights at this stage…But having seen Aurelian standing alone, I knew that I could not have acted in any other way. I closed my eyes, but I was not allowed to rest for long, as soon enough there was a knock at the door. In a quiet voice, I summoned my visitor to come inside.
It was the Doctor. He came inside and sat down opposite me.
‘Don’t go,’ he urged me. ‘There’s no purpose in you going – any of you. You have to believe me when I say that Grail doesn’t exist. These knights – they’re chasing a chimera, a mirage.’
‘Doctor,’ I said, ‘you are a wise man, but in this you seem to be strangely blind. Whether the Grail exists or not does not matter.’
‘Oh, Bernhardt! You’re not listening—!’
‘Doctor – now is the time for you to listen.’ I rested my hands flat upon my knees. ‘This Grail – it is immaterial whether or not we can find this thing. What matters is that by taking on this quest, I have restored my lord’s faith in me, and, in doing that, I have restored the confidence of his knights in him. And that, Doctor – that is a pearl beyond price.’
Doctor Who: Royal Blood (Glamour Chronicles, Book 1) Page 7