Tevana stood. She seemed to Ace an eerie figure, so quiet and restrained in the midst of the evening’s turmoil, so deathly pale, with a trail of bright blood down her neck. She turned towards Kedin. She didn’t smile.
Oh, no, Ace thought. I can’t bear it. It’s too awful. Vethran had made sure of Tevana before he even brought her to the throne room. Ace remembered the guards arriving at the door of Tevana’s cell: they had brought food and drink. That was probably when it had happened.
Kedin was backing away from Tevana as she advanced towards him. His mouth and eyes were wide with shock.
‘Madok!’ Ace almost screamed. ‘Get up here! Kedin needs you!’
She looked from Tevana to Kedin.
I can’t handle this, she thought. I’m off to find the Doctor.
Chapter Six
There had been nothing Madok could do for Kedin. In the end he had posted guards around the gallery in the throne room, and given orders that the Duke was not to be disturbed. He left Kedin sitting on the throne, cradling Tevana in his lap.
Kedin had stopped weeping: he was simply rocking back and forth with his eyes closed. His grief was inconsolable.
Then Madok had done his best to help Ace. He couldn’t blame her for the resentment he saw in her eyes whenever she looked at him. He deserved every pang of guilt she made him feel. He introduced her to Lafed, from whom they had learnt about the Doctor’s meeting with Kedin on the eve of the attack on the city. He had sought out the leader of the escaped Twos, a simple but imposing man named Bep-Wor, who had recounted the story of the Doctor saving most of a consignment of Twos from enslavement, and then the tale of the Doctor’s capture by Vethran.
As Bep-Wor’s account led inexorably towards the Doctor’s death, Madok felt a wave of hopelessness overwhelm him. He was utterly weary. It seemed like years since he had last rested; sleep was a state he had forgotten. He was drained of all energy, and yet he knew he would have to find from somewhere great reserves of compassion. As Ace realised that her friend the Doctor was gone for ever, she would need Madok’s comfort and support.
It came as a surprise, therefore, and something of a disappointment, that Ace appeared unmoved by Bep-Wor’s harrowing tale of the Doctor’s poisoning.
Madok had expected her to turn to him with tears in her eyes. Perhaps, he had thought, she would collapse into his arms, and he would stroke her hair as he tried to summon words of sympathy and consolation.
In the event she had tutted and said, ‘Silly old sod. Where’s his body, then?’
He led Ace to the plaza inside the palace gates. Bep-Wor insisted on accompanying them, and Bep-Wor’s followers could not be dissuaded from coming too. Many of Lafed’s men, along with some of the King’s guards, followed the crowd. The plaza became as crowded as the throne room had been, and the throne room became empty but for Kedin, Tevana and their guards.
Ace punched Madok’s arm. ‘Nice one, eh?’ she said with a grin, pointing to the ruins of the palace wall.
Was it possible that Ace had engineered the breach in the wall that had allowed Lafed’s troops to take the palace?
Madok told himself that he should simply admit that where Ace was concerned anything was possible.
‘You, my lady?’ he said.
‘You bet,’ Ace said. ‘A neat piece of demolition, I reckon.’
Madok managed to smile. ‘Indeed, my lady. But look.’ He sighed, and lifted his arm to indicate the row of gibbets lining the thoroughfare from the gates to the central block of the palace.
‘Oh my god,’ Ace said. ‘That’s grisly.’
Six of the cages were occupied. The bodies inside them were in varying stages of decomposition.
‘Which is the Doctor?’ Madok said gently.
‘The one with the silly hat,’ Ace said. She picked out the cage containing the freshest body: a small man, lolling within the iron bands that would have held a larger body upright.
‘Well, get him down,’ Ace said.
Madok gave the order. He looked searchingly at Ace’s face.
Had she misunderstood? Did she not realise that the bodies in the cages were dead? Or was she unable to accept the truth?
The Twos were maintaining a mournful chanting of the Doctor’s name. It was beginning to irritate Madok. Was there no one who realised that this crumpled little man was just a shell: the lifeless husk of the man who had once lived?
The Doctor’s body was laid on the cobblestones. Ace knelt beside it. She put her ear to his chest.
‘One heart’s out of action,’ she reported. ‘And if he’s breathing it’s very shallow.’
‘He’s dead, Ace,’ Madok snapped. ‘In heaven’s name, come away.’ He couldn’t bear to see her deceive herself. But she ignored him, and began to shout into the Doctor’s ears, and slap his face.
There was, of course, no response.
‘Hello,’ Ace said, ‘what’s this?’ The encircling crowd of Twos gasped. Ace had found something in the Doctor’s mouth.
Under Madok’s appalled gaze she began to prise apart the corpse’s jaws.
The inside of the Doctor’s mouth looked like an oily well. It was as black as tar. Madok grimaced as Ace inserted her fingers, making exclamations of disgust.
She pulled from the Doctor’s mouth a slick serpent of black matter. It slithered between her fingers like jelly, issuing from the Doctor’s mouth in ripples and falling on the cobbles in quivering coils. It seemed as though it would never stop.
‘That’s well disgusting,’ Ace said. She shook drops of the substance from her fingers. The Doctor coughed, and a gobbet of black mucus exploded from his mouth. The Twos cried out.
The Doctor sat up. ‘I quite agree, Ace,’ he said. ‘I haven’t tasted anything as unpleasant as that since the last time you offered to make me a real English fry-up.’ He looked around at the stunned faces of the crowd. ‘I take it I’ve been unconscious for some time.’ He stood, with Ace’s support. It was touch and go, I can tell you. I’ve had to regenerate most of my internal organs. Have I missed anything important?’
‘No,’ Ace told him, ‘unless you count armed rebellion and the dethroning of a King as important. Otherwise it’s been very dull. You’ve obviously been making an impression, though.’
The Twos were beside themselves with joy. Their chant of
‘Doctor! Doctor!’ was so loud it made Madok’s head ring. Bep-Wor was on his knees at the Doctor’s feet, gazing up in an ecstasy of wonder.
The Doctor shook his head, as if he too found that the chanting made it difficult for him to think clearly. ‘Ace,’ he said. ‘I left you on the space station. Did anything happen to you? Was there any trouble?’
Madok wondered how Ace would reply. She had, after all, been betrayed by Kedin and Madok, and had spent almost a week as a slave. Madok wasn’t impressed by the Doctor’s appearance, but he didn’t want to be on the wrong side of anyone who had the power to cheat death. He exchanged a look with Ace.
‘Nothing I couldn’t handle,’ Ace said, airily. ‘These days I can look after myself, you know.’
Madok stepped forward. He extended his hand. The Doctor looked at it, and then appeared to remember the correct procedure. He took it and shook it. ‘I am astonished, sir,’
Madok said, ‘but very pleased to see you so well. I am delighted to meet any friend of my lady Ace. I am Madok, sir, aide to Kedin Ashar.’
‘Lady!’ the Doctor snorted. ‘Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Madok. I hope you’ve been taking care of Ace. And how is Kedin, by the way?’
Madok and Ace exchanged another glance. ‘Not good,’ Ace said. ‘You’d better come and see.’
* * *
Bep-Wor stood at the tall window and looked out across the courtyard. Beyond it there were more solid, stone-built extensions of the palace; beyond them the sea of roofs of the city houses; in the distance, the surrounding, forested mountains. He longed to see the ocean.
It would have been unthinkable to refuse Kedin�
�s hospitality. How could say that he didn’t want this suite of high-ceilinged rooms, that he preferred his filthy rags to these heavy, itchy clothes, that the endless exquisite meals tasted bland and too rich?
He would have liked a simple meal of seared fish.
The convoluted carvings on the furniture made him uncomfortable, as did the extravagant patterns on the flouncy curtains. He wasn’t used to walking on floor-coverings into which his feet sank.
On the open sea, or tilling the fields, on his home world, he had felt alive. Following the Doctor, freeing his people, flirting with danger as he led his growing army across the foreign landscape - then, too, he had felt alive.
Now he felt nothing. No - that wasn’t true. He forced himself to look again at Kia-Ga. She hadn’t moved: after all, he hadn’t told her to. She was sitting, very upright, in one of the gilt-decorated chairs, her hands folded in her lap. In her borrowed clothes she seemed more distant from him then ever.
He turned away. What he felt, rising again from the pit of his stomach, swamping every other emotion, was hopelessness.
The Doctor had saved him from Kia-Ga’s fate. The Doctor had proved he could revive the dead. Surely he could easily restore Kia-Ga, and all of Bep-Wor’s people who had been poisoned and enslaved? Then why was there no word? What was taking so long?
Had the Doctor abandoned him?
There was a knock on the door. Bep-Wor leapt to his feet: perhaps this was a message from the Doctor. He ran to the door and opened it.
Madok stood in the corridor outside.
‘Bep-Wor,’ he said, ‘the session of the Grand Council is ended. Kedin Ashar has asked specifically for you and Kia-Ga to attend the announcement of its deliberations.’
Bep-Wor nodded dumbly. What did the Grand Council matter to him? He didn’t understand the complex structure of the society on this world. He had grasped that, thanks to Vethran’s plans to proclaim himself even more absolutely the ruler of both his own world and Bep-Wor’s, all of the most important people were already gathered in and around the palace. It had therefore been possible to summon a great meeting on the day after the overthrow of Vethran. The Grand Council had been in session for hours.
‘Would you care to follow me?’ Madok said. He looked expectantly from Bep-Wor to Kia-Ga.
Bep-Wor nodded again, and went to whisper instructions to Kia-Ga. He could feel Madok’s eyes on him. He knew Madok was a good man, but he hated the way that, like everyone else here, he treated Kia-Ga as if she were in her right mind.
She’s not like this, Bep-Wor wanted to shout. This isn’t my Kia-Ga. This is a shell, a doll made to look like her. My Kia-Ga looks at me from the corner of her eye as she drinks cold beer at the beach; she dances as she walks; she tells lewd jokes and laughs before she finishes them; she clenches her warm thighs around my waist and makes me gasp. I want her back. I can’t go on without her.
With Kia-Ga at his side he followed Madok along the crimson-carpeted corridor.
The proclamation was to be made in the throne room. Bep-Wor saw that the broken glass and damaged furniture had been removed, but there were still bullet-holes in the plinths of statues. And small, winged animals, able to fly through the shattered roof of the dome, were circling above the heads of the assembly. Once again the enormous room was crammed with people.
To Bep-Wor’s surprise Madok escorted him and Kia-Ga up the steps to the gallery. The throne was empty, but the row of chairs on either side of it was occupied. Bep-Wor recognised among those sitting along the gallery the Doctor, Ace, Lafed and Tevana. Madok offered Bep-Wor a seat, and Bep-Wor took his place in the row, with Kia-Ga beside him.
Feeling on display and selfconscious, Bep-Wor waited. The crowd below, many of them wearing ornate uniforms, or jewels and precious metals sewn into their colourful clothes, carried on so many animated conversations that the air in the dome seemed to vibrate with the noise.
Bep-Wor wondered whether he would offend against etiquette if he were to stand up, go to the Doctor and insist on hearing what the Doctor had done to find a cure for Kia-Ga, and all the other people from Bep-Wor’s world who had been poisoned. He was gathering the courage to do so when the hubbub from below suddenly ceased.
A tall man with a lined face was climbing the stairs. At the top he turned, waited until the silence was complete, and addressed the assembly.
First of all the man made sure that the members of the new Council were present, and that also in the room were representatives of the guilds of the city and of the army.
Bep-Wor didn’t understand all of the words and expressions that the man used in his speech, which was a report on the decisions reached by the Grand Council. He gathered that Vethran’s claim to be a king was a crime, and that Vethran had therefore never been a king. All laws passed by Vethran were bad laws, and were no longer in force. For some reason the man spoke particularly about the property rights of women, which he said had been diminished by Vethran.
There seemed to be a never-ending list of decisions.
Vethran’s personal estates were to be administered by the Council; each nobleman - or noblewoman, the man stressed -
would have legal authority in his or her own lands; but in cases of disputes, or in matters such as trade and dealings with other worlds, the Council would have the ultimate power.
Bep-Wor had almost stopped listening when the man started to make announcements about the people from Bep-Wor’s world. All Twos were to be freed, without compensation being paid to their owners, and would be taken home to their own planet. People who had profited from the trade in Twos would be made to pay for the rebuilding of the houses destroyed by Vethran’s army on Mendeb Two.
‘And finally,’ the man announced, ‘it was the unanimous decision of the Councillors that the Council shall be led by Kedin Ashar, Duke of Jerrissar.’
Waves of thundering applause crashed against the gallery.
Bep-Wor almost recoiled from its intensity. He formed the impression that Vethran had been unpopular, despite his military successes, and that Kedin was genuinely well liked.
Kedin, his head bowed, walked from the side of the gallery to its centre. He lifted his head, and the crowd cheered. He turned, and began to extend his hand towards Tevana. Bep-Wor saw his hand falter, and his head droop. Bep-Wor knew how he felt.
Kedin turned again to face the crowd, and lifted his arms for silence.
‘My lords,’ he began. ‘My ladies. My friends. I have done nothing but restore the customary governance of our world. I neither want, nor will I accept, any reward. There are others -
and I intend to thank them soon - who did more than me.
And no reward could recompense me for the loss I have endured.’
As Kedin turned again to look at Tevana, Bep-Wor saw the glint of tears in his eyes.
‘I accept the leadership of the Council,’ Kedin went on. ‘Not because I believe I merit the position but because it will give me an opportunity to serve you all. What I will never accept,’
he said, is this.’ He turned, and with surprising strength he hauled the throne to the front of the gallery. Stand clear below,’ he shouted, and with a twisted smile on his lips he pushed the throne over the edge. Bep-Wor heard it land with a splintering crash. The crowd roared its approval.
‘And now,’ Kedin continued, ‘it is time to record the deeds of those who struggled to end the tyrant’s reign. I will not list here the names of those from my own household who gave their loyalty, their energy, and in some cases their lives. Their duty was to follow me, and they did their duty. Others, however, had no obligation, but nonetheless fought bravely in the cause. Their names will be written in the account that will be published in every domain and posted in every town and village. Without them we would not be free now from tyranny, and I will not allow them to be forgotten. First, I present to you Bep-Wor.’
Bep-Wor stared at Kedin, who was scanning the row of seats. Kedin’s searching gaze found Bep-Wor. Kedin gestured for h
im to stand.
As Bep-Wor rose stiffly from his seat, the crowd burst into applause.
‘Bep-Wor and his comrades are the living proof that Twos are not naturally slaves. On his home planet, Mendeb Two, his people live as freely as we do. Vethran’s armies conquered Bep-Wor’s world; Vethran’s technicians created the potion that enslaved Bep-Wor’s captured people.’ Kedin hung his head. ‘I confess that I assisted Vethran in both crimes.’
Kedin extended his arm towards Bep-Wor. ‘Bep-Wor avoided the potion. He found himself stranded on an alien world, where every hand was turned against him. Did he falter? No: he organised. He led a group of his people from the landing site to here, where Vethran’s troops captured them. He escaped from the dungeons, and led his people up from the depths to emerge here, in Vethran’s throne room, at precisely the right time to undermine Vethran’s last defences.
You were invaluable, Bep-Wor, and you are a credit to your people. When you go home we will remain in communication.’
Kedin rekindled the applause. Bep-Wor bowed, and continued to bow until the applause died. He sat down. He felt nothing.
‘Next,’ Kedin said, ‘I would like to thank the man who helped Bep-Wor and his comrades to avoid taking the potion, and who kept Bep-Wor’s Twos alive during their journey from Mendeb Two. He is known only as the Doctor.’
Bep-Wor leant forward to peer along the row of seats. The Doctor was reluctant to stand, and did so only when the strange young woman called Ace pushed him from his chair.
Wringing his hands he uncomfortably acknowledged the applause of the crowd.
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