Doctor Who_ Castrovalva Part 10

The Doctor's eyebrow lifted. 'Four pharmacies, in a little place like this?'

Mergrave sounded surprised. 'No sir. I have but one.'

'You've drawn it four times,' the Doctor felt bound to point out.

'It may be approached, sir, by many different routes.'

Mergrave appeared quite baffled at the Doctor's inability to grasp the obvious.

The Doctor looked hard into Mergrave's eyes. Then he raised the gla.s.s in his hand and sipped it slowly with every sign of satisfaction. ' Valeriana officinalis Valeriana officinalis...' he p.r.o.nounced, ' Santicula europaea Santicula europaea... and just a hint of rosemary.'

'I see you understand medicine, Doctor!'

'Not as well as you do,' said the Doctor, setting down the empty gla.s.s. 'But I'm afraid that one of us is a little deluded about Geography.' He borrowed back the chalk from Mergrave. 'I wonder if your mind would be open to a slightly different way of looking at it?' And carefully avoiding words longer than four syllables, the Doctor took Mergrave through a simplified version of Euclidian topology...

Out in the square the Zero Cabinet was being emptied into the fountain. 'You hid this deliberately.' Tegan's loud Australian voice drew nervous giggles from the Castrovalvan women, but her anger was directed at Shardovan.

'a.s.suredly, ma'am, no impropriety was intended,' came the dignified reply.

Tegan turned on the women, hating them for their readiness to play the role of a silly female chorus. 'You're all part of this., It's a conspiracy.' At last Nyssa managed to calm her down, while Ruther explained to the Castrovalvan women, and to Shardovan, that the visitors were temporarily suffering from the delusion that their friend the Doctor had been ensnared. By this time Tegan didn't trust anybody, and insisted that she and Nyssa and no one else should carry the Zero Cabinet back to the Doctor.

Ruther followed at a respectful distance, but ran around in front of them when they reached the Doctor's door to rap smartly on it with his knuckles.

'Yes, yes... come in,' said a scratchy, irritated voice from inside. They found a very distracted Mergrave staring at the chalk map which the Doctor had richly annotated with numbers in an effort to explain his own world-view. In the process they had exhausted each other, and despite the combined benefits of the mirror and the valerian the Doctor was looking particularly weak.

'We've found it!' Tegan announced, as she and Nyssa dragged in the Zero Cabinet. 'And no thanks to these Castrovalvan people. He kept leading us round and round and back to the square.'

'That's Castrovalva, not Ruther,' said the Doctor, certain now of at least that much. He turned to Ruther. 'I suppose you know where the Portreeve lives?'

'Nothing is more sure, sir.'

'Well put.' The Doctor handed over the piece of chalk.

'Show us on the map.' Ruther put on his spectacles and studied the back of the mirror carefully before speaking.

Then he made small chalk marks on the mahogany. 'This is the Portreeve's house, sir... And this... and this... and this.'

The Doctor turned silently to the girls, inviting them to take in the implications of this demonstration. Mergrave, whose neat dark suit had somehow become covered in chalk dust, joined Ruther by the map and, clasping his hands together to contain the slight tremble that had developed in them, said: 'The Doctor has been explaining to me... I almost grasp it...' But it was hard to tell whether he was merely eager to be polite.

'There is something amiss with the map?' Ruther asked.

'There's something amiss with Castrovalva,' said the Doctor. 'But because your perception system is part of it, you just don't see it.'

Ruther nodded diplomatically, willing to humour all parties. 'I am a rational man, sir. Explain this interesting idea.'

The Doctor found it painful to pull together his thoughts on the subject for a second time. If his diagnosis was correct the Castrovalvans were suffering from some form of post-hypnotic ma.s.s suggestion. Having just gone through something similar himself, the Doctor was reminded of the famous experiment where the subject is persuaded that there is no such thing as the number ten, and is then asked to count his fingers.

He began again with Ruther as he had with Mergrave, using the map to confront him with the contradictions inherent in the delusion. But the strain of concentration was beginning to tell on the Doctor, and after a minute or two of tangled explanation Nyssa urged him to get back into the Zero Cabinet.

'Yes, yes... in a minute,' he said, and then became angry because he had completely lost his thread. A question he had been meaning to ask for his own clarification popped into his head. 'Tell me, Ruther-or Mergrave... If this is the "condensed" history, where is the full version?'

The two Castrovalvans were amused by the question.

'The volumes before you contain a condensation of the actual history itself,' said Mergrave, and Ruther added: 'What you are pleased to call the full version has taken our ancestors centuries to live through. However fond you may be of reading, sir, you would not want to spend that long with a book.'

The Doctor made no immediate reply to this unusual turn in the conversation. Instead he picked up one of the books and weighed it in his hand. 'This volume chronicles the rise of Castrovalva out of an alliance of warring hunters twelve hundred years ago. Or purports to chronicle...'

Ruther, who had been patient through the Doctor's increasingly confused explanation, began to show a trace of irritation. 'Purports, you say? That, sir, is our official History.'

'From Castrovalva's first beginnings-to the present day,' Mergrave added.

'I'm no expert on books,' said the Doctor untruthfully, 'but I have the strongest possible hunch that these are forgeries.'

Ruther gave up trying to conceal his indignation. 'What do you say, sir!'

'Oh, the paper, threads and binding are as near the real thing as maybe. But the contents are faked.' The Doctor was showing the strain, and probably didn't realise the obvious offence he was giving to the two Castrovalvans.

Nyssa intervened, suggesting that he should at least explain what had brought him to this conclusion. He tried to respond to the suggestion, but found it hard to concentrate on the line of argument. 'There is a... There's something we're all overlooking.'

He staggered and had to be helped to the bed by Nyssa.

'Yes? What, Doctor.'

'Not sure... I'm overlooking it too. But I'm certain the whole history's been invented.'

'By Shardovan?' asked Tegan, who had been leafing through one of the books trying to work out what on earth the Doctor was on about.

The Doctor looked up at Mergrave and Ruther, as if he expected them to provide an answer. Ruther had regained his composure and simply returned his gaze with politeness touched by a hint of frost, while beside him the physician shook his head and tut-tutted over this new deterioration of the Doctor's mind.

'Why would anyone want to do that, Doctor?' Nyssa persisted. 'To hide something? Something about the real history?'

The Doctor's next utterance floated up from the wreckage of his sinking consciousness as he leant back to rest. It came as a whisper, but the occupants of the room all heard it, and the profound question it implied hung in their silence long after the Doctor had closed his eyes. 'If there ever was a real history,' he said.

11.

The World through the Eyes of

Shardovan Outside on the terrace a convocation of Castrovalvan women, hearing that their unfortunate visitor had lost his wits, had gathered to pool their condolences and their curiosity. The sudden opening of the door caused a flurry of interest, and they pressed forward to see into the room, making it difficult for Mergrave to push his way out through the gathering.

'The visitor is weaker, but receiving our best attentions,'

he announced in answer to their persistent questioning.

'Now let me pa.s.s.' He had an urgent message for the Portreeve, so they parted respectfully to let him go by.

The Castrovalvan women missed the chance to catch sight of the Doctor. He was already in the Zero Cabinet when Mergrave opened the door, and it was not until it closed again that the Doctor's hand emerged from the Cabinet, craned around like a swan looking for its cygnets, then beckoned across the room.

The object of the hand's attention was Ruther, who crossed the room with good enough grace and positioned himself awkwardly on the floor beside the Doctor. The girls had partially drawn the lid over the Cabinet, and it would have been more comfortable for Ruther to sit on it, but somehow that did not seem decent. The swan-neck hand had disappeared back under cover, returning almost immediately with a piece of paper.

Ruther recognised the handwriting immediately. 'This is Shardovan's hand. The Librarian.'

'Shardovan...' came the meditative whisper from inside the cabinet. 'I thought as much...'

Ruther adjusted his spectacles and began to peruse the ma.n.u.script. But the convoluted prose was so entangled with abstruse metaphysical observations, profusely cross-referenced against the pages and volumes of the Condensed Condensed Chronicle Chronicle, that he was not inclined to read on. In any case the swan-neck hand was somewhat peremptorily flicking its fingers for the return of the paper. Ruther handed it back, and there being no further activity from inside the Cabinet, returned to his study of the chalk map, where the two young women continued their unconvincing geography lesson.

In due course the door opened again and Mergrave hurried back into the room to the accompaniment of a chorus of questions from the women outside. He poured a gla.s.s from the refilled flask he had brought back with him, and carried it to the Doctor's side. 'The Portreeve is happy to see you,' he whispered to the pale face framed in the rectangle that remained above the partially replaced lid. 'I wonder, however, since you are not strong, how you will be travelling...?'

'We're going to carry him there,' said Tegan. 'He'll be all right as long as he stays in the cabinet.'

The Doctor's arm journeyed out towards the gla.s.s that Mergrave was proffering, and he tilted his head up to sip some of its contents. But his hand was shaking, and the gla.s.s slipped from his fingers and broke on the floor.

Tegan ran forward officiously. 'I'm sorry. Would you mind waiting outside?' Her eyes included Ruther in the invitation.

While Tegan was receiving their polite expressions of sympathy with an air-hostess smile, and ushering them out to join the murmuring women on the terrace outside, Nyssa bent to pick up the broken gla.s.s. She heard a whisper from inside the cabinet and lowered her head to listen.

'One little suggestion...' said the Doctor. His voice was barely audible, and she may have imagined that its tone carried the faintest hint of impishness. She had to lean right into the Cabinet to hear what he whispered next.

Tegan was surprised, annoyed and flattered, all at the same time, by the interest the Castrovalvan women showed in the Doctor's condition: Was his madness confirmed? Was it contagious? Was he dead yet? Mergrave and Ruther helped quiet the clamour of questions, and with the threat of sending them away altogether, and the promise that the distinguished guest would be emerging shortly on his way to visit the Portreeve, managed to produce an atmosphere more appropriate to the outside of a sick room.

But as soon as this was done, Shardovan's long shadow slipped across the flagstones towards them, and his querulous voice undid the quiet. 'Why are these women here? Is this a holiday?'

It was the turn of the Castrovalvan women to turn and shush him. Tegan threw him an unfriendly glance, which he did not deign to acknowledge, and ducked back into the Doctor's room.

Between them Mergrave and Ruther explained to Shardovan that the Doctor's health was failing, and arrangements had been made to carry him to the Portreeve.

The Librarian greeted the news with scarcely veiled amus.e.m.e.nt-not, he hastened to point out, on account of the Doctor's illness, which was of course a serious burden to them all, but because of the unusual idea the strangers had brought with them of carrying a man around in a box.

'I wonder,' Shardovan speculated, 'whether this new fas.h.i.+on will replace hunting?'

As if on cue, the door opened, and Tegan and Nyssa emerged carrying the Zero Cabinet. Shardovan stepped briskly forward, offering to help.

'No! Keep away from him,' Tegan cried, rather more loudly than she intended. And for the first time she save the lofty keeper of the books betray signs of embarra.s.sment. 'Please, ma'am,' he said in an altogether more human voice, 'I insist I do my small part.'

He took one of the front corners of the Zero Cabinet.

Tegan was carrying the other, so it was hard to ignore his tall, dark presence as they proceeded across the terrace and along the coyered walk. Ruther and Mergrave, supporting the other end of the Cabinet, could be heard tutting and gossipping among themselves, but the women, who had formed an impromptu vanguard to the little procession, maintained a respectful silence, and some even walked with their heads bowed.

Tegan suddenly realised from odd words caught from the two bearers at the rear, and from the censorious glances she received whenever she looked across at Shardovan, that she was expected to join the group of women trailing behind. Luckily Nyssa sensed her predicament and ran forward to give her moral support, ousting Shardovan from his position with aristocratic tact and taking one corner herself. Shardovan yielded with surprising good grace and fell behind, though not so far behind as to have to walk with the women.

So they processed, over umber flagstones, past walls where apricot trees ripened in the sun. And then there were steps curving down to a lower terrace. Here the two girls had to hold back the weight of the Zero Cabinet as they descended, and at the same time struggle to keep their dignity under the aloof gaze of Shardovan.

At the bottom of the steps cries and much waving of arms from the women behind directed them through an arch into a terraced garden where the breeze drew a strong clean savoury perfume from a profusion of small white flowers. Further on, the path was banked on either side by dark box hedges of an impermeable density. Other paths led off at intervals-it was very like a maze- and one of the women had to run ahead to show Tegan and Nyssa the way.

They did not realise it at the time, but it was hereabouts that they lost Shardovan. He had eventually fallen back behind the women, a solitary, moody figure, only dubiously still attached to the procession. At one junction he halted, his eye caught by something at the bend of one of the subsidiary walks that trickled away from the central path. A hand seemed to sprout from the thick wall of the hedge-and it was beckoning to him.

Shardovan hesitated as the procession walked on around a corner. He looked again towards the mysterious hand; it beckoned once more... and then disappeared. Shardovan turned from the path the others had taken and went to investigate.

The thick green hedges opened on either side into an Italian garden, a circular pillared walk in the centre of which stood a mossy bust to some long-forgotten dignitary.

It was the perfect place for a tryst, but even the most clandestine of meetings requires a minimum of two partic.i.p.ants. The dignitary being devoid of limbs of any kind, Shardovan looked elsewhere around the empty garden for the owner of the beckoning finger.

It found him before he found it. The hand snaked from behind the pillar he was leaning against and clamped itself over his mouth. A voice he almost recognised said: 'Sss.h.!.+'

and Shardovan turned to confront his a.s.sailant.

It was the Doctor.

The curious route the women had chosen now brought the procession out into the inevitable town square. On the far side a broad flight of granite steps that sagged under the weight of centuries of wear led the way down towards an avenue of pollarded trees. In descending Tegan glimpsed a tiny monster darting across her path, and then suddenly there was a shoal of them, as if the grey fleckled granite had decided to come alive beneath her feet.

Before she had time to realise they were harmless lizards she missed her footing on the uneven surface, and in stumbling almost dropped her corner of the Doctor. But Nyssa managed to take the weight in time, and Tegan got back into step without any mishap. 'I wish he'd levitate again,' she whispered to Nyssa. 'He's so heavy.'

They went on a pace or two, and then Nyssa leaned across to her and said something in reply that she didn't catch at first hearing. Then it finally sunk in. 'Not the Doctor!...' she whispered, glancing back at the Zero Cabinet. 'Then what is in there...?'

' The Condensed Chronicle of Castrovalva The Condensed Chronicle of Castrovalva,' replied Nyssa with a little hide-and-seek smile. 'All thirty volumes!'

Even at the best of times the Doctor was not endowed with more than normal physical strength, but he had picked up an anatomical trick or two in the course of his travels. His grip on Shardovan's neck was light and completely painless... as long as his captive remained still. When he had made sure that none of the other Castrovalvans had followed, either as bodyguards or snoopers, the Doctor released his hold.

'And what, sir, do you want?' the Librarian enquired grittily, adjusting his cravat. 'Apart from the manners of a gentleman?'

'You, Shardovan,' replied the Doctor. 'You're the man I want.'

Shardovan met the Doctor's level challenging gaze. 'You will have to explain yourself, sir.'

'I think you and I understand one another.' The Doctor slipped a handkerchief from his sleeve and mopped his brow-he seemed to be in a high fever. 'You're not what you seem, my bookish friend. I suspected it when you were the only person in Castrovalva who couldn't be persuaded to join the hunting ritual.'

'My indolence would not permit it.'

'Your intelligence would not permit it! You had already guessed the whole tradition was an invention from beginning to end.' The Doctor had exchanged the handkerchief for a piece of paper, which he now handed to Shardovan. 'The proof. Your annotations of the Condensed Condensed Chronicle Chronicle.'

Shardovan shook his head. 'Mere fancies... notes, sir, for a fiction I have a mind to write.'

'A civilisation evolving out of tribal warfare into a single idyllic towns.h.i.+p! It is a fiction. And the thing that clinches it...' The Doctor's voice had become excited, but now it broke off. He stared with the distant gaze of a man watching his departing train of thought from an empty platform.