Menagerie Part 4

The apes were scuttling back down into the sewers, chattering in what could almost have been delight. Araboam shouted a word of encouragement to the guards as the last of the creatures disappeared below the surface of the road.

Araboam indicated one of the guards. 'You - get these people dispersed.' He pointed to another, fear fixing hold of features that moments before had been chuckling in egotistical abandon. 'You - check on the damage caused, and report back.' The other guards he waved away impatiently.

Araboam knelt down at the drain hole, and stared into the darkness. The noxious fumes were intense, and he almost retched. Hand over mouth and nose, he leant down into the drain, rested his fingers on the top rung of a rusted ladder, but, as he expected, he could go no further.

Eyes fixed on the dark hole, he pushed the metal-latticed cover back into position.

The Doctor returned to the corner table where Zoe and Jamie sat. Now then, Jamie,' he beamed, 'I think I've found something to tickle the fancy of a jaded Scot. And some food will follow shortly.'

The Doctor placed three drinks on the table top, and settled down on to a rough wooden stool.

The drinking establishment was very primitive but had a certain charm. The beverages were served by a man and a woman, who shouted orders through a hatch in the wall as in a cheap Terran restaurant. The rest of the floor s.p.a.ce was filled with tables and stools, mostly occupied by drinking men. Zoe had received some strange looks when she first walked through the door, but the people had quickly returned to their own conversations.

Electric lights hung from the roof. A wide stairway ran up to an upper walkway studded with doors. There was a steady trickle of men and women into and out of the rooms.

As certain men walked up the stairs loud cheers rang out.

'What's that?' asked Jamie, warming his hands over a brazier suspended from the roof

'Fruit juice,' replied the Doctor. 'Being drunk in charge of a time vessel is a very serious offence. I remember one fellow who went off to celebrate a series of extensive repairs and came back a little the worse for wear. He atomized his TARDIS. Tremendous mess. All because he hadn't brought the mercury links on line.'

Zoe, as ever, didn't know whether to take the Doctor seriously or not. 'I rather fancied having what Jamie's . . .'

The Doctor tutted under his breath. 'You're much too young and much too pretty.'

'How did you pay?' asked Jamie, eyeing the small earthenware tumbler with suspicion. The fluid within smelt like burnt peat.

Ah,' said the Doctor. 'A little secret. If you really concentrate, you can make someone think that you've paid even when you've not a bean on you. I don't suppose they'll accept the well known trans-galactic cards for another few centuries. You see -'

'You stole stole these drinks?' interrupted Jamie. these drinks?' interrupted Jamie.

'Well, not as such, no,' replied the Doctor quickly. 'It's more, er . . . Well, Jamie, think of it as advance payment.

After all, one day I might come back to this world, save them from the Daleks or some other great menace. They'll be only too pleased to thank me then, showering me with gifts, and I'll say, "No, I'm quite content with the drinks that my friends and I had some time ago." In fact, I might have been here already. Perhaps without me this city would have been destroyed by the Quarks or . . .'

'Where are are we?' asked Zoe, sipping her drink gingerly. we?' asked Zoe, sipping her drink gingerly.

'Ah,' said the Doctor. 'The computer didn't give me a name. Just a number. This planet really isn't very important.

Everyone just leaves it alone. The people here are clearly not about to discover s.p.a.ce flight, so . . .'

'So, we're going to have a quiet drink, and then go somewhere exciting?' suggested Zoe.

'Sometimes,' said the Doctor, 'I despair of you, Zoe, I really do.'

'That man's looking at me,' said Jamie suddenly, pointing towards someone at an adjoining table.

'Well,' said the Doctor, 'they've ignored us very decently so far.'

'If he's looking for a fight then -'

'Oh Jamie, Jamie, Jamie,' said the Doctor. 'Calm down.

Despite my understated and elegant dress sense, even I occasionally draw attention to myself.'

'Speaking of which,' said Zoe, 'I think we're all going to be the subject of some scrutiny.' She pointed towards the door. 'That man wasn't looking at Jamie at all.'

In the main doorway stood a small number of dirty-looking soldiers, dressed in similar rough garb to the city dwellers. They wore sashes as some mark of authority and tiny conical helmets. A selection of swords and converted agricultural implements were clutched in their dark leather gloves.

At their head stood two knights in brightly polished, almost ceremonial armour. Unlike the soldiers, they reminded Zoe of 3D representations of medieval Terran knights that she had seen, all polished and ornate and almost clumsy. Their breast plates were intricately carved and inset with gold leaf. The rest of their armour, which took the form of mail or leather strips covered with plate metal, was equally clean and shy of real battle. They carried full-face helms under their arms and elaborate swords at their belts.

Zoe noticed the entire room had become quiet and motionless. All eyes were on the knights.

One of the knights held up his hand. 'This establishment is not acceptable to the Knights of Kuabris. It is unlicensed.

You will all be taken away for questioning.'

Three.

Cosmae watched the grey figure walk out through the door and into the darkness of the yard beyond. Defrabax placed a fatherly hand on the young man's shoulders. 'Your girl must have been frightened out of her mind,' he commented.

'Her name's Kaquaan,' said Cosmae in a quiet voice. He pushed the door closed, and turned to look at Defrabax. The mage suddenly seemed very old, despite his strong arms and darting eyes. His encounter with the knights appeared to have sapped even his limitless energy. Cosmae shuddered.

'You think there was a knight watching the house?'

'I'm sure of it. It's my business to know these things,'

Defrabax announced grandly, returning to the main room.

Spurning the electric light, he bustled towards the table with a candle.

'Then the attack of the brutes from the sewers was most fortunate.'

'Fortunate?' queried Defrabax, rooting through the papers on the table for something.

'You mean you planned that? You know these creatures?'

Defrabax smiled. 'I tell you little, so that if things go wrong, you will not find the knights pursuing you. It is best that you don't know.'

'But you've done so much for me,' said Cosmae. 'I feel that I ought to be involved and -'

'Now you're sounding like a child again. Do hush a moment. I'm looking for something.' Defrabax almost threw the parchments and books to the floor in increasing exasperation.

'What?'

'A key. The homunculus needs access to a special room.'

'Why?'

Defrabax ignored him. 'Where is that key?' he muttered angrily. 'Cosmae, I can peer into the mists of the not yet, I can feel the temperature of minds in a locked room, I can even animate creatures from the clay of graveyard soil - but I cannot find this accursed key!'

'Why did you let the homunculus go without the key?'

Defrabax sighed. 'Because, my young friend,' he said with irritation, 'the knights could be back at any moment. I have just told them that I know nothing of the homunculus. If they found the creature here . . . Well, the knights can't abide liars.' Defrabax abandoned the table, and walked around the room, peering up at shelves and scratching his head.

'What does this key look like?'

'Now, that's the first sensible question you've asked in many minutes.' Defrabax eased himself down into a chair in resignation. 'It's not what you would think of as a key. It looks like a gla.s.s square inset with coloured filaments.'

'I don't think it's here,' announced Cosmae after a while.

'I last saw it on that table. And unless you've taken it . .

'I have not!'

'Then that wh.o.r.e of yours must have walked off with it,'

said Defrabax darkly.

Cosmae's face went pale.

'Therefore, you will go and get it back.'

To his immense irritation, the Doctor had been separated almost at once from Jamie and Zoe. A group of soldiers had marched them promptly from the drinking house to a large building not too far away. This, the Doctor had learned, was the headquarters of the City Guard. Its rotten and dark interior indicated eloquently that the real authority in the city did not rest with its occupants.

Herded into a large, bare room with about twenty other men, the Doctor tried his best to remain patient, but without his recorder he had nothing to occupy his mind. Besides, his friends were in trouble as well.

Moments later the Doctor found himself marching to the front of the queue of prisoners waiting to be questioned. He extended his hand to the guard who seemed to be temporarily in charge.

'I'm delighted to meet you. I'm the Doctor. I'm very worried about my friends, and would be grateful if you could -'

The soldier, taking notes at a desk, barely looked up.

'Return to the back of the queue,' he ordered.

'Your superiors will be most annoyed if I am not handed over to them without delay.'

'Really?'

'Well, that tends to be the normal pattern of things,' noted the Doctor sadly.

The soldier placed his quill on the table, and looked at the Doctor closely.

It was at times like these that the Doctor really longed for his previous body: tall, striking, with severe hair the colour of silver moonlight. Back then he could stop a charging bull in its tracks just by clearing his throat. Now? He was sure to stand out from the overweight drunks behind him, but his little body lacked the imposing authority that would have been so useful. Still. He drew himself up to his full height, such as it was, and smiled disarmingly.

'So,' said the guard, 'you don't want to be fined and sent home?'

'I have already paid my fine,' said the Doctor in a forceful voice.

The guard stared back at his unblinking eyes for a moment, and then scratched his head, coughing. 'No you haven't,' he said, with a querulous uncertainty in his voice.

'I've only just started talking to you.'

'If you say so,' said the Doctor sadly. He was clearly very out of practice.

'I a.s.sume from your clothes,' said the man, indicating the Doctor's dark frock coat and check-patterned trousers, 'that you are from one of the neighbouring cities.'

The Doctor nodded.

'Ignorance is no excuse,' said the soldier. 'We allow others into our city for up to two days as a concession, not so that they can cavort around the disreputable bars of -'