Doctor Who_ Byzantium! Part 29

'It is my experience that one should be careful what one wishes for,' noted t.i.tus. 'For what is a man to do if he should get exactly what he wants?'

Marcus liked this clever and dangerous little man. The ambitious t.i.tus, it was known, craved Hieronymous's position and, according to rumour, had attempted to use a recent incident of alleged indiscretion with a gentile woman to compromise the old man. Now, seemingly, he was happy that the Romans had finally decided to crack down on the Zealot problem, and to help them behind Hieronymous's back. His implications that Hieronymous himself secretly supported the insurgents was just the kind of poison that Marcus would need when control of the city was his.

Still, Fabius seemed edgy and mistrustful. 'What we really need,' he interjected, 'is the location of Basellas's base.'

'Nothing could be simpler,' t.i.tus told the Romans. 'I shall provide you with that, if I have your solemn guarantee that you will remember my help when the purges begin.'

Chapter Twenty-Nine.

One Man Clapping

Watch ye and pray. lest ye enter into temptation.

The spirit truly is ready but the flesh is weak.

Mark 14:38

The tap on the solid wooden door was nervous and timid, almost apologetic.

'Who goes there? What do you want with us?' asked a woman's voice through the door.

'h.e.l.lo,' said Barbara, looking quickly around in the cobbled streets of the Greek quarter. She prayed that she had found the right house at last, after three previous attempts and various confused directions had stolen most of the day from her. 'I wonder if you could let me in, please, I'm not comfortable with talking to wood.'

The door swung open and Barbara found herself facing a man and woman, both of them with badly bruised faces and worried expressions. In the corner behind them, half-hidden in the shadows, cowered a young, anaemic-looking girl. 'I hope you can help me,' said Barbara. 'I've been told that you have a child staying with you. A Briton.'

'You were misinformed,' snapped the man and moved to close the door on her. Barbara put her foot in the way like a pushy vacuum-cleaner saleswoman and tried a different approach. 'Look,' she said, 'I'll have you know that I've had a very trying day. Where is she?'

'There is no one here such as you describe,' the woman told her. 'Now please leave before you are observed.'

Barbara looked to her right, to the several Roman soldiers entering a neighbouring house. The couple followed her gaze and shrank back into their home, pulling Barbara with them.

The man closed and barred the door and, for a second, Barbara was unsure of what to say next. 'You are Georgiadis and Evangeline, yes?' she asked, suddenly realising that she might just have come to the wrong house yet again.

'We are.' answered the woman, to Barbara's relief. 'And what business is our ident.i.ty to you?'

'I've already told you,' Barbara replied. 'I'm interested in the girl that you rescued.'

'What girl?' asked the man, throwing his arms wide. 'We know of no girl save our own fair daughter...'

Barbara looked at the timid teenager poking out her head from behind an upturned chair. Glancing around the room, she also noticed various pieces of broken furniture and a general disorder that seemed incongruous with the house-proud nature of most of the Greek dwellings that she had seen.

'You've had visitors?' Barbara asked. 'People who would not take "no" for an answer, seemingly?'

Evangeline gave her husband a tired look. 'We wish for nothing more than to be left alone to get on with our lives,'

she said. 'One act of kindness and this is our reward.'

The couple and their daughter were clearly terrified and hesitant to speak to strangers after their bruising encounter with authority. And, outside, the place was crawling with just such authority.

'What's their game?' Barbara asked, changing the subject.

'Our neighbours were murdered in their beds last eve,'

Georgiadis told her. 'No one is safe from tyranny and foul deeds.'

'Well, it's obvious Vicki isn't here,' Barbara said in resignation, giving the home a final once-over. 'If you do see her again, tell her that Barbara is looking for her.'

There was a momentary pause and then Barbara turned and headed for the door.

'Are you Barbara?' asked Evangeline, as Barbara prepared to step back into the street.

Yes. Barbara rested her head on the door, smiled, and mouthed a silent thank you to the G.o.d of timely interventions.

'Yes,' she said, turning around. 'I'm Barbara Wright.'

'And what is Vicki to you?'

'Family,' said Barbara, simply.

'Sit down,' Evangeline said, after a nod from her husband.

'We have a story to tell you that may interest you greatly.'

The praetorian guards returned to the Vinicius villa with expectation. Many of them knew Antonia from the time that she was married to the praefectus praefectus.

A few of them knew her wel wel . .

Antonia Vinicius's reputation in this corner of the empire was second to none. A remarkable woman of great beauty and cunning. Her insatiable appet.i.te for men was equally celebrated and discussed in the taverns and trattorias of Byzantium and beyond.

The nervous among the guards crept along at the back of the column, hoping that Antonia would not notice, or remember them and what they'd got up to in her bedchamber. Those to whom Antonia was merely a legend in her own lifetime, a notorious trollop whom they would brag to their grandchildren of having arrested and forced treasonous confessions from, strode on ahead.

They were met on the steps of the villa by the senator's head of household, Redecius.

'Stand aside, freedman,' ordered the praetorian captain, Cicero.

'Tread softly, citizen, as you enter the hall of my lady.'

'You know why we are here?' asked the captain.

'I do,' replied Redecius, 'and my lady stands ready for her fate. Follow me.'

He led a small delegation of guards into the outer bath chamber. A few of the guards exchanged knowing glances as Redecius threw open the double doors to the pool room and knelt beside the door in silent prayer as the captain took a couple of paces into the steamy, humid atmosphere.

Antonia floated, naked and on her back, in the crimson waters, her wrists slit by the knife that lay at the bottom of the gently lapping pool. The blood had seeped into the very fabric of the bath tiles, staining the entire surrounding area, Antonia, the captain noticed, had a smile of satisfaction on her silent, dead face.

'This thing is done,' he told the still-kneeling Redecius.

'Inform thy master that his wife has taken her own life before the praetorian guard could do it for her.'

Redecius reacted angrily. 'Speak not ill of the dead, disrespectful, vulgar and ignorant man,' he said in a paroxysm of rage. 'My lady does not deserve that, or this.' He pointed into the room.

There was a scornful edge to the captain's voice as he replied while turning and walking away from Redecius. 'Think yourself, and your master, lucky that we had not arrived sooner. It is only through the praefectus praefectus's grace and favour that thy profligate mistress's head is not adorning the spikes on the golden gates.'

'Is there anything wrong with him?' James asked, with genuine concern.

In the mouth of the Christian cave, the Doctor was continuing to dance a merry little jig, and mutter happily to himself.

'He has received news of great significance,' Papavasilliou noted. 'I am greatly pleased that it should have been I I who imparted this news to him.' who imparted this news to him.'

'This concerns his lost family, perhaps?' asked Daniel.

'It would seem so.'

The Doctor saw the three men and headed towards them with a jubilant smile, as though all of the troubles of the previous weeks had been lifted from his shoulders. 'My friend,' he said, shaking Papavasilliou warmly by the hand. 'It is so so good to see you again after the glad tidings of great joy that you brought to me yesterday.' good to see you again after the glad tidings of great joy that you brought to me yesterday.'

The old Greek's smile dropped a fraction and, sensing something was wrong, the Doctor's face followed suit.

'Further to that,' James began, somewhat embarra.s.sed.

For a moment none of the men seemed able to speak, then Papavasilliou blurted out an almost incoherent babble of words. 'I'm sorry,' the Doctor interrupted, 'could you slow down, my hearing's not what it was, do you see?'

The shepherd's eyes betrayed everything that he was about to tell the Doctor. 'When I returned to the Greek quarter yesterday evening,' he began in a more measured tone, 'I was given the dreadful news that Roman soldiers have taken Vicki from the family who were trying to protect her from just such a dreadful occurrence.'

There was more, of course. A couple had been murdered in their beds, seemingly, but the Doctor had lost interest in what the old man was saying. The horror of imagining what the Romans were doing to little Vicki at this moment was simply too great.

Chapter Thirty.

Coping

What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou son of the most high G.o.d? I adjure thee by G.o.d, that thou torment me not. high G.o.d? I adjure thee by G.o.d, that thou torment me not.

Mark 5:7

Death is never something that you become accustomed to, Ian Chesterton reflected, as the funeral pyre of Fabulous was ignited by Erastus.

'I shall miss him,' noted Drusus sadly, watching the cremation begin and the fire take hold.

'A good man,' added Gemellus, wrapping his cloak tightly around his neck as a chill wind blew through the gardens of remembrance. A cloud chose that moment to pa.s.s in front of the sun and the sudden darkness and cold seemed to say something profound to all of those present about mortality and their relations.h.i.+p to it.

'Would you like to say something, Ian?' Drusus asked, poignantly.

'I knew him for such a short time,' Ian confessed.

Nevertheless, he accepted the opportunity and stepped forward. 'We are gathered here today, not to mourn a death but to celebrate a life,' he said. 'Fabulous once told me that history would never die so long as the knowledge of it was carried within the hearts of men. That is true, also, of our memories of the departed.'

There was a smattering of applause as Ian stepped down from the plinth and watched with misty and smoke-filled eyes, as the burning continued.

'All things are changing rapidly,' said Gemellus. 'Arrests continue apace and, with reinforcements to the legion, there are so many comings and goings within the Villa Praefectus Villa Praefectus that I am lost in a sea of confusion.' that I am lost in a sea of confusion.'

'l know what you mean,' Drusus added. 'Only an hour ago, I ran into yet another of the waifs and strays that we seem to be collecting by the dozen.'