Doctor Who: The Myth Makers (6 page)

A song or two, perhaps, about the fire, telling how Agamemnon dined with Zeus, and begged a Trojan prisoner for advice. But nothing detrimental!’

Agamemnon controlled himself with the difficulty he always experienced. ‘Well – very well, Odysseus, enjoy your little joke. I shall not forget your part in this – you brought them both to camp, remember! Now, finish the business, and be brief. And do not bring their bodies back. Let them rot here, disembowelled and unburied, as a gift to the blow-flies and a warning to their fellows...’

‘Aye, in a very little while, O great commander. But first, Lord of men, since we have two Trojans all alive, may I not question them? Just a formality, of course, unimportant trifles, like their army’s present strength and future plans.’

‘As you wish. Drag what information you can from them, and as painfully as possible. Then report to me – and don’t delay. The sun is up; patrols are out, and, much as I might welcome it myself, we can’t afford to lose you – at the moment!’

‘You are very kind,’ smiled Odysseus, with a mocking bow; and Agamemnon splashed angrily off through the mud, at the head of his sniggering soldiers.

Odysseus watched them go. Then, turning to his two terrified prisoners, he drew his great bronze sword, and wiped it thoughtfully on his sleeve.

They watched the manoeuvre with fascinated horror. He plucked a hair from his beard, and tested it appraisingly on the blade’s edge. It fell in two, without a detectable struggle. They closed their eyes and waited for the end.

‘It’s all right,’ said Odysseus, ‘I was only going to lean on it.’

He did so, folding his tattooed arms on the ornate hilt.

They opened their eyes, wondering if perhaps there was a future to face after all. ‘And now then, mannikins, first of all, tell me who you
really
are!’

I told you he was different from all the other Greeks, didn’t I? You never knew
where
you were with Odysseus.

10

‘But I thought you’d already made up your mind who we are,’

said Steven, after a surprised pause. ‘Trojan spies, I think you said?’

Odysseus laughed, in that sabre-toothed, ceramic-shattering way of his. ‘Aye – and so at first I thought. And so, later, I was content to have that fool, Agamemnon, believe.’

‘Well, I’m glad you’ve revised your opinion,’ said the Doctor. ‘So who do you think we are now?’

‘I do not know. Your costume is not Trojan, and your posturing as Zeus was so absurd, I do not think Trojan wit could sink so low.’

‘I did not posture. How dare you! I merely met Achilles, and...’

‘He thrust the role upon you? This I can believe. That musclebound body-building Narcissus fears his shadow in the sunshine, will not so much as comb his hair until he reads the new day’s auguries. He is so god-fearing that he sees them everywhere – and trembles at ’em all. But I am not Achilles...

No, and you are not a Trojan. So, I ask again, who are you?’

‘I think we’d better tell him, Doctor,’ said Steven.

‘A doctor now? Hippocrates are you? Have a care...’

‘Nothing of the sort – I am a doctor of science not medicine.’

‘A doctor of what?’ enquired Odysseus, puzzled.

‘Oh, dear me, this is obviously going to take some time. I mean, if I have to keep defining my terms.’

‘Define what you like – but remember the terms are mine not yours! And I shall be patient. Only this time, if you value your lives, do not lie to me.’

So the Doctor began to explain about the TARDIS. A difficult task, obviously, because how do you describe a time-machine to a man who has never even heardof Euclid, never mind Einstein? Of course, up till then, I’d never heard of them myself, but I must say I found the whole concept fascinating.

Odysseus however seemed to be labouring somewhere between incredulity and incomprehension, and only brightened up when they came to the stories about their previous adventures – which he naturally would, being something of an adventurer himself.

Nevertheless a longship isn’t a TARDIS by any means, and personally I wouldn’t have bet much on their chances of being believed, or of getting away with their skins in the sort of condition they would wish. I think the Doctor realized this, and eventually ground to a somewhat stammering standstill, leaving Steven to wind things up:

‘... and so really, we arrived in your time, Odysseus, quite by accident. Just another miscalculation of the Doctor, here.’

‘I wouldn’t call it a miscalculation, my boy! In fact, with all eternity to choose from, I think a margin of error of a century or so is quite understandable. No, I think I’ve done rather well to get us to Earth at all!’

‘I’m glad you’re so pleased with yourself! I suppose I should be grateful for being about to have my throat cut?’

Odysseus turned from a space-time graph which the Doctor had drawn in the sand, and erased it scornfully with his foot.

‘Now, now, no one has mentioned cutting throats!’

‘Of course they haven’t,’ said the Doctor, seizing on the vital point.

‘No,’ continued Odysseus, reassuringly, ‘I had something rather more painful in mind – painful and lingering for the both of you.’ He scowled. ‘As it is, however, I haven’t quite decided.’

If the Doctor had a fault, it was that he never knew when to leave well alone. Interested in everything, he was. ‘Some form of ritual death, no doubt? That is quite customary, I believe, among primitive peoples. Fascinating.’

‘Doctor, will you please be quiet? I’m afraid I don’t share your admirable scientific detachment! Listen, Odysseus; my friend didn’t mean to imply that you were primitive.’

The hero roused himself from his reverie. ‘Didn’t he? Oh, but I am – extremely primitive! I have none of the urban sophistication of my friend, Agamemnon. In fact, some people have gone so far as to call me an uncouth, barbarian pirate!

They haven’t lived long afterwards, mark you, but they’ve said it.

And they were quite right. That, perhaps, is why I am tempted to believe you.’

‘Well, I really don’t see why you shouldn’t,’ said the Doctor,

‘it’s all quite true.’

‘Possibly it is. I have travelled far in my life upon what you would probably call deplorable adventures. And they have brought me into contact with a great many deplorable persons who have told me various outrageous stories of myths and monsters. But not one of them has had the effrontery to strain my credulity as you have done. Therefore, I think your story is
probably
true – otherwise you could not have dared to tell it. And so, I propose to release you.’

‘Well,’ said Steven, relieved, ‘I think that’s very nice of you.’

‘Oh, no, it isn’t! You haven’t heard what I have in mind for you yet. There are, you see, certain conditions.’

‘Conditions, indeed!’ said the Doctor, ‘And what, pray are they?’

‘Why, that you use this almost supernatural power of yours to devise a scheme for the capture of Troy!’

‘But I’m afraid I can’t do that! Oh, no – I make it a rule never to meddle in the affairs of others!’

‘Then I would advise you to break it on this occasion.’

‘So would I,’ gulped Steven.

‘Quite so. You see, I am getting more than a little tired of this interminable war. My wife, Penelope, will never believe that it has lasted
this
long. So already I had half decided to sail for home; but it does seem a pity to have wasted all this time, without so much as a priceless Trojan goblet to show for it. I promised the boys booty, and booty they shall have! So I am going to give you forty-eight hours to think of something really ingenious.’

‘Two days?’ calculated the Doctor, gulping in his turn. ‘That isn’t long...’

‘It should be enough if you are as clever as you say you are.’

Ever the realist, Steven asked, ‘What happens if we fail?’

‘I shouldn’t enquire if I were you. It would only upset you.

Because if you fail, I shall have been foolish to have believed your story, and I would hate to be made to seem a fool. I should be very, very angry.’

As he said this, Odysseus sliced through their bonds with a backhand sweep of his cutlass, and then drove his two protesting prisoners back the way they had come.

It seemed pointless to follow them for the moment. I had learned quite enough astonishing new facts for one morning, and I wanted to digest the implications.

I mean, if time travel were really possible, why – what a collaborator the Doctor would make. Already half a dozen ideas for new books were clamouring for attention in my reeling mind

– science fiction, I thought I might call them; at least, until a better notion occurred.

Besides, I thought it was time for
somebody
to see what might be happening
inside
the city of Troy for a change. How would they cope with a time-machine, I wondered.

So, I went to find out.

11

It wasn’t as difficult to get into Troy as you might suppose, considering all the heavy weather the Greeks were making of it.

However to be fair, I have to admit that an army is one thing and an inconspicuous, casually dressed poet, quite another.

At all events, I arrived outside the main gates – very impressive they were, I must say – solid bronze by the look of them, with brass ornamentations, just as Prince Paris and his men were man-handling the TARDIS through there.

Considering all the stertorous breathing, groaning and so forth that was going on, I calculated that they might be glad of some assistance, however modest; so I rolled up my sleeves and lent a shoulder. No one so much as raised an eyebrow; in fact, I was cheerfully accepted as a colleague by one and all. And in no time, there we were in the main square, the gates were barred and bolted behind us, and a crowd of miscellaneous spectators were giving us a bit of a cheer. Nothing to it.

Except that – my word! – the thing was as heavy as lead, and
that
removed any doubts I might have had about the Doctor’s story. Quite obviously, there was far more of it inside, then met the eye from outside – if you follow me? So we were all extremely glad to set it down.

Prince Paris was pleased with himself no end – you could tell that! He strutted about the little building like a peacock in full courtship display. Well, he could afford to; he hadn’t been doing a lot of work, and wasn’t as fagged out as the rest of us.

But an interesting looking man, all the same. By no means a bully-boy, like his deceased elder brother, and with what I believe is called a sensitive face. Intelligent, anyway – and I wondered if half the stories one heard about him were true.

He didn’t look like a debauchee – far from it. No, more like an unwilling conscript, prepared to make the best of things for the sake of family tradition, and all that. The sort of man you wouldn’t at all have minded having a drink with – except that it would have been a reasonable bet that he’d have left his money in his other uniform.

Anyway, it was obvious at the moment, that he thought he’d pulled off rather a coup. ‘Halt!’ he commanded, shortly after we’d just done so. ‘Cast off the ropes, there!’ Yes, we’d done that as well. So he thought for a moment, and added, ‘Sound the trumpets!’

Well, that was new, at any rate, and after a short pause, while the surprised warriors fumbled about for the instruments, knocked the moths, fluff
et cetera
out of them, the most God-awful noise broke out. A fanfare of sorts, I took it to be, and possibly just the thing to stiffen the sinews – if you hadn’t been up all night, downwind of Agamemnon’s tent, as I had.

As it was, I couldn’t take it at that hour in the morning, and I scurried away to suitable cover. Nobody had thanked me for my help, but you don’t really expect that these days. And as I cowered behind a giant pilaster with flowered finials, or whatever it was – a great stone column anyway, outside what I took to be the palace, another light sleeper emerged.

‘What is it now?’ King Priam asked irritably. ‘By the Great Horse of Asia is none of us to rest? Who’s there?’

You could sense at once that he was a Trojan of the old school, accustomed to getting his own way, or knowing the reason why. In his mid-sixties, I should think, but well-preserved and still formidable.

Paris pranced proudly forwards, like a war-horse saying ‘ha-ha!’ to the trumpets: ‘It’s Paris, father, returned from patrol.’

‘Well, why can’t you do it
quietly
? What news, boy? Have you avenged your brother, Hector, yet? Have you killed Achilles?’

‘Ah,’ said Paris, ‘I sought Achilles, father, even to the Graecian lines. I flung my challenge at him, but he skulked within his tent and feared to face me.’

A likely story, I must say, and not at all good enough, as it proved.

‘Well, you go back and wait until he gets his courage up!

Upon my soul, what sort of brother are you? And, furthermore, what sort of son?’ He noticed the TARDIS for the first time.

‘What’s that you’ve got there?’

‘A prize, father, captured from the Greeks.’

‘Captured, you say? I should think they were glad to see the back of it. What is it?’

Paris had been rather afraid of that. He wasn’t sure – and you couldn’t blame him. But he did his best. ‘It’s a sort of shrine, it seems..

‘And what, may I ask, do you propose to do with this seeming shrine?’

Paris tilted his helmet over one eye, and scratched his head.

‘You don’t like it where it is?’

‘I do not. Right in everybody’s way! How are the chariots meant to get around it?’

‘Ah, I hadn’t thought of that.’

‘Think about it now.’

‘Right ho! Then how about if we put it in the temple?’

Not a bad solution, I’d have thought, but at this moment there was an interruption to the steady flow of reasoned argument.

‘You are
not
putting that thing in my temple,’ snarled a shrill voice from the opposite side of the square, and there was Paris’s sister, Cassandra, standing on the steps of the temple in question.