Doctor Who: The Massacre (5 page)

‘A doctor of what, did you say?’ the man said as the Doctor took stock of him. He was in his fifties, of average height, slim, balding with shoulder-length straggling grey hair and with intelligent eyes in a careworn race.

‘Actually, I didn’t say,’ the Doctor replied and then smiled, ‘a bit of everything, really, a doctor of dabbling, I suppose, who’s looking for an apothecary named Charles Preslin.’

‘To what end?’ the man asked.

‘It refers to a footnote I read in a scientific journal,’ the Doctor explained and the man smiled wryly.

‘Oh, that,’ he said and, admitting that he was Preslin, continued, ‘it dates back to ’66 when a few colleagues and I were engaged in some research. It was just before the certificate of Catholicisation was brought into force. And that, of course, put paid to our work.’

‘Which was?’ the Doctor asked innocently.

Preslin’s eyes darkened with suspicion and, stretching his left arm out, he raised his forefinger and waved it like a metronome in front of the Doctor’s face. ‘Tch-tch-tch,’ he clicked with his tongue, ‘you do not catch me out like that, sir. I am too old and wily to confess conveniently to heresy.’

‘I assure you, Monsieur Preslin, that was far from my intention.’ The Doctor’s indignation was suddenly broken by the sound of feet hurrying up the stairs. An armed, heavily-set man barged breathlessly into the room.

‘The ferrets are abroad, Charles,’ he gasped before he saw the Doctor. ‘Who’s he?’ he demanded, his hand moving to the hilt of his sword.

‘A weasel, perhaps, I don’t know. But he’s been asking questions,’ Preslin replied.

The man half-drew his sword. ‘They’re using the Abbot’s arrival as an excuse to round us up. So let’s despatch him and leave his carcass to the ferrets.’

‘Just a minute,’ the Doctor cut in angrily. ‘I came here in good faith to talk to Monsieur Preslin and now I’m being called a weasel and you’re proposing to leave my body for the ferrets. I have no idea of what you’re talking about.’

Preslin hesitated before admitting that the Doctor might be telling the truth.

‘And if he’s not?’ the other one asked. ‘He’ll tell the ferrets our escape route. No, we can’t risk it.’ He was adamant and took a step towards the Doctor as he drew his sword.

‘Put up your sword, David,’ Preslin spoke sharply and then turned to the Doctor. ‘I must oblige you to come with us, sir,’ he said.

‘That’s folly,’ David protested, pointing his sword at the Doctor.

‘If he’s innocent, he’ll have time to prove it,’ Preslin replied, ‘and if we find he’s guilty, well then, nothing’s lost. Just keep an eye on him, David, whilst I tidy up.’

As Preslin busied himself at the desk, the Doctor asked questions. He wanted to know who the ferrets and weasels were and was told they were two species of Catholic militants, both as unpleasant as they were dangerous.

Preslin closed the shutters and went into the other room to collect his jacket.

‘I know your face. I’ve seen it before,’ David remarked unpleasantly. ‘It was a long time ago when you were younger. Say, ten years. About then...’

The Doctor shook his head. ‘You’re very much mistaken, sir,’ he replied. ‘We’ve never met until now and, once I have secured my release, you may rest assured that you will never see me again.’

‘I’ve met this man,’ David said aggressively to Preslin as he came back into the room.

‘Where?’ Preslin asked, eyeing the Doctor with renewed suspicion.

‘I don’t remember – yet. It was not a pleasant encounter, that much I can recall.’ David’s voice was filled with menace. ‘But I’ll get it, have no doubt.’

‘Lead the way down the stairs. But prudently,’ Preslin advised the Doctor as David indicated the open door with his sword. It occurred to the Doctor that he might just have time enough to slam it shut in their faces. ‘And don’t touch the door whatever you think to do,’ Preslin added for good measure.

They went downstairs and stood in the corridor. Preslin opened the door into the shop and beckoned the Doctor to go through.

‘I still think you are mistaken to insist that he accompanies us,’ David stated as they passed into the shop.

‘We’ll debate it later,’ Preslin replied as he crossed over to a shelf behind the counter and, lifting off a large jar filled with dark green liquid, pressed the panel of wood behind it. A section of shelves the width of a door swung silently open. Beyond it was a flight of stone stairs leading downwards. Preslin took a taper from under the counter and lit it. Then the three of them left the shop and went down the stairs with Preslin carefully pulling the secret entrance shut after him.

With the flickering taper as their only light they made their way carefully down the steps until they reached the side of a narrow tunnel which led away in both directions.

In front, the Doctor hesitated at the entrance.

‘Turn left,’ Preslin said and they made their way along the tunnel. The Doctor noted that there was a slight cool dry breeze and that several other sets of stairs led into the tunnel. They walked without talking, their footsteps reverberating off the walls into the distance. Suddenly they saw another flickering taper ahead of them.

‘Jules?’ Preslin called.

‘Yes, Charles?’ echoed the reply.

‘Are there many others?’ David shouted.

A peal of laughter came bouncing off the walls towards them followed by the same voice: ‘You know how swiftly Lerans and Muss can move.’

Lerans and Muss: the Doctor immediately recognised the names and thought he could see a ray of light in the tunnels of his mind, a way to extricate himself from the predicament in which he found himself. ‘The gentleman’s referring to Viscount Gaston Lerans and his friend, Nicholas Muss, I believe,’ he said.

‘You know them?’ Preslin asked.

‘Coincidentally,’ the Doctor tried to sound nonchalant.

‘This afternoon, just before I came to see you, my companion and I drank a goblet of wine with them in the Roman Bridge Inn.’

‘How fortuitous,’ David replied sarcastically, ‘that you just happened to be in the right place at the right time.’

‘Did you speak to them?’ Preslin asked.

‘Not exactly, no,’ the Doctor conceded. ‘They were having an altercation with a man named Simon Duval.’

‘That pig!’ The words erupted from David’s mouth.

‘What was the row about?’ Preslin put the question quietly in an effort to calm down David. The Doctor told him everything that had happened whilst he was at the Inn. David laughed at Lerans’s jibes to Duval.

‘Lerans is a bold one, a man after my own heart,’ he exclaimed.

‘But lacking in discretion,’ Preslin said.

‘Exactly what Nicholas Muss remarked,’ the Doctor added.

‘No matter, Lerans has the Admiral’s protection and that’s as good as the Queen Mother’s.’ David was scornful of Preslin’s concern. ‘Only by the law can they catch us out, which is why there are ferrets and weasels,’ he emphasised the word, ‘in our midst.’

Beyond the taper in front of them was a faint glow of light and the Doctor became aware of the murmur of voices. Then the taper disappeared to the right.

‘It sounds as though everyone was warned in time,’

Preslin remarked as the light became brighter and the voices louder.

They reached the end of the tunnel and on turning to the right entered a large, well-lit vaulted cave. There were tables laden with bread, cheeses, cold meats and flasks of wine, drawn from the casks which lined one side. There were at least fifty people in the cave – men, women and children – and the air was filled with the babble of voices as the children played, the women prepared food or came from or went into small cubicles which were cut into the walls, and then stood and talked among themselves.

‘What have you there, Charles?’ a heavy-set bearded man asked Preslin as they came into the cave. He indicated the Doctor.

‘He claims he’s a traveller, passing through, who came to talk to me about my work,’ Preslin replied.

‘Not one word of which I believe,’ David’s voice rang out in hatred. ‘He’s a spy, a Catholic spy, a weasel sent among us by Charles de Guise, the Most Illustrious Cardinal of Lorraine.’ One of the listeners, a man of medium height and flaming red hair, rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

‘You’re talking rubbish,’ the Doctor retorted angrily.

‘What Charles Preslin has said is the truth.’

‘The tale you’ve told him’, retaliated David, ‘but I know your face.’

‘As I do,’ the red-haired man said as deep laughter began to rumble up from his belly. ‘He’s not a spy, he’s much more than that.’

‘Then who is he?’ David cried and the red-haired man beckoned him over and whispered in his ear.

‘I knew it!’ David shouted in exultation, looking at the Doctor with undisguised hatred. ‘I’ll despatch him now.’

‘No,’ the red-haired man ordered. ‘We can put him to better use.’

‘Who is he?’ Preslin asked. Before David could answer the red-haired man hushed him and then beckoned Preslin to his side and whispered in his ear. Preslin looked at the Doctor in disbelief and dismay as one man whispered to the next. Then they all drew their swords and stared at the Doctor.

‘Whosoever you think I am, I am not,’ the Doctor said in exasperation. ‘Now kindly allow me to leave as I have an important rendezvous by Notre Dame at Vespers.’

All the men hooted with laughter ad Preslin went over to the Doctor.

‘It is one, I fear, you will not keep, my lord,’ he said gently but with venom in his voice. ‘So pray, be seated.’

The Doctor looked around, took the situation into account and did the only thing possible. He sat down.

4

In spite of the disagreeable confrontation with Lerans and his companions at the auberge, Simon Duval sat at his desk in the Cardinal’s palace and was not dissatisfied with his day’s work so far. He had despatched troops to round up the dissident Huguenot apothecaries in accordance with the Abbot of Amboise’s orders and he had prepared a brief document for his new master’s perusal on the presence of the two strangers he had encountered in the auberge.

But by mid-afternoon his day had taken a turn for the worse. The Captain of the Guard, accompanied by a flabby young man whose name was Roger Colbert, came to report Anne Chaplet’s flight and rescue by, of all people, Viscount Lerans. Duval was livid with rage.

‘You dolt, you blundering imbecile, to permit him to make a fool of you, of all of us,’ he ranted.

‘There were too many of them,’ the Captain blustered,

‘we’d’ve been killed.’

‘Perhaps a better fate than that which may lie in store for you,’ Duval snarled, then took a deep breath and spoke with icy calm. ‘Why did the wench run away?’

The Captain exchanged a nervous glance with Colbert before clearing his throat. ‘It may have been because she overheard something we said.’

‘But couldn’t possibly have understood, sir,’ Colbert hastened to add while rubbing his plump, sweaty hands together.

Duval looked straight through him and said, ‘If she didn’t why did she run?’ He turned back to the Captain and asked him what it was they were discussing that could have frightened her. The Captain shook his head and was at a loss for words.

‘Oh my life, I can’t say, sir,’ he confessed.

‘
For
your life, try harder,’ Duval replied and leant back in his chair, linking his hands and putting his forefingers to his lips.

‘The celebrations?’ the Captain half-asked Colbert, glancing at him nervously.

‘Yes, yesterday’s celebrations,’ Colbert mumbled.

‘Nothing to frighten the wench there,’ Duval tapped his lips gently with his fingertips, ‘so you must’ve said something specific. What was it?’

The Captain rubbed his forehead for several seconds before replying hesitantly: ‘One of us may have mentioned Wassy.’

‘I – er – I remember the – er – town being – er – referred to,’ Colbert stammered.

‘There’s nothing to fear in that,’ Duval began and stopped abruptly before continuing in measured tones,

‘unless, of course, she’s a Huguenot.’

The Captain licked his lips and Colbert hung his head.

‘Is she?’ Duval whispered before exploding. ‘
Is she
?’ he roared, jumping to his feet. ‘In the Most Illustrious Cardinal’s palace, a Huguenot wench!’

Both the Captain and Colbert took a step backwards.

‘I have never been aware of her religious inclinations, sir,’ the Captain burbled.

‘You, the Captain of the Most Illustrious Cardinal’s personal guard, are not aware of the religious attitudes of his staff. Then I shall tell you. Yes, she is a Huguenot, she must be a Huguenot – for why else would Lerans defy you to defend her?’ Duval rose from behind his desk, walked to the front of it and prodded the Captain’s chest with his forefinger. ‘You are dismissed, reduced to the ranks,’ he shouted, ‘and your first duty as a common soldier will be to provide me by five of the clock this afternoon with a detailed report on the wench, naming any family or relatives and where they may be found. Now, get out, both of you!’

After they had fled the room, Duval walked over to the window and stared down at the courtyard below. The girl had to be located and recaptured, if possible, by the time the Abbot was installed. Then he remembered the landlord at the auberge and, grabbing his jacket, hurried out of the palace.

Antoine-Marc’s memory needed a little monetary jogging before it recalled that Anne had been taken by two of Lerans’s companions to the Admiral de Coligny’s house for safekeeping. Duval was furious, knowing that it would be difficult to prise her out of there, but his rage almost knew no bounds when he returned to his office and learnt that not one dissident Huguenot apothecary had been taken in the afternoon raids. As the Commander put it with a shrug of his shoulders, they had all simply disappeared.

‘I send you out to arrest twenty-three men and you come back empty-handed!’ Duval shouted. ‘Why didn’t you bring in their wives or their children as hostages?’

‘They’d gone too,’ the luckless Commander replied.

Duval threw himself into the chair behind his desk and drummed his fingers on its surface before dismissing the Commander with the wave of a hand. Once he was alone he took stock of the situation. It was not satisfactory, far from it. He would be forced to report that not a single Huguenot apothecary was behind bars and, knowing the Abbot’s reputation as a disciplinarian, he directed his thoughts to a matter of much greater importance – saving his own skin.