Doctor Who: The Myth Makers (7 page)

A bad woman to cross, Cassandra; put me in mind of her brother Hector in drag, if you can imagine such a thing. Paris quailed before her.

‘Ah, there you are,’ he said. ‘Well, the point is, old thing, Father and I were rather hoping, we could, perhaps...’

‘Nothing of the kind!’ snapped Priam, obviously glad to let him down. ‘Don’t drag me into it. Honestly, bringing back blessed shrines that nobody wants. Go and bring Achilles’ body, if you want to do something useful! Get back to the war!’

‘And take that thing with you,’ added Cassandra, with as much vehemence as she could muster, which was always considerable. But, as is well known, there are limits, and she had now reached them, as far as Paris was concerned.

‘No, I say, really Cassandra, if you knew the weight of it!

Can’t I just move it to the side of the square, and leave it for the moment? As a sort of – well, as a monument, if you like?’

‘A monument to what?’ asked Cassandra, rudely, not letting the matter rest.

‘Well, to my initiative, for instance. After all, it’s the first sizeable trophy we’ve captured since the war started. It seems a pity not to make some use of it, don’t you think?’

‘And what sort of use would you suggest?’

‘Well,
I
don’t know, do I? Once we’ve examined it thoroughly, it will probably prove to have all sorts of uses.’

‘Yes, I’m quite sure it will; uses to the Greeks.’

‘Now what on earth do you mean by that? The Greeks haven’t got it anymore, have they? I have.’

She sneered, offensively: ‘And why do you imagine they allowed you to capture it?’

This was going too far – even from a sister one has known from infancy.

‘
Allowed
me to? Now, look here, Cassandra, I don’t think you quite appreciate the sort of effort that went into –’

She ignored his local outburst. ‘
Where
did you find it?’ she persevered, not letting up for an instant.

‘Now, where do you think? Out there on the plain, for goodness sake.’

‘Unguarded, I suppose?’

‘Well as a matter of fact, yes. They’re getting very careless these days.’

‘I thought as much! Don’t you see, you were
meant
to bring it into Troy?’

‘No, I don’t frankly. And furthermore...’

‘I think I’m beginning to,’ contributed Priam, gloomily.

Paris was now thoroughly on the defensive: ‘Now, just what are you both getting at? Always have to try and spoil everything for me, don’t you?’

Cassandra struck a dramatic pose, as though it had offended her in some way. ‘This has broken my dream! The auguries were bad today, I awoke full of foreboding!’

‘I never knew you when you didn’t.’

‘Paris,’ said Priam, ‘your sister is high priestess; let her speak.’

‘Ah, very well, very well,’ said Paris, yawning behind his chin-guard, ‘what
was
this dream of yours, Cassandra?’

‘Thank you! I dreamed that on the plain the Greeks had left a gift, and although
what
it was remained unclear, we brought it into Troy. Then in the night, from out its belly soldiers came, and fell upon us as we slept.’

‘That’s it?’ asked Paris. ‘Yes – well, I hardly think you need to interpret that one! Really, Cassandra, have you taken a good look at this gift – as you call it? Go on, take your time – examine it carefully – that’s right. Now, just how many soldiers do you think are lurking in it? A regiment, perhaps? I hate to disappoint you, old thing, but you’d be lucky to prise even two small Spartans out of that.’

‘Fools! Even one man could unbar the gates, and so admit an army! It’s exactly the sort of scheme Odysseus would think of!’

‘Then I hope I’m not being too practical for everybody,’

returned Priam, reasonably, ‘but why don’t we open the thing and see?’

‘Well, that’s rather the trouble,’ said Paris. ‘There does seem to be a sort of door – but it won’t open...’

‘What did I tell you?’ shrieked Cassandra, like an owl stuck in a chimney, ‘It’s locked from the inside!’ And she beat her breast, in what must have been rather a painful way.

‘Oh,
is
it?’ Priam seized Paris’s sword, ‘Stand back! I have a short way with locks.’ And he attacked the door of the TARDIS

with ill-concealed malevolence. Not a dent or a blemish, however.

Paris swallowed a smug smile. ‘Perhaps you’ll believe me, next time? Cassandra, would you like to try?’

She rejected the offer with dignity. ‘The thing need not be opened. Bring branches, fire and sacrificial oil! We will make of it an offering to the gods of Troy – and if there be someone within, so much the greater gift.’

While attendants, servitors and scullions scurried about to fetch the necessary, Paris had one final go at saving his hard-earned trophy.

‘Now wait a moment all of you! Whatever it may be, the thing is mine – I found it! So leave it alone, can’t you?’

But Priam’s blood was really up now. He’d not only hurt his thumb on the door; but like Odysseus and Agamemnon before him, he resented being made a fool of, in front of the staff. ‘Out of the way, boy! The thing must be destroyed before it harms us!

Further.’ he added, inspecting his damaged digit. Then, brandishing a burning branch, in a somewhat irresponsible manner, I thought, with so much sacrificial oil splashing about the place, he prepared to set fire to the TARDIS.

Small Prophet, Quick Return

From what I had heard the Doctor tell Odysseus, I suspected that the machine was pretty well indestructible anyway, but on the other hand, at the last count, one of our time travellers was missing. Or so Steven had told the Doctor; a young girl, if memory served – and naturally I didn’t want her to be barbecued in her prime. So I mingled with the mob, and raised my voice among the general hubbub; and I raised it in quite a long speech too, because, if you notice, people are so used to short, snappy slogans on these occasions, that, in my experience, nobody pays a blind bit of attention to them. I mean ‘Funeral pyre, out, out, out!’ would simply fail to grip. So, clearing my throat, I said:

‘Wait! It’s not for me to tell you how to run things, of course, but before you actually initiate an irreversible conflagration, should we not pause to ascertain if such a gift would be
acceptable
to the gods? It may, of course, be exactly what they’ve always wanted, but, on the other hand, if it does harbour treachery, as Cassandra maintains, then might it not seem as if you’re trying to shuffle it off on them? Because they’d hardly be likely to thank you for that, would they? Just an idea – thought I’d mention it.’

Not easy to say that sort of thing in a populist bellow, but I managed fairly well, I think, because it certainly held them for the moment. Paris tipped me the wink and gave me the thumbs up, and even Priam stopped in mid-ignition to consider my remarks.

‘Yes, that
is
a point – we don’t want a lot of offended gods to deal with, on top of everything else. Have a word with them, will you, Cassandra? Better to be on the safe side.’

She wasn’t that pleased, but could hardly refuse, under the circumstances. Once more she struck that long-suffering attitude of hers. ‘O, hear me, you Horses of the Heavens, who gallop with our destiny! If you would have us take this gift, then let us see a sign. Show us your will, I pray you, for we are merely mortal, and we need your guidance.’

Well, Vicki, as I had hoped, must have been glued attentively to the scanners watching the preparations for her incineration with some concern, because she very sensibly took Cassandra’s harangue as a cue to come amongst us. She stepped out through the doors like a sylph from a sauna, and inquired politely, ‘You need my guidance? I shall be prepared to help in any way I can.’

The effect was electric. Paris beamed and would certainly have twirled a moustache, if he’d had one about him. ‘This is no Horse of Heaven,’ he noticed approvingly.

‘This is no Spartan soldier either,’ Priam observed.

‘Then
who
is she?’ demanded Cassandra, obviously prepared to object, whoever she was.

‘Ah, I’m no one of any importance,’ said Vicki, decisively,

‘but I do know a bit about the future, if that’s what interests you?’

Well, of course it did – like anything! Except that Cassandra naturally felt that she should have a monopoly on that sort of thing, and bristled accordingly. ‘How do you so? You are no Trojan goddess. You are some puny, pagan goddess of the Greeks.’

‘Don’t be silly – of course I’m not! I’m every bit as human as you are.’

‘How comes it then, that you claim to know the future?’

‘Oh, really, Cassandra,’ said Paris, before Vicki could answer, ‘you know you’re always going on about it yourself.’

Having already bristled, Cassandra now bridled. ‘I am a priestess, skilled in augury!’

‘Yes, yes, yes – all those dreary entrails, flights of birds and so on. We know. Well, perhaps this young lady’s read the same ones?’

‘Are you a priestess?’ demanded Cassandra, prepared to make an issue of it.

‘Not as far as I know. I mean, I never took any examinations, or anything.’

‘Then how dare you practice prophecy?’

‘Well, I haven’t done yet, have I?’ said Vicki, reasonably.

‘You are some drab of Agamemnon’s sent to spread dissension.’

It was Vicki’s turn to bristle or bridle. She did both. ‘What an idea! I’m nothing of the sort. Don’t be coarse.’

‘Of course she isn’t,’ said Paris ‘I can tell.’

‘Why, I’ve never even seen Agamemnon,’ persisted Vicki, ‘I wish I had, but I haven’t.’

‘Oh, you wouldn’t like him at all,’ said Paris, ‘not at all your type.’

Priam coughed. ‘Your judgement of young women, Paris, is notoriously unsound!’

Paris joined the bridling bristlers. ‘Well, I don’t care what anyone says – she’s as innocent as she’s pretty!’

‘Then you’d better give her a golden apple, and get it over,’

said Priam making an obscure classical reference. He turned to Vicki. ‘Come here, child – I wish to question you.’

Cautiously, like a trout observing a label on a may-fly, Vicki left the shelter of the TARDIS, and approached the king.

‘That’s right. Now then, tell me – and you a Greek?’

‘No,’ said Vicki, ‘I’m from the future. So you see, I don’t
have
to prophesy – because, as far as I’m concerned the future has already happened.’

This was a facer, even for the wise old autocrat. ‘Eh?’ he inquired, ‘I don’t think I quite follow.’

‘Of course, you don’t,’ snapped Cassandra, going in to bat again. ‘She’s trying to confuse you. Kill the girl,’ she suggested spitefully, ‘before she addles all our wits! If she isn’t a priestess, then she’s a sorceress, and deserves to die! There are standing orders to that effect.’

‘Oh, don’t be absurd, Cassandra – you’re not to harm her,’

said Paris, for the defence.

She turned on him like a viper – if that’s the snake I mean.

One of those frightfully quick ones, anyway – ‘You purblind satyr. Why, you’re half enchanted already. Get back to your Spartan adulteress, before you make a complete fool of yourself again. I tell you, she must die!’

‘I do wish you’d both be quiet for a moment,’ sighed Priam,

‘Now, you mustn’t be frightened, child; you shall die when I say so, and not a moment before.’

‘That’s very comforting,’ said Vicki.

‘Good girl! There – you see? Neither of you has any idea how to handle children. It only needs a little patience and understanding. Now, tell me first of all – what is your name?’

‘Vicki,’ said Vicki.

‘Vicki?’ he repeated doubtfully. ‘That’s an outlandish sort of name, isn’t it?’

‘A heathen sort of name if you ask me!’ contributed his bouncing daughter.

‘Nobody did ask you, Cassandra! Well, I really don’t think we can call you Vicki – far too difficult to remember. No, we must think of another one for you. A Trojan type of name, that won’t arouse comment. What about... let me see – what about Cressida? I had a cousin called Cressida once – on my father’s side of the family. Always liked the sound of it. Would that suit you, do you think?’

‘It’s a very pretty name,’ said Vicki.

‘Very well, then – Cressida it shall be.’

‘Thank you,’ said Vicki, ‘that’s who I am, then.’ And from that instant she was lost forever, and at last found her proper place in Time and History! For we are the prisoners of our names, more than ever we are of what we imagine to be our destinies. They shape our lives, and mould our personalities, until we fit them. We are only what our names tell us to be, and that is why they are so very important. And why, incidentally, the Doctor never revealed his own. It preserved his independence from Fate, and made him an unclassifiable enigma; which was an advantage in his line of work, as you will appreciate. I mean, supposing his real name had been... but no –

never mind! I digress again – and that’s tactless of me, when Priam was still speaking.

‘Now then, Cressida, you claim to come from the future?’

She nodded modestly. ‘So, presumably, you know everything that’s going to happen?’

‘Well, not absolutely everything, because, after all, I’m only quite young. There are lots of places and times I haven’t been to yet.’

‘Quite so. But on the other hand, I expect you know a good deal about this particular war we’re having at the moment? Or you’d hardly be here, would you, now?’

She considered the question. ‘Well to be honest, I only know what I’ve read. And I’m told a lot of that is only myth – nothing at all to do with what really happened.’

Confound the girl! My book is essentially true – although to be fair, I do embroider a bit here and there, for the sake of dramatic shape. Poetic licence, it’s called – but then, as I say, I hadn’t written it at the time; so I was as much in the dark as the rest of them.

‘Never mind,’ said Priam, the cunning old fox! ‘Look, Cressida – come along into the palace, and you can, I’m sure, give me
some
sort of indication of what to expect, a general outline of Greek strategy, as it were; and in any case, I expect you could do with something to eat?’