Doctor Who: The Romans (9 page)

So: ‘This way, my good fellow; to your immediate left!’

I advised him; and, releasing the rachet, seized the handle of the pulley.

Unfortunately, however, I had neglected to observe that the device was fitted with counter-weights, so that I was at once flung from my feet into the air, where I described a large arc; while the door flew open to its full aperture. And, as he sprang through it, closely pursued by the entire, outraged pack - or pride - I realised with sudden dismay that this exit led, not to some inner sanctum, but to the gladiatorial arena; where, as I judged from the swelling cheers of the multitude, the morning’s unappealing performance had just started..

Seventh Extract from the Journal of Ian
Chesterton

The widely anticipated dawn at last arrived, heralded by my gaoler with the news that it looked like being a good house, as there was queuing at all prices.

I derived what cheer I could from this announcement -

for one doesn’t, of course, wish one’s death to pass entirely unnoticed - and was then led through the damp catacombs, given my weapons, and ushered into the arena; where my appearance was greeted in a manner reminiscent of the Lower Fourth disapproving, as ever, of their examination results.

But I had little time to reflect on the manifest bias of the audience, for my attention was at once drawn to the box of the Emperor Nero himself, where to my astonishment I saw that Barbara Wright made one of the Imperial Party.

I ventured a wave, to which she responded with a barely perceptible flicker of the fingers, my gesture having been intercepted by a lady who could only have been Poppea, and who thereupon blew me a kiss.

Nero glanced irritably at both girls, and declared that that would be quite enough of that kind of thing, thank you; but any subsequent remarks he may have uttered were drowned by the storm of exaggerated cheering which greeted the entrance of my adversary, the giant Delos.

He appeared to have slept well, and advanced to meet me with hand outstretched; but on my being silly enough to shake it, he crushed nerveless several of my fingers in his iron grip - which is the sort of thing which gets wrestling a had name, in my opinion. Nevertheless it went down very well with the crowd; and having acknowledged their approval, he said ‘For goodness sake, don’t make such a fuss, or they’ll think it’s all faked! Now, pull yourself together: first of all we have to address the Emperor.’

‘As what?’ I groaned, not being entirely sure of the protocol.

‘
Nos morituri te salutamus
,’ he suggested; ‘it’s usual.’

And on my looking rather blank, he kindly translated the remark as: ‘We who are about to die salute you.’

‘Yes, but look here,’ I objected, ‘if you’ll only listen to me for a moment, I’m sure you’ll see that neither of us need die at all!’

‘Well,
I’m
not going to,’ he agreed, ‘but one of us has to, and that leaves you. Otherwise I don’t get my expenses for the journey home.’

This seemed to me a pretty feeble motive for murder, and I said so; but there was obviously no reasoning with a man like that, who fancied, moreover, that he had some sort of grudge against me.

So we delivered the ‘
morituri
’ line more or less in unison

- and I must say it was very well received, considering they must all have heard it often enough before - and I was wondering what to do next, when Nero bellowed pettishly,

‘All right, all right, get on with it then!’

Actually, I don’t think Delos can have heard him, because he went on acknowledging the applause, but I decided to take it as my cue for action. Because, look here, I wouldn’t normally wish to take an unfair advantage, but I inspected my bruised lingers, and thought, ‘Well, if that’s the way he wants it, he can have it!’; and approaching him from the rear I threw my net completely over his enormous bulk, effectively entangling his ankles, and bringing him to the sawdust with an earth-shattering crash, and a rather vulgar oath.

Mind you, this didn’t go down at all well with the crowd, which booed offensively; but I ask you to remember, Headmaster, that I could, had I so chosen, have used my javelin at this juncture, and that would have seen the end of the matter.

In fact, a moment later, I wished that I had done; for, on my asking him, somewhat prematurely perhaps, if he now yielded, he ignored the question completely, and lumbered dumbly to his knees, simultaneously drawing a nasty-looking broad-sword from its scabbard, with which he proceeded to hack at the all-enveloping mesh.

Well, no net was ever woven which could stand that sort of treatment for long, so I reluctantly hefted my main armament preparatory to a pre-emptive strike.

I say ‘reluctantly’ because I had no wish to injure the man, and until this very last minute had continued to hope that we might have arrived at some sort of rapprochement whereby we could turn on our captors, and emerge victorious. But no - the chances of such an accord now seemed to have receded irretrievably; so with a loud cry of

‘Take that then, confound you!’, I launched the weapon in the direction of my erstwhile companion’s muscular midriff. Wherefrom it might well have bounced, for all I know; but unfortunately I had failed to notice that I was standing on a corner of the net, which my struggling adversary - whether intentionally or not, I cannot be sure -

now pulled from beneath me, at the very instant that the missile left my hand, effectively spoiling my aim.

Even as I fell flat on my back, I watched appalled, as the javelin’s deadly trajectory span sparkling in the morning sun to a target area some two inches to the left of Nero’s ear, where it stuck, vibrating like a metronome, in the woodwork of the Royal Box.

There was a moment’s silence, during which Delos muttered, ‘Well, you’ve
really
done it now, haven’t you?’; and then the Emperor squealed to his feet, advancing as his theory that treachery was at work, and that any right-thinking members of the public would do very nicely for themselves if they finished off the pair of us, thereby showing their loyalty to the throne and their allegiance to the established order of things, the... what’s the phrase he used?... the
status quo
, that’s it.

He and the rest of his party then disappeared down a sort of hatchway without bothering to stay for the sequel; which was that a murmuring mob of public spirited citizens, intent on adopting his recommendation
in toto
, leaped into the arena and sped towards us, whilst I hurriedly helped Delos divest himself of the rest of the reticulum, feeling that surely he must at last realise where his best interests lay, and stand beside me in this moment of crisis.

I then realised that the mob in question had stopped in its tracks for some reason, and was now sprinting right back where it came from; and looking round I discovered that, to add to our pleasure on this merry morning, some fool had let the lions out!

At the moment they were in mute pursuit of a bizarre figure in the dishevelled uniform of a member of the armed forces, who - absurdly, I thought, under the circumstances

- was making shoo-ing gestures at them with a broken lyre; whereas everyone knows that you really need a chair for that sort of thing.

But it was not time to argue over the various techniques of animal training; and, united once more, Delos and I joined the flying fugitive as he traversed the arena, and leaped the barricade at the far side, opposition melting before us, in view presumably of our huge pursuers; and finally, in a last burst of speed we passed through the turnstiles to seek anonymity and safety in the streets of Rome!

Later: I have been trying to explain to Delos that it is now necessary for us to go
back
to the palace and rescue Barbara, but he does not seem to see it my way, and refuses to do anything of the sort!

What a strangely ungrateful man he is to adopt this attitude, after all I have done for him these past days! But no he intends, he says, to return to Greece forthwith, and still grumbles about losing his expenses!

Very well, then: as usual I shall have to go on alone...

Seventh Extract from the Doctor’s

I did not linger long enough to witness the outcome of my inadvertent animal liberation movement, feeling that the entry of the great cats might well lead to the exit of the gladiators; and therefore the disruption of a sporting event to which Nero had evidently been looking greatly forward.

And I had no wish to incur his odium just when it seemed we were getting on so well together.

As to the wretched assassin, I am not, I hope, a vindictive man, but I confess that the thought of his probable fate did not stir me to other than a chuckle. He had been asking for something of the sort ever since I left Assissium; and, as it is well known, malefactors trifle with me at their peril!

However, one consequence of the unfortunate fiasco did disturb me, for my lyre was manifestly unfit now for further service, and my revolutionary recital, which I had been anticipating pleasurably albeit with a touch of that apprehension inseparable from public appearances – would now have to be cancelled
sine die
. I therefore allowed a sufficient interval for tempers to cool, and then presented myself at the state apartments to make my excuses...

Nero, I thought, received me with less enthusiasm than is customary when fellow artistes foregather; but this was explained to my satisfaction when he told me he had once more narrowly escaped death at the hands of a malcontent; and I said that there was a coincidence, and it was small wonder that young people were no longer taking up music as a serious career, considering the occupational risks involved.

Speaking of which, I very much regretted that I would be unable to give my promised concert at his banquet that evening, as my particular and apparently personal assailant had got away with the lute. (That was a pleasantry which failed to raise a smile; probably because, as I later realised on reviewing the conversation, the lute was an instrument which first appeared in Europe during the fourteenth century – and loot as a synonym for booty was hardly in general use until the Capone era. Such are the conversational hazards of time-travel!) I therefore rephrased the statement; and was more than slightly chagrined to receive no expression of sympathy or disappointment at my unfortunate dilemma, not even a consolatory ‘Tut!’

How would Yehudi Menuhin have felt, I wondered, if on telling his promoter to cancel everything because he had carelessly sat on his Stradivarius, the man had merely raised an eyebrow, and said ‘Well, well – these things happen...’ ?

No, so far as I could read the fluorescent features before me, they seemed to indicate a mild relief, if anything – a phenomenon I was at a loss to explain!

‘You mean,’ he enquired slowly, ‘that there is absolutely no danger of... I mean, that we are definitely not to have the... the pleasure of hearing you perform? Poppy
will
be disappointed... I expect.’

I said I was glad someone would be; because the loss of my lyre meant the tragic curtailment of what could have been a brilliant career as a virtuoso.

‘Do I understand then, that you intend
never
to play again? Not under any circumstances... whatever?’

‘Well, I don’t really see how I can...’ I told him; and then a really brilliant idea struck me: ‘Unless, of course, you would care to lend me your own instrument for the evening?’

He shuddered for some reason; and then replied that it was quite out of the question, since it was a creation of exquisite workmanship, believed once to have been the property of Orpheus. And on the evidence of my behaviour to date – I cannot imagine what he meant by that! – he was afraid I might drop it.

‘No,’ he continued, strumming vaguely on the gem-encrusted artefact, ‘as you say, it is indeed a sad loss to Music; but, on the other hand, of course, looking on the bright side, it does mean that I needn’t after all, have you put to... put to any inconvenience; or see you torn apart...

or torn apart by conflicting emotions, doesn’t it? So now, I take it, you’ll be returning to Corinth as soon as convenient, eh?’

I agreed that it was my intention to leave Rome, just as soon as we had completed our discussion concerning his municipal building programme, as provisionally pencilled onto the adenda of the agenda yesterday.

A harmless enough proposition, one would have thought. But strangely, he leaped to his feet, and screamed irritably, ‘I suppose you think I haven’t got one, don’t you?

People seem to imagine that I do simply nothing all day, but sit around writing songs, and persecuting Christians, and organising orgies, and all that...’

‘And all what?’ I asked him.

‘That,’ he replied evasively. ‘But I tell you, there’s a lot more to being an Emperor than you might suppose.

There’s... well, there’s caring and concern, and so on.

And... ah, yes... what about this? I have just received - look here! - the final winning entries for my ‘Design a Capitoline’ competition from the Institute of Architects!

There you are - how about that?’

He had produced, during the above, a sheaf of plans from a drawer in the ormolu-encrusted sarcophagus between us, and flung them triumphantly onto the table.

‘These’ll lead to a fine old song and dance from the conservation lobby, wouldn’t you say? Progressive as all get out, they are! Make Rome absolutely unrecognisable in no time at all!’

I must admit that the plans appeared to be a most impressive example of featureless urban sprawl; and I produced my spectacles with the multi-focal lenses, the better to examine the more soul-destroying, habitat flattering details of his projected Rome New Town Conurbation; for I am, of course, a qualified architect myself, and could, I believe, have produced some distinguished work in that field, had I so chosen.

It was while I was thus engaged that Poppea entered the room, followed by a forlorn figure, which, through the high magnification of my glasses, I could have sworn was that of Barbara Wright! Startled out of my normal composure, I therefore removed the delusory pince-nez, laying them carefully on the blue-prints, and regarded the lady again from several angles, with the naked eye.