Doctor Who_ Battlefield Part 9

One final glance at the mirror. 'Well, I'd better be off then,' he said. She handed him his case and followed him out into the garden. He gave a wave of acknowledgement to the pilot who waited in the helicopter. The propwash blew Doris's auburn hair into disarray.

'You will be careful, won't you?'

'I've always been careful. Don't worry. I'll sort this out and come home.' He held her tightly and she kissed him on the cheek. Then she pulled away.

'I think they're waiting for you,' she said quickly.

'Of course.'

The Brigadier straightened up. She watched him walk briskly towards the helicopter and climb in next to the pilot.

The machine tilted forward slightly as it lifted away.

Doris saw him give a brief wave and she raised her hand in response. The helicopter was already disappearing over the trees. Away north towards East Grinstead and London beyond.

Why wasn't Alastair too old for this? Too comfortable and retired. Surely they could have found someone else.

She thought that if he didn't come back, her heart would break.

'Merlin!' exclaimed Shou Yuing.

'You've got it wrong, mate, this is the Doctor,' insisted Ace.

The Black Knight was laughing as he pulled at the buckles of the jesseraunte armour. He met the Doctor's stare head on. 'Oh, he has many names, but in my reckoning he is Merlin.'

The Doctor helped prise the dead armour open, allowing the knight to move freely. Underneath, he wore a hauberk of light chain mail.

Testing the armour in his hands for its strength and composition, the Doctor said casually, 'So you recognized my face then?'

'No. It's not your aspect, but your manner that betrays you.'

The Doctor raised an eyebrow.

'Do you not ride the ship of Time?' went on the knight.

'Does it not deceive the senses, being smaller without than within? Merlin, cease these games and tell me truly. Is this the time?'

'The time for what?'

The knight was apparently perplexed. 'Thou dost not know, truly?'

Ace's patience finally ran out. 'Do you think he'd be asking if he did, tinhead?'

Instantly, the young man drew his sword and raised the blade in an earnest salute. 'Why, the answer to Excalibur's call,' he cried. 'The time of retribution. The time when Arthur rises to lead the Britons to war!'

'Vortigern's Lake,' muttered the Doctor. He ignored Ace's quizzical look and studied the young knight. The tribes of the chieftain Arthur's Dark Ages were a wild and generally untrained group of freedom fighters, a world away from this warrior. He resembled a fragment of romanticized legend, yet his ideals and objectives were all too real and dangerous. There had never been anything like this knight on the real Earth - at least not on any Earth the Doctor knew.

'Can you walk?' he asked.

'Aye,' said the knight eagerly, and sheathed his sword again.

Shou Yuing was beginning to be reminded of a local pageant. 'Would someone please tell me what is going on?'

she complained.

The Doctor wished he knew. The answer was, it appeared, a world away - and then he guessed. 'If my hunch is correct, the Earth could be at the centre of a war that doesn't even belong in this dimension.'

Ace threw Shou Yuing a look of sympathy. She knew what it was like trying to keep up with the Doctor.

The brewery door crashed open and a figure in UNIT uniform, holding a hi-tech rifle like a machine gun, burst in on them.

'Everybody stand nice and easy,' ordered Brigadier Bambera.

How very tiresome, thought the Doctor. 'Excuse me, Winifred,' he said, 'but we have to be somewhere urgently.

So if you could just let us get past.'

She focused the gun directly on him. 'You're under arrest, you and your freaky friends!'

'Who are you calling freaky?' shouted Ace.

The Doctor deliberately pushed Ace behind him out of the firing line and added, 'I'm sure we can sort this out quite quickly. If I could just explain...'

A loud fizz behind them like a firecracker, dissolved a section of the brewery wall into smoke. Three figures in grey armour stood in the gap carrying heavy-duty guns that resembled sawn-off lances.

'Take them,' shouted the leader.

To the Doctor's dismay, Bambera automatically trained her gun on the newcomers and yelled, 'I am an armed military officer and you are under arrest! Lay down your weapons and put your hands in the air!'

'Winifred, that is not the right approach,' protested the Doctor.

'Put the guns down!' she shouted. The Black Knight tensed and his hand went to his sword. Shou Yuing edged backwards behind a vat. The three figures advanced.

Ace saw the Doctor step directly into the knights' path.

She reached for her nitro-nine and found she had left her knapsack in the garden.

'Well, now that we're all here, let me introduce myself.

I'm the Doctor and this is... '

The Grey leader levelled his gun, but Bambera released a volley of shots directly at his head. He fell back against his companions, his mirrored visor cracked across.

The Black Knight launched himself at Bambera, knocking her to the floor as the wall behind them disappeared in a burst of splintered brick. 'One favour returned, my lady,' he said in her ear. He turned and saw his fallen sword lying across the floor out of reach.

A pair of small hands grasped the ma.s.sive hilt and tried to drag up the broadsword.

'Ace! No!' hissed the Doctor from cover.

The Grey leader had recovered and was advancing towards the Black Knight and Bambera with his gun raised. 'Mine,' he said and his minions waited.

Hardly able to lift the huge sword, Ace stepped out and swung the weapon at the Grey leader's legs. He tripped and hit the floor, his visor shattering. His gun skittered away across the tiles.

Bambera had struggled out from under the Black Knight. She clambered to her feet and brought her gun to bear on the Grey leader.

'All right, you want to try that again?' she said.

Bits of visor fell from the leader's helmet as he struggled to his feet. He waved back his advancing men and ripped off the remains of the helmet to reveal his handsome saturnine features. 'Mordred!' exclaimed the Black Knight.

The prince nodded. 'Ancelyn ap Gwalchmai. How fitting that you should die amongst peasants.'

'Look again. Mordred,' said Ancelyn and glanced meaningfully at the Doctor, who was emerging from behind the vat.

'Remember me?' said the Doctor hopefully and raised his hat.

Mordred stared for a moment, and then his eyes widened in angry recognition. These were the mocking tones that had plagued his thoughts so often over a thousand years or more. 'Merlin!'

'Not again!' moaned Ace.

'You were bound!' accused the prince. 'My mother sealed you into the ice caves for all eternity.'

The Doctor sneered. 'I am the master of time. I am not bound so easily.'

'Master of lies!'

Ancelyn levelled his sword at Mordred's chest. 'Beware your tongue, Mordred. Have you so easily forgotten Badon, where he cast down your mother with his mighty arts?'

'Yes,' insisted the Doctor fiercely, 'remember Badon and my mighty arts!' He was rather enjoying this verbal joust with the undefinable and added, 'Do you think I would use mere trickery against one as formidable as you?

Now go, before I unleash a terrible...' he reached to conjure some elemental force from the air, '...a terrible something upon you!'

'Go, Mordred, while you still live,' warned Ancelyn.

Mordred's eyes narrowed with hatred. 'There will be a reckoning, Ancelyn. I promise it. And as for you, mighty wizard Merlin, my mother Morgaine has waited twelve centuries to face you. You will bow down before her this time.'

He turned and led his knights away through the gap.

Ace pressed her hand on the Doctor's arm. 'Who was that?'

He sniffed dismissively and watched the knights as they disappeared into the woods. 'That was Mordred.' he said knowledgeably. 'And his mother is Morgaine, a mighty sorceress.'

'You know these guys then?' asked Shou Yuing, who had finally emerged from hiding.

The Doctor shook his head. 'Never seen them before.'

Ancelyn began to gather up his armour. Its last duty had been to shield him from the energies of the firecone's explosion and break his fall. Then it was dead and its visor cracked across. He could no longer leap from Avallion back to the world. It had been his armour since his knighting, embossed with the emblems of fights and favours he had won. He stacked its cold, chitinous sections with fond care, remembering the origin of each scratch and c.h.i.n.k. But he was no longer alone. Where Merlin was, so would Arthur be.

'Winifred. A word,' said the Doctor, 'and in comfort please. I suspect it's my round again.' He was out of the brewery and heading back to the hotel before Bambera could argue.

'Come on, Sir Galahad,' said Ace.

Ancelyn fixed her with a grave smile. 'Not so, damosel.

Sir Galahad of blessed memory was the grandest great-grandfather of my great-grandfather's great great grand-uncle, and a solemn holy knight.'

'Sorry,' said Ace. Families were other people's problem - a fact she repeated to herself with worrying regularity.

Ancelyn slapped her merrily on the back. 'No matter.

My parage is tangled as a briar patch. You need a stick to unpick the thicket.' He paused, apparently waiting for a response.

Ace glanced at Shou Yuing. 'I wish he'd let us in on the joke,' she muttered.

'I think he just has,' confessed Shou Yuing. But she grinned because her grandmother had always told such tales of their family's ancestors. The tales were in Mandarin; in fifty-three years as a British subject, Granny had not learned one word of English.

The young women hurried after the Doctor, leaving Ancelyn and Bambera to follow.

They collided in the door.

'I want to talk to you,' said the brigadier.

One corner of the knight's mouth sidled into a mischievous grin. 'I am Ancelyn ap Gwalchmai, the Sperhawk. Knight General of the Britons. I do not talk to peasants.'

Frustrations that had been smouldering since the early hours finally ignited. Bambera raised her fist, Ancelyn caught it and they fell through the open door in a tangle on to the muddy path and lawn.

Ace glanced back and saw the fight in progress.

'Professor!'

There was a cry of pain from one of the grappling protagonists.

'Don't worry about them,' advised the Doctor without even looking. 'They're just establishing their credentials.'

'They've got a funny way of doing it.' Ace stared back at the fracas. At the moment, Bambera seemed to be getting the better of the knight. But he seemed to be laughing.

'What should we worry about then?' asked Shou Yuing.

'Sorcery,' said the Doctor and hurried into the hotel.

Night slipped across the surface of the sky like a film of oily darkness. It spread not from the east, but from an apex directly over the decaying priory close to the Tarchester road. Above the broken timbers of the roof, the stars were stifled.