A Camelot Peasant in Thebes
The Doctor, having found a new companion, Galadriel from Camelot, had arrived back in Thebes, Egypt, where he had left his other companion, Dr. Samuel Beckett, the time trapped physicist from the 20th/21th centuries. Of course, Sam had leapt into the aura of the Doctor's true companion, Rose Tyler quite some time before. While the Doctor was still hoping Sam would leap out again any day, until then, he was going to travel with the scientist.
Glad and the Doctor had arrived the day before and now, after a good night's sleep were ready for a tour of the ancient capital city. Sam had spent nearly a month in Egypt by his reckoning, although from the Doctor's point of view it had only been a few days. Still, Sam had told him, being a guest of Pharaoh had prevented him from going to the marketplace on his own. He was thrilled to be able to experience the ancient land's common people.
"Here we go, then! Ancient Thebes! Oh, you're going to love it!" the Time Lord announced as they walked into the market.
Sam moved quickly, trying to keep up with the Time Lord and his new friend, still not knowing where Glad actually came into the picture. The Doctor led the two of them through the streets, pointing out this thing and that and even pulling out some gold to purchase a pair of earrings that Glad had fawned over. At times, Glad would run ahead of them, causing the Doctor to call out to the "dear girl" to slow her down enough so that she wouldn't become lost.
As they went through the city, Sam would occasionally take out Rose's cell phone and snap a picture or two, sometimes of just the item of his fancy and sometimes a picture of the Doctor and his new companion. He showed Glad how to use the camera phone as well - he had explained it was sort of like making instant paintings - which allowed her to take pictures as well, mostly of things she found interesting, including the Time Lord and Sam.
Once they reached the market place, through, the girl showed her excitement at all the goods in the various stalls. She went from one to another, squealing in delight as she found things that she wanted. She had repeatedly asked Sam to use the camera phone to take pictures of the jewelry but Sam had stopped her after the fifth picture, not wanting Rose's phone to look more like a fashion magazine than a diary of their visit.
As the day went on, both the Doctor and Sam found themselves increasingly loaded down with the trinkets and other items that Glad had told the Doctor she just had to have. Sam had pointed out that getting everything she wanted wasn't a good thing but the Doctor countered that she'd really just joined him and she needed a few things that belonged to her in her room.
"I suppose," the physicist said with a sigh. "Still, I don't think she needed six shawls, four scarabs, ten pairs of earrings, a pair of rope sandals..."
"Hey... I needed those," Glad protested.
Sam ignored her and continued, "...three shiffs and five collars." He paused. "We certainly wouldn't have had bought the bags to carry things in if she hadn't bought so much. You ever hear of conspicuous consumption?"
"What does conspicuous mean?" she questioned. No one answered her query, being too involved in their banter.
"You have a little sister," the Doctor pointed out to Sam. "How much jewelry and clothing did she have in her closet? I seriously doubt that she had less than what Glad just bought." He paused. "I didn't say yes to everything. I did say no to that last item."
Sam eyes widened in astonishment at that statement. "It was a donkey saddle! If you hadn't said no, I would have thought you'd gone bonkers."
Trying to become a part of the conversation, Glad interjected, "But it was pretty! I've never seen a saddle that pretty before."
"The idea of having a donkey around just wasn't that appealing," the Doctor professed. "Although... I did have a horse at one time..."
"I did too. On the farm. Cows and chickens too."
Glad spoke up once more. "I had a chicken. It was red and it laid the most wonderful eggs." She frowned. "Course, Boyne said it would make a better fricassee and when I came home... no more chicken."
"Boyne ate your chicken?!" the Gallifreyan exclaimed, stunned by the revelation that her cousin had dared to murder her pet in such a manner.
"Who's Boyne?" asked Sam. "Boyne... sort of the sound a spring makes."
Glad sighed. "That's what the Doctor said." She shook her head. "I wish I knew how you get that sound from water. I mean... I'd go fishing sometimes but I never heard water go 'Boyne'"
"How dare he! How dare he eat your chicken! That's bollocks!" the Doctor continued with indignation, not paying the slightest attention to either of them. "If it were my chicken..."
"Not that type of spring, Glad. The kind the Doctor and I are talking about is used in different mechanical applications."
"Then again... I never had a chicken," the Time Lord said. "Horse, like I said. Oh, and this marvelous bird! Flew all over the TARDIS..." He grimaced. "... even where I didn't want him to."
"Mechanical? Like..." She paused, thinking. "...like the windmills that King Arthur said would be helpful for grinding grain?"
Impressed by her answer, Sam smiled. "Very good, Glad. How'd you know that?"
"Come to think of it, that bird wasn't so marvelous after all," the Doctor bemoaned. "Oh, he was really pretty. But... he made quite a bloody mess..."
"One of the men building them was very kind to me," Glad explained to Sam. "He said if I'd bring him some bread and cheese for his lunch each day, he'd explain how the windmills and millstone work."
"Now, what kind of bird was he... a sparrow? No... that wasn't it... a canary! Yes, that's it! A beautiful yellow canary." The Gallifreyan frowned. "Well... he was beautiful until that Catkind got hold of him..."
"Are you interested in learning more about such things?" Sam asked. He looked over his shoulder, and noted the Doctor seemed very animated about something but Glad's answer pulled him back into that conversation.
"Oh, yes!" Glad answered emphatically. "The man said there wasn't much use for girls knowing about windmills and such, but the Doctor says I can do anything."
"Poor Bernard... he didn't have a chance," the Doctor mourned. "My friend wanted to call him Tweetie but I put an end to that quick enough."
"I once had a cockroach," a new voice said over the Doctor's shoulder. He'd come in behind the group and had followed along, fascinated by the Doctor's story.
"That's true, Glad," Sam agreed. "If you want, I can help you with some of that."
"And that Catkind just ate him without any consideration," the Doctor continued, oblivious to everyone else. "No apologies. Just picked him up, cut off his head and cooked him right up. And when I told him to pay up, he told me to sod off! I mean, seriously, how rude can you get? And they call me rude!"
"Yeah. I know what you mean. Only for Kevin, it was a lizard," Al, Sam's hologram observer, remembered. "That scaly reptile was a menace to insects everywhere."
"Oh, I was furious!" the Time Lord exclaimed adamantly. "I mean, sure, he was just a bird... a dirty, messy bird. But he was my bird!"
"That would be brilliant!" Glad replied to the leaper, suddenly excited. "I'm going to learn so much from you and the Doctor!"
"Well, if we're going to travel together, we might as well get to know each other." Since Sam still hadn't leapt, he had taken the attitude that it would happen when it happened. In the meantime, he was going to enjoy being himself, in a manner of speaking, for as long as it lasted.
"Exactly! I mean, most people think cockroaches are dirty creatures... and I guess most of them are... but Kevin? He was special," Al waxed kindly about the unusual pet he'd had when he lived in the orphanage.
"Yeah," Glad answered Sam. "The Doctor said he'd teach me to read."
The Doctor shrugged. "We argued for a bit about poor Bernard. Took a bit to convince that Catkind of the wrong he did me. He did apologize eventually. Took me to dinner to make up for the loss."
"You don't know how?" Sam queried, surprised.
Glad tucked her head slightly. "Not really," she answered. "But my father was able to write his name."
Sam's forehead creased. "I'm not sure I understand."
"Oh, it was a marvelous meal!" the Doctor recalled with a grin. "Collard greens and roasted potatoes... you know, the small grey ones from Tremisin..."
"Ooooooo, those sound good..." Al started before hearing the end. "Grey?"
"Well," Glad started. "At least that's what the priest said. It looked like a lot of strange lines to me but I did learn what an 'A' and a 'M' look like."
The Doctor, finally hearing Al speak to him, turned and addressed him. "They're sort of like sweet potatoes but not as sweet and naturally a little salty."
Realizing from her words that she probably came from the peasant caste of her time, Sam smiled kindly. "Well, not everyone has a teacher. I'm sure that we - the Doctor and I - can help you fix that."
"Really? You'll... you'll teach me to read too?" Glad queried.
Al tilted his head at the Doctor's words. "Sounds interesting. Just not too sure I could eat grey potatoes. Reminds me too much of the oatmeal at the orphanage."
The Doctor grimaced. "Yeah... they kind of look like oatmeal too, now that you mention it..."
"Yeah. I figure you're a bright girl. You should pick it up right away." Sam promised.
"Oh, thank you!" she exclaimed, stopping abruptly to throw her arms around him. The hug was halted when a tall skinny figure literally bumped into her from behind, causing her to stumble slightly.
"Sorry," the Doctor told her sincerely. "You okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," she assured him. "Sam was just saying that he's going to help you teach me how to read and write."
"Really? Well, that's lovely," the Time Lord commented with a nod.
"Well, I have taught people before her. Shouldn't be that hard."
"Can we start tonight?" she asked, eager to learn.
"Let's just see how things go today." Sam suggested. He shifted the bag he was carrying to his other arm. "How much further to the palace?"
"About a kilometer," the Doctor responded, apparently unaffected by the weight of his own burden. They'd been walking down the long main thoroughfare that they'd seen Ptah-Hotep and Sekhmet the first time. "Just keep following this road and we'll run right into it."
"Sam, that's nothing. When Beth goes shopping, I feel like I'm a Sherpa or something." He nodded to the girl. "By the way, who's the girl?"
"Oh! Sherpas! Reminds me that I'll have to take Glad to the mountains of Nentara Three. Great views from the summit and they have the best green tea I've ever had."
"What's a sherpa?" Glad questioned.
"I thought you wanted to keep close to Earth in case I leap out," Sam commented.
"Sam? The girl?" Al tried once more.
"Well, of course, I do. But that doesn't mean that Glad and I can't go after you've leapt out. After all, you'll be gone but Glad won't."
"Is a sherpa like a shepherd or something?" the girl persisted.
"What about Rose? She'll be back when I leave."
"Exactly. We can go anywhere in the universe without worrying about irate holograms."
"But you said..." Sam started. "Oh, never mind."
Al had been listening to the back and forth. "Hey! I'm not irate. I just want to know who the girl is."
"What's a hologram?" Glad asked, trying to keep up with what they were saying. "Is that anything like a sherpa?"
"And I appreciate your concern for your friend, Albert," the Doctor told the observer with a grin. "That doesn't mean you can't be irate." He paused as he considered all that he and Sam had said to each other. "Hold on. What do you mean never mind? Never mind what?"
"It doesn't sound like sherpas and holograms are the same, though," the peasant was pondering to herself. "A sherpa sounds more like a kind of mountain and I doubt that mountains can be irate. So a hologram must be some sort of nasty animal that lives in the mountains. So, that would be the holograms in the sherpas of Nentara Three."
"Well, it sounded like you were planning to go off with Glad and leave Rose behind. Besides you left me hanging for a month."
"Okay, I least I know her name's Glad... But yeah, Sam. You might have something there. Jack told me he left him on some planet and never came back."
The Gallifreyan gave Al a slight glare. "The issue between me and Jack is just that - between me and Jack. As for Sam, I already explained that. And, no, I'm not going to leave Rose behind. Why would I do that?"
"Why would you being hanging?" Glad queried. "Did you do something wrong?
"I don't know why you'd do that... it was just the way you said it..." He turned to Glad. "What?"
"You said something about the Doctor hanging you. Did you and this Jack person do something bad?"
"Maybe Jack. Sam's too much of a choir boy," Al quipped.
"I'm not a choir boy," Sam complained.
"So you did do something bad!" Glad concluded.
"In comparison to Jack, you are..." Al stated.
"Anyone is a choir boy in comparison to him," the Gallifreyan responded.
Glad gaped at Sam upon hearing the Doctor's words. "I'm not sure I want to be around you anymore."
"What? Why not?"
"The Doctor thinks you're a bad person and I trust his judgment."
"I never said Sam was bad."
"You said anyone was a choir boy next to him," Glad countered. "Besides, you left him hanging."
"Not literally! Sam didn't do anything wrong. Would I allow him to go out with us if he were a bad person? He did show you how to use a camera phone."
"And leaving me hanging was just referring to him leaving me here for over a month without knowing if he was ever coming back."
"So you weren't in a dungeon for a month. Well, I guess that's good."
"Guess?" Al asked, his eyes wide. "I'm not sure about this Glad, Sam. I'd watch your back."
"She's fine. She just doesn't understand. The Doctor brought her from medieval England." Sam's forehead creased. "You thought I was actually hanging..."
"That's what you said! It's not my fault you used words and phrases I've never heard before."
"She's got a point," the Doctor agreed as they neared their destination.
"Oh, thank God. There's the palace," Sam exclaimed, seeing the building much closer but still a distance away. "My arms feel like they're ready to fall off."
"That would be horrible!" Glad responded still-faced.
"What?" he questioned
"Your arms falling off. That would be a horrible thing," she told him.
"Medieval England, huh." Al shook his head. "She's very literal, isn't she."
"Glad, that's just a way of saying everything is heavy and my arms are hurting."
She turned and gave him a mischievous smile. "Gotcha."
Sam looked at her surprised for a moment before throwing her a lopsided grin, realizing that the girl had been teasing him. "Okay, okay. Guess you did."
"Told you she's a bright one," the Doctor put in. "Did you really think they don't say phrases like that in 6th century England?"
"I just didn't know. Everything else she's asked or said had been so flipping serious."
"That's because no one talked that way in Camelot. But everyone knows that last one. I wasn't born yesterday, you know," she countered. Realizing what the Doctor had said about her, she blushed slightly.
Al looked at her. "No. You won't be born for another..." He paused. "Camelot? Like in Arthur and Merlin... and the Round Table... Camelot?"
"Yeah!" the Gallifreyan exclaimed excitedly. "Isn't that amazing? We got to have a banquet with Arthur and met Merlin!"
"I found it hard to believe too," the leaper added.
"Okay," Glad lamented. "I'm sorry I teased you. No need to be flippant about it."
The Doctor and Sam chose not to respond to the girl's misunderstanding, figuring that they could explain it in more detail when they had more time. A few minutes later, they reached the gates of the palace. Sam paused and looked back to where they'd just come from. "I guess this is it? Say our goodbyes and then make sure everything's all right with Ptah-Hotep?
"Yep. I hope the real ancient Egypt was every bit as fun as what you studied for all those years," the Time Lord stated with a smile to the archeologist.
"More than that. It was literally a dream come true." He sighed. "But I'm ready to go."
"Yeah," Glad agreed. "Dreams are great but there's always the next dream to wish for." She beamed at Sam. "And now we can go see the Holograms of the Sherpa Mountains on Nentara Three!"
The three males turned and gave her confused looks.
"My dear, I think you have quite a few things to learn other than reading and writing," the Doctor told her gently as he led them into the palace and onto their next adventure.