DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Doctor Who, unfortunately D: I own Odie's plot, and Odie's little settlement of immigrants. I am trying to make this story as accurate as possible, but when many sources contradict themselves, according to Doctor Who, I will ALMOST always take the TV-info as the correct. Much of the writing in this chapter is from the book 'Byzantium' by Keith Topping.
It was all very strange for Vicki after her two weeks spent in the loving, yet impoverished, home of the Georgiadis family. She had been manhandled from the Greek quarter the previous evening and frog-marched back to the Roman barracks, each of her questions about where they were taking her, and why, had been met with a stony silence, then irritated looks from legionnaires and finally a stinging mouthful of Latin swearing from the sergeant. He had then hauled her into the Roman compound, dragged her up a steep flight of stairs and pushed her into a bedroom that, although poorly decorated and unfurnished, was still the lap of luxury compared to what she'd been used to recently.
The atmosphere, however, was sterile and dowdy compared to Evangeline's fireside and Vicki quickly climbed into bed, pulled the blankets around her and didn't sleep at all, listening instead to the sounds of activity within the compound. The next morning, they came for her early and she found herself in a military office facing the captain who had led the raid on the Georgiadis home.
"Good morning," he said, without looking up from a scroll that he was reading, as the gruff and snarling sergeant pointed to the seat opposite the captain and made it clear that Vicki should sit in it and speak when she was spoken to. So she did.
"I apologise for any unnecessary roughness yesterday evening," the captain said, finally raising his head and giving Vicki a little half-smile that, she imagined, he reserved for people that he wasn't about to torture. "We knew not with whom we were dealing. My name is Drusus Felinistius, tell me yours please."
"Vicki. That's, erm, short for Vickius Pallister... us." She returned the half-smile and then sat back, swinging her legs beneath the chair. The captain gave his sergeant an odd look and signaled that he should leave.
"And you are a Briton, yes?"
"Uh-huh," affirmed Vicki, proudly. "I'm from Londinium."
"Your Latin is most excellent, Vickius." For a fraction of a second, Vicki tittered coyly flattered that so handsome a man was giving her a compliment. Then, just as quickly, her indignity rose towards her Roman captor and she demanded to know what he wanted with her. Captain Drusus Felinistius seemed surprised.
"You were being held captive against your will by those Greek people." He pronounced the alst word as though it was something vile. "They will, incidentally, be dealt with most severely."
"No, you've got it all wrong," cried Vicki quickly. "They were kind to me. Georgiadis rescued me when there was all that fuss and bother in the forum, and I lost my family. They've been looking after me."
"And you were not abused, or forced into slavery by them...?" Vicki considered mentioning the work that Evangeline made her do around the house, but then decided that wasn't really what the captain had meant.
"Not at all. I should hate for them to be badly treated for an act of kindness."
"Very well," said Drusus Felinistius, "your loyalty to them does you great credit. Nevertheless, it is unbecoming for a citizen of the Roman empire such as yourself to be living with subhuman scum like the Greeks. We will find a place for you within Roman society." Vicki snorted with derision.
"The Greeks are a million times more civilized than the Romans," she said, standing up. "I know the drill, I'll be in my room when you want me."
"So, you think that word of the general and the Praefectus forming an alliance might have leaked out?" Ian asked Fabulous, as the two men and Odie walked along the corridor towards the library. Events since the previous day had excited Ian as, though still mutually suspicious, Gaius and Thalius did (finally) seem to be pulling in the same direction, spending over an hour together in the Villa Praefectus with Gemellus the previous evening, discussing tactics against their mutual enemies. Not just the Zealots and the other terrorist insurgents, but also within their own forces.
However, both Gemellus, and now Fabulous, were quick to warn Ian that as events were moving, so the conspirators were bound to be moving with them.
"I should say such a thing would be inevitable," Fabulous noted. "For whensoever great men are to be found, there shall be, not many steps behind, lesser men. Is that not so?" Odie looked up as she picked out a strange sound on the edge of her conscience. Ian and Fabulous having fallen into conversation with another man didn't help her awareness, but gradually, the sound turned out to be footsteps. She quickly turned around, seeing a guardsman, wearing the uniform of the praetorian staff, racing towards her and the men with a knife clasped firmly in his hand.
It wasn't the first time that Ian had been the focus of an assassination attempt. In fact, both he and Odie were getting heartily sick of such things. Odie and the other man that Ian and Fabulous were talking to both charged forward, overwhelming the imposter. As the other man put the assassin in a headlock, Odie gripped onto his wrist, using her thumbs to apply pressure to the Ulna and Radius bones, just as Ian had taught her, forcing the assassin to drop the knife. She quickly kicked it to the side, as the allied stranger forced the would-be murderer to the floor.
As Ian quickly pulled Odie to her feet, Drusus, Gemellus, Tobias and others, including armed guards, were all approaching from different directions. Fabulous laughed, patting the back of the young woman.
"Your skills at capturing these villains are improving, am I right, Erastus?" the old librarian asked, and the man, currently holding the struggling assassin grunted it reply. Odie giggled happily, looking up at Ian. He was smiling at her, obviously quite pleased with her too.
"I'm getting practice," she pointed out. It wasn't the first time she had taken care of an assassin aimed at Ian, and it wouldn't be the last.
"Who sent you on this errand of betrayal?" Erastus asked his still-struggling captive. "Upon whose orders do you attempt murder in the Villa Praefectus?" The guard shook his head. A spine-shaking punch in the face by Erastus brought only a statement that he would rather cut his own tongue than betray his master.
"That might well be arranged," said Drusus as he helped Erastus to haul the man to his feet, leaving the three friends to look after them.
"How many is that now?" Ian asked, putting his arm around Odie, and she looked up at the ceiling. "Well, it's my number five, and you stopped four attempts before that on your own," she pointed out, and Ian sighed with every ounce of a martyr's dramatic flair.
"We will soon enter our next digit!"
To Barbara, observing the bewildering kaleidoscope of nationalities and cultures that were present in Byzantium, this was in itself an education. For two days she wandered around the city, soaking up as much information as she could that would help her to remain alive and at liberty. On the first night she stayed with a Jewish family who treated her with respectful silence, as though mindful of Hieronymous's edict about her. Careful not to overstay her welcome, Barbara left early the following morning and found herself in the Arab quarter where, much to her surprise, she befriended a Greek woman named Cressida in the twisting bazaars of the old city.
It was only after she had accepted an invitation to stay at Cressida's home for a second night that a casual conversation about the tragedy in the market-place a fortnight ago brought a startling revelation from the Greek woman.
"Yes," she remembered. "I saw a young girl on her own in the market-place that day, along with a black slave. And an old man with white hair. I couldn't, in all honesty, tell you what happened to the old man and the black girl, but the little blonde one was rescued from the crowd by a Greek. A kindly man whose mother named him Georgiadis. I believe that she is still there."
Tomorrow, Barbara decided, trying hard not to leap up and kiss the woman just in case she got completely the wrong idea. Tomorrow, I will find her.
Having completed, to his total satisfaction, his work with the scribes, guiding them in the direction that he thought they wanted to go, the Doctor returned to the cave in which James and Judith and the other Christians were still sheltering. There was sadness on the doctor's return when he was told of the death the previous evening of Hebron.
It was rare for the death of one that he had met so briefly to affect the Doctor. After all, he mused briefly, people die all the time. Compared to his own lifespan, that of humans was like a dragonfly compared to a redwood tree. But still, something deep within the Doctor was upset by the news of Hebron's demise.
There was a new arrival within the cave whom the Doctor did not recognize. Another ancient man with white hair and a face shaped by the ravages of time. James broke off from telling the Doctor the sad news when he saw that the Doctor's attention had been caught by the newcomer.
"Let me introduce yet another friend," James explained quickly. "A Greek of our acquaintance, Papavasilliou." The Doctor shook Papavasilliou's hand, being surprised by the strength of the man despite his wizened and frail-looking limbs.
"I am honoured to meet you," said Papavasilliou. "My friend Hebron, now departed, spoke often and with great compliment about you, Doctor." The Doctor smiled, genially.
"Any friend of Hebron is, I am happy to say, a friend of mine. Are you also a Christian?" Papavasilliou shook his head.
"Not as such. Whilst I share many of the aims and hopes of these good people, I have my own beliefs which I share with no other, save, perhaps, the sheep that I tend. They know me well, for that is my own way."
"I approve," said the Doctor, smirking that James was just out of earshot.
"Nevertheless," continued Papavasilliou, "I do admire the gentleness and faith of them all."
"As do I," the Doctor noted, genuinely. There was a puzzlement in the face of the old shepherd.
"Your accent," he said after a moment. "Your Greek is quite superb for one not of this land. The inflection of your voice indicates that you have travelled far?" The Doctor gave a dismissive wave of the hand.
"I am from many places and have many homes, and yet no home save those in the hearts of my loves ones." Papavasilliou smiled warmly.
"You remind me of a young girl I know. A Briton who speaks with the voice of a sage unique in one so young." The old man stopped and wondered if he had said something wrong. He could not understand why the Doctor was dancing gleefully around before him like a child.
Meanwhile, in the dungeons in the city of Byzantium, Edius Flavia finally broke down to the torture. And the names of his co-conspirators were uttered.
Tribune Marcus Lanilla. Tribune Fabius Actium. Tribune Honorius Annora. Centurion Didlus Domius. Centurion Agressus Comtilius. Suffecti consul Marcelinus Gomaus. Praetor Gaius Octavian. Quaestor Claudius Minimus. Aediles Mobius Hartenius. Senator's wife Antonia Vinicius. Tribune's wife Agrinella Lanilla.
And the list was not even done. When it was, the names listed on it accounted for tribunes, judges, supplementary consuls, the city treasurer and other equally important people. The General and the Praefectus each made their preparations for what would be the most awesome mass arrest in Roman history.
But in another part of the city, plans were made by the conspirators as well. For if, by any chance, Edius was to speak out against them, they needed something to appease Rome against these accusations. And only the death of the Jewish Zealot leader would be a suitable offering.
These two plans, clashing, would bring about a very turbulent night for the great city of Byzantium.
The tap on the solid wooden door was nervous and timid, almost apologetic.
"Who goes there? What do you want with us?" asked a woman's voice through the door.
"Hello," said Barbara, looking quickly around in the cobbled streets of the Greek quarter. She prayed that she had found the right house at last, after three previous attempts and various confused directions had stolen most of the day from her. "I wonder if you could let me in, please, I'm not comfortable with talking to wood." The door swung open and Barbara found herself facing a man and woman, both of them with badly bruised faces and worried expressions. In the corner behind them, half-hidden in the shadows, cowered a young, anaemic-looking girl. "I hope you can help me," said Barbara. "I've been told that you have a child staying with you. A Briton."
"You were misinformed," snapped the man and moved to close the door on her. Barbara put her foot in the way like a pushy vacuum-cleaner saleswoman and tried a different approach.
"Look," she said, "I'll have you know that I've had a very trying day. Where is she?"
"There is no one here such as you describe," the woman told her. "Now please leave before you are observed." Barbara looked to her right, to the several Roman soldiers entering a neighbouring house. The couple followed her gaze and shrank back into their home, pulling Barbara with them. The man closed and barred the door and, for a second, Barbara was unsure of what to say next.
"You are Georgiadis and Evangeline, yes?" she asked, suddenly realizing that she might just have come to the wrong house yet again.
"We are," answered the woman, to Barbara's relief. "And what business is our identity to you?"
"I've already told you," Barbara replied. "I'm interested in the girl that you rescued."
"What girl?" asked the man, throwing his arms wide. "We know of no girl save our own fair daughter..." Barbara looked at the timid teenager poking out her head from behind an upturned chair. Glancing around the room, she also noticed various pieces of broken furniture and a general disorder that seemed incongruous with the house-proud nature of most of the Greek dwellings that she had seen.
"You've had visitors?" Barbara asked. "People who would not take 'no' for an answer, seemingly?" Evangeline gave her husband a tired look.
"We wish for nothing more than to be left alone to get on with our lives," she said. "One act of kindness and this is our reward." The couple and their daughter were clearly terrified and hesitant to speak to strangers after their bruising encounter with authority. And, outside, the place was crawling with just such authority.
"What's their game?" Barbara asked, changing the subject.
"Our neighbours were murdered in their beds last eve," Georgiadis told her. "No one is safe from tyranny and foul deeds."
"Well, it's obvious Vicki isn't here," Barbara said in resignation, giving the home a final once-over. "If you do see her again, tell her that Barbara is looking for her." There was a momentary pause and then Barbara turned and headed for the door.
"Are you Barbara?" asked Evangeline, as Barbara prepared to step back into the street. Yes. Barbara rested her head on the door, smiled, and mouthed a silent thank you to the God of timely interventions.
"Yes," she said, turning around. "I'm Barbara Wright."
"And what is Vicki to you?"
"Family," said Barbara, simply.
"Sit down," Evangeline said, after a nod from her husband. "We have a story to tell you that may interest you greatly."
Odie was reading once more, within the library, which had become a sort of strategy meeting hall for the lesser men of the Villa Praefectus; Fabulous, Gemellus, Drusus, Erastus (whom Odie had now been introduced to as the cadet trainer) and Ian. Odie found that she had gotten a lot better at reading in her stay, and she smiled sadly at the thought of how proud the Doctor would've been with her. Two weeks had they been stranded in Byzantium now, and she was uncertain of how longer her optimism could last. The possibility of the Doctor, Barbara and Vicki being dead were overwhelming.
"All things are changing rapidly," said Gemellus, as the men sat by a large, circular table, sharing what news they received in the chaos of the mass arrests. "Arrests continue apace and, with reinforcements to the legion, there are so many comings and going within the Villa Praefectus that I am lost in a sea of confusion."
"I know what you mean," Drusus added. "Only an hour ago, I ran into yet another of the waifs and strays that we seem to be collecting by the dozen." The others clearly sympathized.
"Another of the reinforcements?" Fabulous asked with a little smile on his withered face.
"Actually, no," Drusus replied. "It was a young Briton. A girl who was found within the Greek quarter by Crispianus Dolavia and his men, acting on information received. Efforts are being made to find the youth a suitable family with whom she can live until a husband is found for her." It was such a casual conversation that Ian, lost in his own thoughts, almost missed it. Odie, however, didn't.
"Briton!? A young girl?" she chirped up, jumping from her spot in the corner. Gemellus and Drusus, not accustomed to hearing Odie speak, jumped in surprise, as Ian's head snapped up. Odie's words reached him with no trouble.
"Well, yes. Why?" Drusus asked, surprised. Ian and Odie looked at each other, absolute glee on their faces, as the young girl threw herself in the arms of the school teacher, who then swung her around, both laughing loudly.
Vicki was walking in the dark again. Literally as well as metaphorically. It was becoming a familiar part of each day. There was a narrow annex corridor that ran from her room in the guest quarters of the legion's barracks through the Roman complex to a door at the base of the mezzanine behind the servants' rooms in the Villa Praefectus.
Bored by a day spent watching the massed ranks of legionnaires outside practicing stabbing straw opponents with their swords (it had been fun for ten minutes, but there was a limit to even Vicki's tolerance for sweat bodies and taut, rippling muscles), Vicki had gone off exploring. She immediately found herself in the villa and was quickly spotted and chased by one of Drusus's minions, before being cornered and dragged (complaining) into the kitchens for questioning by the master of the household.
She was getting used to interrogation, almost looking forward to each day's new adventure in the field. Once Drusus had discovered her position of being under army protection and her status as a citizen and not a slave, he seemed to lose all interest in Vicki herself, simply telling her not to get in the way if she intended to hang around with the slaves. Vicki liked that idea. The slaves she met were friendly and, when they weren't rushing around carrying out mind-numbingly mundane tasks, they treated her like an equal; they were just about the first people in Byzantium to do that.
Of course, being the equal of a slave didn't actually mean much, particularly to the Roman themselves, but Vicki, if nothing else, appreciated the distinction between the Villa Praefectus and life in the barracks. She spent a day sitting in the kitchens, nibbling at the numerous leftovers that the Greek cook, Denisius, kept insisting that she help him finish off. He was a huge and jolly man with a ruddy complexion beneath his thick greying beard, and a bellowing laugh that was heard more and more as the day progressed and the level in the bottle of wine beside his stove sank lower and lower.
In the kitchens, too, she met Dorcas, the beautiful young housemaid, who combed Vicki's tangled and dirty hair between scampering off to run errands, and talked to Vicki about the year she spent with the master and the mistress in Gaul before coming to Byzantium. There was Tobias, too, the huge and bronzed North African Adonis, his bald head and smooth, ebony skin reminding Vicki of a man on the ship to Dido (Vicki didn't want to think of Odie, even for a second). Tobias didn't say much and smiled even less frequently, but Dorcas adored him and the feeling seemed to be mutual.
There were others, too, that she encountered. Friendly and cheerful house boys and valets. Cocksure and stunningly beautiful handmaidens. Food servants and domestics. And there was Praelius, the studious Thracian scribe who taught the classics to Jocelyn's two daughters by her previous marriage. This morning, however, the kitchens were all but deserted, except for one glum-looking woman whom Vicki had not met the previous day.
"Hello," said Vicki brightly. "I should introduce myself..."
"I know who you are," said the woman. "the talk of the halls has been of little else since your arrival." Nice to develop a reputation without trying, Vicki reflected.
"My name is Felicia," she said. "Handmaiden to the praefectus's wives. Or at least, I was."
"Why?" asked Vicki, noting the past tense. "What happened?"
"I did a favour for a general. Take the advice of one who has bitter experience in life and remember never to do favours for anyone, young Briton," Felicia said woefully and then explained the awful events to which she had been party. Apparently, she had lured a young tribune to her chambers, giving him a promise of sex, and then, when the deed was done, accusing him of rape when the general and his men had arrived. She had been given a healthy sum of money for her services in putting this 'Edius Flavia' in chains. Her mistress, however, had been less than pleased.
"I'm sure Jocelyn will forget it all eventually," Vicki argued.
"I do not worry about my lady's displeasure," Felicia said. "The praefectus's wife is foolish and empty-headed. She is not the problem."
"Then who?" Felicia began to cry.
"You are not wise in the ways of Byzantium, Vicki," she said. "General Gaius Calaphilus used me to further his own position. Like a simpleton, and for the wicked love of money, I allowed myself to be used."
"So, what's the problem?" asked Vicki.
"Simply that I am likely to become the next victim of the general's purges." Vicki didn't quite follow the logic of this, but she was in no position to argue with Felicia. "Already, rumours are rife about a terror like the wrath of the gods to be unfolded upon the enemies of the state this night. And I shall be amongst the victims of them... Woe, woe and thrice woe," she wailed, helplessly. "Who shall save the little people and give them their deliverance from the vengeance of powerful and ambitious men?"
For once in her life, Vicki was completely stumped for an answer. Fortunately, however, as the two young women looked at each other in anguish, a passionate voice reached out to them across the kitchens.
"Deliverance is a state of mind," said Dorcas, stepping from the shadows, having clearly overheard much of the girls' conversation. "Yet it is also an attainable goal." As if Vicki hadn't had enough surprises in the last few days, this was an unexpected turn of events.
"How so?"
"Through escape," Dorcas replied. "I have a cunning plan to leave this benighted place. I have a route. I have friends who will help and I have a destination whereupon to travel. What I need are two willing accomplices. Are you with me?"
Neither Vicki nor Felicia needed to be asked twice. Dorcas still wanted Odie to come along. She had rather grown to like the innocent African woman, but Odie had been adamant that she would not leave her master's side. What the young Briton had done to inspire such loyalty was beyond Dorcas, but this way, she could save these two girls.
Her plan had a relatively straightforward first phase. Flee the compound.
"That's it?" asked Vicki, surprised. She had expected something more complicated with maps and diversionary tactics and suchlike.
"We only have to get past the gatehouse," Felicia told her. "I have done it many times before."
"Greater dangers will present themselves once we are outside," Dorcas continued as the three girls reached the wall of the barracks, just across the parade ground from the exit.
"Now what?" whispered Vicki.
"We wait until the coast is clear," said Felicia just as a huge battery of soldiers arrived, cutting off the only escape route available to them.
"Today has been, as t'were, a momentous climax to events of recent times," general Gaius Calaphilus noted to the massed ranks of his legion. "We undertake this night, to put down the obscenity which blights our fair Byzantium. To erase, for all eternity, the putrid stench of rebellion within our own ranks. And make it known throughout the empire, from the isles of Britannia to the citadel of Rome itself, that this thing shall not stand." There was a huge cheer from the assembled men, many of whom banged their shields loudly with their swords. Others raised their weapons in the air and shook them at the night sky.
"But first," Calaphilus announced to his troops, "it is beholden on me to reward those whose bravery and loyalty in the face of threats and menaces has deserved recognition. Step forward loyal centurion Crispianus Dolavia, whom we do now, and with great emotion, promote to the noble rank of tribune in the service of his most divine and awesome majesty, the Emperor Lucius Nero." Calaphilus pinned the tribune's regalia to the lapel of Crispianus's tunic and kissed his brother-in-arms on both cheeks. "May you always have good fortune and triumph in battle, and do unto your enemies great murder."
There were other pieces of backslapping promotion to be handed out, too. Captain Drusus Felinistius replaced Crispianus Dolavia as centurion, whilst Marinus Topignius, to the men of the legion's hastily expressed approval, was honoured with a captaincy. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that the general had promoted wisely and with an eye no gaining the total support of his men. They would probably have followed him to the brink of death anyway, but with one of their own like Marinus now within the officer rank, it was a foregone conclusion.
This was, in fact, exactly what Calaphilus had in mind. Earlier, he had told Ian Chesterton that he intended to surround himself with loyal, if unspectacular, men. "Promoted men are grateful men," he had noted.
"Our task, this night," Calaphilus told the men when the changes in rank were completed, "is to ruthlessly put down the rebellion that is upon us. No quarter should be asked, or given. Your orders are to find Fabius Actium, Marcus Lanilla, Honorius Annora and those others who attempt to usurp the power of Rome, and to end their treasons. Let us march upon the hour, and woe betide the villains who stand in our way."
"What's going on?" asked Vicki, straining to hear from the girls' hiding point far behind the soldiers.
"I think they are hunting traitors," Dorcas whispered. "We had best wait until they have gone before we attempt to leave." So, they shrank back into the shadows, and waited.
A night of terror was erupting around Byzantium as the advanced ranks of the Roman soldiers and their praetorian colleagues took a merciless revenge on treasonous colleagues. Zealots, too, were being rounded up and slaughtered. It was as if the city had finally decided, en masse, just exactly whose side it was on.
Barbara dodged through the streets, keeping to the shadows. She saw terrible things as she crept from doorway to doorway towards the barracks where, she had been assured, Vicki was known to be. She passed the summary execution of a Jew, a Zealot presumably, caught at the rim of the Jewish quarter by a group of angry, shouting legionnaires. He tried to sprint for his life but was skewered on the end of a gladius, then dropped to the ground and was hacked to death in an obscene orgy of violence.
Barbara didn't care anymore, she turned and raced across the now-deserted market-square, barely paying any heed whatsoever to the dozens of blood-soaked bodies lying strewn around the forum. She circumnavigated the walls of the compound left of the temple and arrived at the barracks gates to find two lone sentries barring her way. She shrank back into the shadows, waiting for them to make the next move just as, behind them, she saw the movement of three figures, dull and indistinct against the torch light of the barracks frontage.
After a moment, the sentries moved out of sight, leaving the way into the gates clear. But still Barbara waited, knowing that someone inside the barracks would be coming her way soon. When they did, and it proved to be Vicki, running low to the ground in a zigzag pattern to minimize the chances of being seen, Barbara almost let out a yell of delight, but she caught her breath until Vicki and her companions were actually out of the gates. Then, she leapt from the shadows and called out Vicki's name.
"Crikey!" said Vicki, angrily. "Give me a heart attack, why don't you?" Then she threw herself into Barbara's arms for a joyous reunion, much to the obvious discomfort of the two young women with her.
"Far be it from me to interrupt this... whatever it is," began Dorcas.
"This is Barbara," whispered Vicki. "She's a friend. I thought you were dead."
"And I, you," answered Barbara drawing Vicki and her friends into the shadows from where she had come. "I found the place where you stayed in the Greek quarter."
"Georgiadis, and Evangeline, and Iola?" asked Vicki, quickly.
"They're all right," Barbara told her. "It might be an idea to try and get back to them, actually. At least that's one friendly shelter in this city. Judging by the things I've seen, we could use one."
"It is the reckoning," Felicia told them with a look of horror. "We are all doomed. Doomed." For some reason, this made Vicki smile.
"Not if I can help it," she said. "Come on, I know a short-cut to the Greek quarter. Then we can figure out what to do next." They crossed into the forum again, Vicki letting out a brief, but high-pitched scream as she saw the bodies of the executed traitors up close.
"My God," she said, "who could have done this?"
"Honourable men," noted Barbara sadly. "They are all honourable men, apparently." Dorcas looked quickly around her and then motioned for the terrified Felicia to keep up with them.
"We have not far to travel," she said, reassuringly. "Once we can get a message to my people, we shall leave this town far behind us." Barbara gave her a suspicious look.
"My people?" she asked.
"The Christians," replied Dorcas.
"Oh," Barbara noted. "That's all right then, I thought we might be about to meet some real religious maniacs." At the entrance to the Greek quarter, finally, their luck ran out. As they rounded a corner, their way was barred by the terrifying sight of one of the Zealots, wild-eyed, his coat soaked in blood. Roman blood.
"Stand," he shouted loudly. "Who goes there?"
"We mean you no harm," Barbara pleaded. "We have to get off the streets." The Zealot laughed, chillingly.
"Sister, we should be on the streets, putting to death the filthy dogs that rape out land." He removed a knife as smooth and shining as a shark's tooth and held it glinting in the light. "They say unto me, 'Yewhe,' they say. 'Go forth into the streets and find those who collaborate with the dogs of Rome. And put them to the blade.'"
"We are no collaborators," Barbara replied. "We are in as much danger as you from the Romans. Please, you must let us past."
"Must?" cried Yewhe. "Must? I must do only God's will, sister. And He, through His servant on Earth, Matthew, has commanded me to slay those who do evil in his sight." They were trapped. They could not turn around and go back the way that they had come for that would almost certainly lead them running into one of the Roman patrols that were, even now, meting out justice to most of Yewhe's kind.
"Who do you plan to start with?" Dorcas asked Yewhe, trying to engage the clearly mad individual in conversation.
"Why, those within the compound," he replied.
"That would be suicide," noted Barbara with genuine concern. "You'd be killed before you got fifty yards into the place, it's crawling with Romans."
"Then I shall die, as I have lived, magnificently fighting the scourge of my people. Yes, they shall kill me, but before I ascend to heaven, I shall send an indeterminate number of those heathen scum straight to hell. I shall become a martyr to my people and will inspire them to rise up and throw off the yoke of Roman oppression that has choked us for too long." Barbara had heard this kind of fanaticism before, and she shook her head.
"Yewhe," she replied, softly. "That would be pointless. The Romans will be mostly gone from this land in another fifty years and your killing a few of them, and then getting yourself killed," she paused, "or, for that matter, threatening a group of terrified little girls like us, will not affect any of this. I have seen the future, Yewhe, and what you seek will come to pass. It will just take time." Yewhe thought about this for a moment.
"Fifty years?" he asked.
"Yes," replied Barbara. "Then Thrace shall be free." It was a lie, of course, and Barbara crossed her fingers as she said it.
"Too long," replied Yewhe as he advanced on Barbara, Vicki, Felicia and Dorcas. He raised his dagger above his head and Vicki choked down a scream as she saw the madness in his eyes. A loud thump was heard as the hilt of a sword connected with the Zealot's temple, and he slumped unconscious at her feet, Odie and Ian standing behind him, Odie handing the gladius back to Ian, who had a bemused expression on his face.
"Perhaps one of you could tell me just exactly what is going on here?" he asked. He saw the equally dumbfounded looks that Barbara and Vicki returned to him, and looked to Odie. "Seemingly not," he continued.
"How on earth...?" began Barbara, and Odie smiled widely, tears already welling into her eyes at the sight of two of her friends, passed for dead, returned to her.
"Oh, long story," she said, holding out her arms. Vicki immediately stumbled into her embrace, the two girls holding each other tightly.
"I think it would be wise if we find somewhere safe before telling it. If there is such a place in Byzantium," Ian continued. Such a place did exist. It was the Georgiadis house, and they reached it without further incident and found the Greek family about to barricade themselves into their home. The two grown-ups sat with Evangeline and Ian at the table, with the slaves joining Iola, Vicki and Odie in the corner. Vicki and Odie were still embracing each other.
Evangeline was attempting to find enough food in every nook and cranny for her many guests, and Dorcas was laughing shakily at her friend.
"Odie, if I had just known that Vicki was your friend," she said with a smile, and Odie smiled, nodding.
"Really. I would have been very cross with you if you had taken her away," she pointed out. The girls all looked to Ian, who was looking at his sword with surprise. He explained that it was a gift from the Praefectus that had saved all of their lives.
"Ironic, really, since it was Thalius and the general's keenness to put their own house in order that's causing chaos for everyone else."
"I am sure that the madness will pass," said Dorcas. "But in the meantime, we must use whatever means are available to us to find our own paths in life."
"And, with it, a chance to walk and admire the distance we can put between us and the past," Felicia added.
"So," Barbara began, looking pointedly at Ian and Odie. "Feel up to explaining how you found us in the nick of time?"
"We were told Vicki was alive earlier today," Ian noted, putting down the sword. "The two of us spent hours trying to find her in the Villa. When we couldn't, I figured she might have tried to get back to this place, so I got the location from one of the soldiers who abducted her and well, the rest you know. Odie heard that Zealot screaming, and grabbed my gladius. I thought she was going to kill him, but instead she just gave him a proper headache," he laughed. Iola was delighted to see Vicki again.
"I thought they would have killed you," she told her friend.
"No," replied Vicki," though I think they had something even more horrible in mind for me. Marriage." Odie and Vicki looked at each other, frowning simultaneously at the thought, causing the other girls to laugh.
"Oh, that's not so bad," Iola told them, confidentially. "In fact, I think that Mother and Father have got someone in mind for me for next year when I shall be of age to wed."
"Don't you find that at all outrageous?" Vicki asked.
"No!" replied the girl. "It is our way." Vicki left it at that, but couldn't resist asking Ian and Barbara what they should all do next.
"Help is on the way," said Dorcas, enigmatically, and as she finished speaking, there was a hammering on the Georgiadis door.
"Let me in," came a familiar voice from outside.
"Tobias!" Odie said happily, as Dorcas rushed to the door and removed the bar. Tobias dived into the house and hugged Dorcas in his well-muscled arms. Odie and Vicki looked at each other with a meaningful glance, before making faces of playful disgust. "Love," they muttered in unison, as they giggled.
"You followed as you said that you would," she noted.
"By the trail of your dead," replied the Egyptian, giving Ian an impressed glance.
"Oh no, that's Odie's handiwork," he quickly said, pointing to the dark woman. Tobias and her shared a look, as Odie grinned.
"And he wasn't dead, just unconscious. I've killed before, I never want to do it again," she admitted, causing Vicki to look at her funny. Odie just shook her head, quickly telling Vicki they could talk about it at some later date. Dorcas turned to the others.
"Now is the time to reveal to you that I have sent word via courier to our brother Christians in the hills. If you will allow us to shelter here this night, then tomorrow we shall be able to smuggle ourselves outside the city walls, whilst the rest of the town is still distracted with the full horrors of the bloody events of tonight." Georgiadis looked at his wife and then nodded.
"Stay as long as you wish," he said, kindly. "Our home is your home."
"We leave at first light," Tobias noted and Ian nodded his agreement.
"I should like to stay," Felicia told them. "I do not think I could face another step."
"You are welcome to remain here for as long as you wish," Evangeline told her.
"Are you sure, Felicia?" Odie asked, a genuinely worried look on her face. Felicia smiled at the black woman, marveling at the thought that the two practically loathed each other just two weeks ago. So much could change in so little time.
"You would face grave danger by staying within the city," Dorcas noted, hugging the other slavegirl.
"No greater, surely, than you shall face in the hills, being hunted by Roman death-squads. I admire your bravery and resourcefulness, both of you," Felicia replied, "but that is not the life that I wish to lead."
"And what of us?" Barbara said. "Without the Doctor, what are we to do?" Ian looked over his shoulder, to see Odie's face instantly fall. Vicki saw it as well, and she quickly hugged the black girl closer.
"Well," Ian said, stretching the syllable on purpose, so Odie's attention was pulled to him. "You know, I've been giving that a lot of thought in the last couple of days. I can't say for certain that I saw the Doctor die. Can any of you?" The girls all shook their heads, Odie's lips slowly widening into a smile. "Whatever the truth," Ian continued, "our only option is to head for the TARDIS and hope that the Doctor is waiting there for us. Let's get the hell out of this city."
The Doctor had been foolish, he knew, to leave the relative safety of the Christians' camp and come into the city on his own, but he still harboured hopes of finding Vicki alive. Yet now he found himself, instead, in the midst of his worst nightmare imaginable, once again in the market square where the horror of the last two weeks had begun, as, around him, the night air was filled with the screams of the dying. And the black staring eyes of the dead.
As the pale light of dawn broke through a heavy and overcast sky, Georgiadis lifted the bar from the back of the door and ushered Tobias and Dorcas outside. Ian, Odie and Barbara followed but Vicki lingered for a second in the doorway.
"I'll miss you all," she said before she kissed Evangeline and Iola. "Look after Felicia. I think you'll find her slightly less of a handful than your last guest."
"If not a tenth as alive," Evangeline said, holding Vicki to her. "Remember us, little one, for we shall most assuredly remember you." Iola didn't speak, but ran back inside, her eyes filled with tears.
"Tell her that I'm not keen on goodbyes either," said Vicki, as Odie took her hand, with a small smile. They should move quickly. "I will remember you," she told Georgiadis and his wife, and then turned and left the doorstep with Odie by her side, trying to fight back her own tears.
"Come on," Ian said, as the four of them crouched low on the corner and looked both ways for signs of movement.
The Doctor moved slowly out of yet another blind alley. His entire night seemed to have been taken up running in and out of them, and avoiding the shouts and the cries that seemed to have always been happening just around the next corner. He was tired and lost he still didn't have the faintest idea of what he was going to say when he did finally find the Roman barracks. It wasn't the sort of place where you march up to the gates and demand to see however was in charge.
Just then, in the middle-distance, he finally saw the full horror of this night in Byzantium. A young man, seemingly a Roman, stripped of his clothes, was being chased by a gang of legionnaires. A hundred yards from the Doctor, the soldiers caught the man, threw him to the ground and then bludgeoned him into oblivion with staves and sword butts.
The Doctor wanted to turn and run but his eyes were transfixed with an insane need to see what they were doing to their unarmed victim. A need to be witness to a tiny fragment of history that would never be recorded in any of the books that Barbara Wright so diligently read for their accuracy.
Here was less than a footnote. But for one man, it was final paragraph and the ultimate full stop.
A prickling sensation in his back told the Doctor that he was not alone. Turning to one side, he saw a couple of passing strangers, a man and a woman who looked at him curiously. He must, the Doctor reflected, have stuck out like a sore thumb in the ravages of Byzantium.
"Good morning," he managed to say, feeling ridiculous as he did so. Then he quickly glanced back in the direction of the Roman soldiers. But they were gone.
"You seem to be lost," the man told the Doctor. "Allow us to show you the way."
When Ian, Odie, Vicki and Barbara finally arrived back at the place where they believed that the TARDIS had crash-landed, they found nothing. While Odie slowly climbed down the hill, Ian stood scratching his head for a moment and looking rather stupidly around.
"We must have got the wrong hill. Or something," he said.
"I'm fairly positive it was this one," Barbara replied, comforting Vicki as best she could.
"The Doctor wouldn't go off without us," Odie yelled up, already sensing the thoughts gathering in the two school teachers' heads. "He doesn't do that. Besides, there are track marks. I think someone dragged the TARDIS off," she said, as she climbed back up the hill.
"Hey, look," said Ian, pointing into the distance. From out of the sand of the desert, a series of hazy and shimmering shapes appeared, walking towards the group.
"There they are," Dorcas told the delighted Doctor as Ian, Barbara, Odie and Vicki came into view, waving from half a mile away.
"Your friends are all safe?" James asked, and the Doctor nodded wordlessly, out of breath from being rushed back to the Christians' camp and then out to this distant location.
"I am glad," Daniel told him, patting him on the back.
"I also," continued James.
"You can never know the gladness in my heart," The Doctor told them as they reached the top of a steep incline that led down into the gully where his friends waited. And not until now was it clear to them just who was going towards them. Odie felt her knees weaken, as she grinned widely.
"Doctor!" she yelled, as she began running, almost stumbling many times. The old man slowly made his way down the incline, and had barely reached the bottom when Odie threw herself at him, hugging him close. The Doctor had to blink away a few tears of relief himself, as he hugged the black girl close to him. The others got to them soon, all of them sharing hugs, and relieved statements that they had thought each other dead. Odie sat down flat on the ground, scratching her head as tears streaked down her face. Never had she been happier to see the Doctor.
When the reunion was handled, the questions began. Where was the TARDIS? The Doctor was apologetic, but there was little he could say. The TARDIS was gone. James told them that he had learned from a source that the strange blue chariot found in this location over two weeks ago had been taken by the Roman senator Germanicus Vinicius and transported, apparently, to his villa near Rome.
"I've heard that name before," Odie muttered to herself, as she looked down upon the sand. It certainly rang a bell.
"Unless we want to spend the rest of our lives in this time," the Doctor noted, "then we must go in search of it."
"Walk to Rome?" Ian asked incredulously. "But it's miles!" The understatement could have been amusing in different circumstances. But not today.
"You have a better idea, hmm?" snapped the Doctor, which caused Odie to quickly put her arms around the old man's neck.
"Of course not, Doctor, we'll do as you say. We all want to find the TARDIS again," she quickly said, sending Ian a look. Ian easily read it. He had spent the majority of two weeks in the constant company of Odie, he knew her by now. 'Don't argue with him. We just found each other again!' was what she meant. Barbara, meanwhile, was pleased to see Dorcas and Tobias with the group of Christians who had accompanied the Doctor.
"We wish you every success in that which you seek," Dorcas told her as the Doctor said his goodbyes to James and Daniel. Barbara merely repeated what Ian had told Dorcas and Tobias some days earlier: that the Christians would be free one day.
"If anyone else had stated such opinion as fact, I would have laughed in their face," Dorcas said with a wry smile. "But with you, I sense that what you say is preordained. It shall come to pass." They left their Christian friends and began the long walk to the desert road, and the next town on the Via Egnatia.
"All roads lead to Rome, they say," the Doctor told his friends. "That is probably not true, but this one certainly does."
After they had walked for several miles, and the waving figures of James, Daniel, Dorcas and Tobias were distant specks against the horizon, Ian felt compelled to ask the Doctor a question.
"Do you think that we have left Byzantium a better or a worse place?" He paused and tried to put into words a feeling that he had been unable to shake. "Is it just me, or didn't we solve anything?"
"And why is that such a bad thing? Sometimes, history is better off playing itself out without us meddling," Odie pointed out, and the Doctor chuckled, as they headed out into the desert.
"Not every story has a happy ending, you know..."
"I had a really freaky dream last night," Ian Chesterton said, as he poked the embers of the smouldering lire with his stick and made the sparks from it leap into the chilly night air. "It was all mixed-up confusion, you know?" Odie looked up at Ian from her seat next to Vicki, smiling slightly. "I owned a Ford Anglia which is, in itself, ridiculous because I'd never buy Ford again after the last time. And I drove us all the way to Rome. But we crashed when we got there and I hurt my head. And we met a lion tamer. Then, afterwards, I went to a party in South Kensington with Keith Joseph and Sir Alex Douglas-Home and the Beatles. Alma Cogan was going the twist on top of the piano with Brian Epstein. And then there was this annoying little pipsqueak, I used to go to school with, called Perryman or something, who asked me what I'd done with my life. He said he worked as a book reviewer on some provincial rag. Proud of it, he was. So, I said, 'Well I get to travel in time, you pleb.' Then I woke up in a cold sweat."
There was a momentary silence around the fire. No one quite knew what to say next. What comments could possibly be made to that kind of opening? Odie momentarily wondered if Ian's head was all right. The sparks of flame thrown up from the fire briefly joined the light of the stars over the desert before their moment of dazzling brilliance was over and they perished and died.
"Our life in microcosm," Barbara finally added, pithily. Ian wasn't certain if she was talking about the dream or the fire.
"The party sounds rather good," said Vicki. "I wish I'd been invited. Who's Alma Cogan by the way?" As the Doctor's friends fell about laughing and the rest of the tribesmen with them scratched their heads and wondered what their strange new travelling companions were talking about, he remained silent, a grim and determined expression on his face.
Odie slowly sat up, a smile still ghosting on her face, as she threw the Doctor a glance. He was no doubt thinking about the TARDIS. They were used to their journey to be among the stars, the light of distant and magical suns. Now, it was along a dusty old road, guided by a single sun and moon.
They were three days into their journey.
Ahead of them lay another one thousand miles, he had told her, and even if they did brave them, there was no guarantee that the TARDIS would be waiting for them when they finally got to Rome. Odie slowly scooted to the Doctor, linking her arms with his and resting her head on his shoulder. He didn't react, just let her.
"Regrets?" Barbara asked aloud, attracting the attention of the old man. She sensed that the answer would reveal much about the mysterious old man. Because, if the truth were told, while both Ian and Barbara had travelled with the Doctor for what seemed like a lifetime, neither really knew him. They never knew how he was reacting inside to the things that they saw and the people that they met. And it was unlikely they ever would.
"No, not really," replied the Doctor, patting Odie's hands. "Oh, I'm certain that if we had never come here, we would have found somewhere equally complicated and dangerous to visit. Somewhere for Chesterton to get himself into a positive heap of trouble. Isn't that what being a nomad is all about? Ask these people," the Doctor continued, sweeping his free arm towards their new companions. "I'm sure they will tell you a thing or two about what it is like to have no fixed or permanent abode. To travel only by the position of the stars and to be constantly searching for a place to call your 'home'."
They sat around a camp fire in the Thracian twilight with the Bedouin who had allowed the former TARDIS crew to join them as they trekked across the vast open spaces of the northern Mediterranean. Towards Rome.
Towards destiny.
The Bedouin people were one large family. They valued loyalty and kindness, and shared their food and tents with the strangers. In return, they asked only that the strangers shared the stories of their lives with them. History and destiny were important to them. Now it was Ian's turn:
"... so, there I was, stuck in the praefectus's villa, surrounded by enemies. I couldn't relax for a single moment. I was a pawn in a game."
"Oh, I know the feeling, believe me," Barbara told him. "And what of Vicki?" By the light of the fire, it was difficult to tell if the girl's face was really as red as it appeared. She didn't speak for a long time. Just as she hadn't said more that five words about her time in Byzantium, since they'd left the city.
"Vicki...?" Odie asked gently.
"I was thinking about those poor people," Vicki told her companions. "All of them. It's a rotten life they've got, isn't it? And what rewards do they get at the end of it?"
"That," replied the Doctor, "is a question to which none of us know the answer. More's the pity." Vicki stood up suddenly and, without a word, ran from the fireside and into the desert. Barbara moved to follow her, but the Doctor placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Let the girl go, my dear. She's been through a lot. What she doesn't need right now is a lot of fussing and falling about. She'll return soon enough."
"She might get lost," Barbara said, worriedly.
"The light of the fire will help her back. It will be seen for miles. Let her be, Barbara. I think Vicki learned a tough lesson in Byzantium," Odie said with a sad face.
"Which is?" asked Ian.
"That growing up is a hard and lonely business," said the Doctor as though he was speaking from personal experience. Odie suppressed a smirk at Ian's amused expression. "What are you looking at?" the old man chided Ian, as he noticed the expression as well. "Think I don't know what it's like, hmm? I've forgotten more than you'll ever know."
"I don't doubt it," replied Ian. Odie and Barbara looked at each other briefly, disbelief on their faces at how quickly the men could start fighting again, but then they smiled happily. Everything was slowly getting back to how it used to be. The long shadows of night crossed the group as the fire flickered, stirred briefly by a gust of wind that rippled across the face of the desert.
"I never thought that I would see you all again," the Doctor suddenly said, making the others look at him again. "I just wanted to tell you all, and young Vicki too when she comes back, that even if we are marooned in this era for good, then I'm pleased that we are at least together." The others didn't say anything. There was nothing to say.
"My only regret," Ian ventured, "is that I didn't say goodbye to Gemellus and Thalius and the general. They were honourable men, even if their methods were questionable."
"I think we may try to get some sleep now," the Doctor continued, a gentle smile of relief on his face as, in the half-distance, he could see the figure of Vicki emerging from the desert and walking back towards them.
"It'll be all right, Doctor," said Odie with a kind smile. "You'll see."
"We have a long journey ahead," the Doctor continued, looking at her. "And, at the end of it, a carriage to the stars awaits us."
Hi everyone! Let me be the first to wish you all happy holidays and Merry Christmas! This is the first chapter of my christmas present for all of you! An end to the adventure in Byzantium, one of my favorite books of the First Doctor's tenure. I severely recommend it to all of you. The next chapter will be another interlude before we begin working on the Romans TV-story.