Stigmata
A Doctor Who fanfic story
by Bex

Conclusion


"It was indeed a great tragedy," Vernon acknowledged neutrally. He toyed with his wine cup where he sat near the fire opposite Xavier, who had sunk into a brooding silence after his distraught wife had been coaxed back up to the family apartments by her maids. "It is only a short time since it occurred; her grief is fresh still--"

"You will test them." The lord's words were quiet but adamant. A command. Gone was the honourific.

"As his holiness has dictated in these sorts of cases. Such an accusation is of course too serious to ignore," Vernon said, annoyed by the noble's presumption.

"She grieves still, yes," Xavier said, his head jerking up as if he had only just registered the bishop's words. "But she has never lied to me."

"They will undergo the ordeal tomorrow." Vernon drained his cup and stood up. "I shall retire, now."

Xavier raised his head to acknowledge the churchman's departure. His thoughts then returned to the Doctor and Denora, where they sat in the dungeon below, and his face creased in pain at the thought of the midwife as he passed a hand over his face.

He had barely noticed her before his son's death. But as she had stood there today, hale and comely even in her fear, even as the guards had led her and the Doctor away, he had discovered to his horror that the only thought in his head was of what a handsome child they could make together . . .

He was bewitched and double-dammed.

? ? ?

The Doctor stood on tip-toe, straining to stare out of the small barred window of the door to his cell.

"Denora?"

No answer.

The leg iron had been easy enough to get out of, but the door was solid, the small grill much too small to think of squeezing out of.

"Denora!"

This time he got an answer. A short distance away, a door squealed in protest.

"Quiet in there--if I have to come in here again, you'll feel it!"

The Doctor made a face as the dungeon's door thudded closed and silence again fell. "Denora!" he called again, soft and insistent.

"Yes, Doctor." Her voice drifted, barely audible, from the next cell over.

"Are you all right?"

A short pause. "Yes," she answered. Her voice was lifeless.

They were interrupted by the groaning of hinges as the outer door opened again. This time footsteps approached. Straining to see, the Time Lord caught a glimpse of maroon wool, a distinctive profile, a couple of guardsmen following behind.

Lord Xavier.

His grip on the bars tightened as the next door over creaked. Denora's cell. Straining his Gallifreyan senses to the utmost as he might, he could hear nothing but the occasional murmur. About five minutes later, the door opened and closed, and the party left the dungeon. Denora wasn't with them.

"Denora?" he called, once the footsteps had died away. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, Doctor."

But no matter how many times he softly called her after that she didn't answer again.

? ? ?

The Lady Alicia regarded her husband as he divested himself of his garments and readied himself for bed.

"They will . . . undergo the ordeal tomorrow?"

"Yes."

She clasped her hands, shivering. "Good. Good." He put his arms around her and she laid her head against his chest. He stood, his mind far away, staring at the stone flags of the solarium, down through the storage rooms, to the dungeon far below.

? ? ?

Dawn brought protesting doors and stern-faced guards. The Doctor whirled as a brace of guardsmen paused on the threshold,staring in outrage at the unfettered prisoner.

"Oh." The Time Lord glanced down a tad sheepishly and kicked at the chain and ankle manacle lying in the straw. "Didn't quite fit . . ." He strained to catch a glimpse of Denora as he was bustled out of his cell. "Denora?" he called.

"Silence!" one guard said, cuffing him. The Doctor moved his head to the side, taking the sting out of the blow, then regarded the guard. "I want to know if my friend is all right."

"I'm here, Doctor." Her voice came clearly from her cell's grill.

A couple of guards hurried over and unlocked the door. The midwife appeared, dragged by an irritated guardsman, and the Doctor laughed. She, too, had shed her manacle. Denora gave him the closest thing to a smile she had displayed since they had been imprisoned.

"Well . . . it was loose," she murmured, prim.

Reynald glowered. "Let's go; they're waiting for us."

? ? ?

Waiting for them in the hall above, devoid of the customary household bustle, were the local authorities, spiritual and civic. Xavier, his lady-wife and the bishop sat at the head of the table, in charge of the proceedings. Enough guardsmen stood posted about the hall to discourage any thought of escape. Father Beran and his gaggle of brothers sat along the side. One, serving as a scribe, was scratching furiously with a stylus upon a piece of parchment. When Beran saw the Doctor, his eyes narrowed. You deceived me. The priest looked away.

The guards led the prisoners to a spot before the table and the interrogation began.

"Thus convenes this trial, to investigate the claims of witchcraft against these two persons," Vernon intoned solemnly.

The Doctor looked over at Denora. She was pale but composed. He saw her glance over at Xavier, then down.

The churchman asked them their names. Then he asked them if they were witches. "Have you consorted with Satan?"

"No; I'm the Doctor." A charming smile, but his eyes were carefully examining each participant, each accuser arrayed before them.

"No," Denora answered, looking straight ahead.

"You stand accused of casting a spell upon the Lady Alicia so that she did bear a still-born child, and of wreaking mischief, bringing misery to the inhabitants of this town." The bishop rattled off an impressive list: the deaths of any children who had died within the last half-year, two fouled wells, disappeared livestock, a miscarriage, a fall off a roof and resultant broken leg . . .

The Doctor looked bemused. "I only arrived here three days ago."

The envoy's lips tightened at the prisoner's impudence. "Answer the question."

The Doctor sent a thin-lipped smile back at him. "In that case, no."

"No," Denora asserted quietly.

The Doctor's eyes narrowed. "Denora here is your healer--she saves lives, not takes them!"

The bishop's head snapped up. "The prisoners will be silent until asked a question."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "First talk, then not. I wish you would make up your mi--" He flinched as one of the guards behind him cuffed the back of his head.

"Harold. Hold." Xavier was utterly controlled, his glance straying to Denora every few moments, the Doctor noted. Watching her.

She looked up and caught his gaze. They stared at each other for no more than a few seconds, though to the Doctor's hyper concentration, it seemed ages. Then Denora's chin lifted a degree or two, before she looked away.

"Denora . . ." Xavier leaned forward, as the others looked at him in surprise. "Denora, is not this man with whom you have been seen a warlock, bending you to his will, leading you astray to evil acts?"

The Doctor stood calmly. So that was it.

The midwife didn't hesitate. "No," she said, her voice clear.

"Denora, speak truly. Ask our aid and we will free you of his unholy influence!"

Denora's voice was steady but low. And utterly resolute. "He is no witch. He is the Doctor. My friend."

Before Xavier could open his mouth again, Vernon stood, pushing back his chair. "This matter must now be resolved by the Ordeal of Water." He stepped out from the head of the table and the guards flanked the two accused.

Xavier followed, his eyes staring hard at the back of Denora's head. Almost desperate, the Doctor noted.

"Excuse me, but what is this 'Ordeal of Water'?" the Time Lord inquired mildly.

? ? ?

"So this is the water." The Doctor eyed the murky waters of the gristmill pond with ambivalence. "Doesn't look very clean . . ."

They all stood on the banks of the millpond, at its deepest end, the hands of the accused now bound securely at the wrists. They were surrounded by a crowd of villagers. Children were running to and fro, the adults murmuring at the spectacle unfolding before them. The Doctor glanced about and saw subtle silver flickers dancing among the villagers . . .

Come to see his comeuppance. Or had they been there in the village all along, and were only now showing themselves?

Vernon grimaced with subtle distaste. "Look at them, as if this were a bear-baiting," he muttered to Beran.

"We're going to go in there?" The Doctor nodded to indicate the roiling pond. "That doesn't seem very sensible, with our hands tied, does it?"

"That is the essence of the ordeal. A witch will be unable to resist floating; by such signs may they be known. If you are unholy spawn, your nature will now be revealed."

"And if we don't float?" the Doctor asked sharply.

"Then you are one of God's creatures."

"And drowned as well. I see."

The envoy raised his voice to be heard over the background noise. "Silence!"

The chatter stopped.

The envoy nodded to Denora's guards and they stepped forward, taking the midwife, gone white, by her elbows. Behind them, Xavier took one quick, jerky step forward, then stopped.

"Me first." The Doctor stepped in front of the trio, blocking the way and wriggling his bound hands invitingly as he smiled. "I insist."

The two guardsmen looked at each other, glanced back at the bishop and their lord, then back at the Doctor. Shrugging, they released Denora, stepped forward, grabbed the Doctor and pushed him off the stone abutment into the pond. The splash drowned out Denora's involuntary cry of horror as he disappeared into the murky depths. She stood, staring with disbelief at the ripples spreading out across the water's surface.

"Doctor . . ." she whispered.

? ? ?

Dark, cold, no air . . .

The Doctor didn't struggle. Turning away from the fear, he drifted closer to the dark . . .

? ? ?

It had been too long.

Those were the only thoughts running through Denora's numbed mind as the crowd gathered around the two guards as they hauled the limp body out of the pond. They deposited the sodden form onto the muddy bank while the villagers stood at the periphery, now rather more subdued.

Harold looked up from where he was kneeling, searching for any sign of life. He shook his head.

The bishop bowed his head and began to give last rites as Denora knelt down at the Doctor's side, her head bent forward over her bound wrists, her hair falling forward like a curtain.

She shrieked in utter surprise and fell back a moment later as he spasmed, his body arching and convulsing, water dribbling out of a suddenly-gaping mouth. All around, the observers murmured in surprise and excitement as the drowned man's eyes snapped open. He stared wildly up at the blue sky above.

Vernon had taken a step back out of sheer surprise. Now the Doctor's green eyes fastened on his. Magnetic, compelling.

The Doctor struggled to sit up. "I have seen them!" he shouted in a transport of wonder. "They spoke to me!"

Denora stared, speechless, from where she was sprawled. When the Doctor cast a lightening-quick glance her way and winked, she stared more, if that were possible.

Struggling to his feet, the Doctor stood, his face alight with awe, his still-bound hands raised to the sky as if in supplication. "I saw the holy ones!" he cried, his clear voice carrying across the crowd with ease, over the murmurs of wonder, the mutterings of "came back to life," and "miracle." The Doctor turned to regard the bishop, his face urgent. "They told me much of the evil ones who infest this town, as we tried to warn you before!"

Vernon regarded the wild-eyed man. He had returned from death's darkness, had survived the ordeal. His name was now cleared.

"Free him." The Doctor smiled as the rope binding his wrists was cut, waved his hands about as if shaking the life back into them. Denora looked up and the Doctor knelt down, raising her to her feet. "You must free her, as well; she is as innocent as me!"

"But she has not successfully undergone--" Even as the bishop hesitated, Xavier signaled to his guards to comply. A moment later, the ropes were cut.

"The evil demons walk among us, invisible, whispering their lies, blinding good men and women to their presence!" The Doctor's voice carried with authority, stirring uneasy murmurs from the listeners. "The holy ones told me that we must not heed their lies--we must cast them out! Lest we be 'culled'!"

These were certainly understandable instructions to those from an agrarian settlement. "Did they reveal to you how this banishment could be done?" Vernon asked anxiously.

The crucial moment . . . could the combined emotion of the village drive out the Xertans as his indignation had repulsed them back in the forest? The Doctor looked directly at the envoy and said simply, "Faith will protect us."

Vernon nodded without hesitation. "I understand."

The Doctor smiled. "Yes, I think that you do." Turning, he let his gaze sweep the crowd. Most, if not all of the villagers. It should be enough. "Let your faith be your guide, oh people of Gerant," the Doctor shouted, refusing to be distracted by the wildly-dancing eldrich flickers as they surged through the crowd toward him as if realizing a little too late what was happening. "Drive the evil spirits among us out! Banish them from Gerant, back to whence they came! Think of that, see it happening, believe it, now!"

A little melodramatic, but it should do; should send the Xertans packing until he could find out more about them, why they so craved contact with human emotions that they were willing to use humans like pawns . . .

Vernon threw up his arms. "Let us pray!"

The Doctor and Denora glanced about them as the dozens of people gathered around them knelt down, heedless of the mud, as the bishop and their priest began to speak in latin. The midwife stared at the Doctor with wonder.

"Us, too," the Doctor said, with a smile like the sun breaking through a cloudy day, as he took her hand in his, then knelt, drawing her with him. "We must do our bit. Faith in goodness is a powerful weapon, I've found over the years."

He closed his eyes and listened, smiling.

? ? ?

The Doctor was never quite sure exactly when the aliens' presence withdrew from Gerant, but an indeterminate time later when the villagers emerged from their almost trance-like devotion, the faint psychic 'static' that had been nagging at him for the past several days was gone. What was perhaps more telling was that neither Vernon nor any of the other townsfolk looked to him for confirmation that they had succeeded.

Faith indeed.

And perhaps that touch of psychic perception that existed in trace form in humanity. If anything might enhance it, it would be a gestalt-like event like the one that had just occurred . . .

The Doctor smiled to himself at a job well done, then noticed his bedraggled state for the first time.

"Oh, no . . ."

Denora saw his dismayed glance and found herself startled into a chuckle. "Come on; it's a warm fire you need!"

"It's my TARDIS I need," he grumbled, but let himself be coaxed along the track back towards her house, as they followed the squiet and contemplative villagers who were dispersing to their homes.

Someone watched them go. Not the bishop, talking quietly with Father Beran and his acolytes, but Lord Xavier where he stood, drawing a maroon cloak tighter about his shaken lady-wife as their guards gathered around them, ready to escort them back to the castle.

Denora glanced back and met the lord's gaze momentarily, then back to the way ahead.

The Doctor didn't bother looking over his shoulder to see what had caught her interest, but noted her even expression. Thoughtful, a little sad.

? ? ?

The Doctor sighed in exasperation.

"After what you did! You are of Fayre!"

"Denora . . ." The Doctor spread his arms, looked at the midwife in something akin to despair. "I've a respiratory bypass system. Anyone with one of those, and the control of their body taught by the Tibetan monks, could have done what I did. Now, if you want to talk Talxzian card tricks, well, now there's some magic . . ."

Denora watched in bemusement as he reached into a pants pocket and searched, stymied, then patted down his vest pockets, his face falling as he muttered something about having too few pockets.

"Well, if I had a deck, I'd show you," he concluded, put off by his inability to immediately demonstrate. Denora smiled anyway.

"Well . . . I should be going," the Time Lord announced, running a hand through his just-dried hair.

"Oh?" she blurted out. What she meant was: So soon?

"Will they come back?" she asked.

"The 'demons'? I don't know. Possible, but not probable. The psychic rejection seems to have sent them packing. What I'm concerned about is if there are any in other parts of the world--or times--that these Xertans are visiting. All Earth needs is yet another species trying to shoehorn itself in . . ." His voice trailed off into mutters and he sat slumped over before the crackling fire, grim-faced.

"Invasion?" the midwife asked.

The Doctor shook himself and smiled. "Here in Gerant? No. I'd bet a Formaisian Florin on it. It may have been a testing ground for something. I think," he decided, "that I'd better have a look around, see if they're lurking anywhere else in your history . . ." He reached into a pocket and withdrew a gold coin, flipped it, caught it and handed it to Denora with a smile. "A keepsake," he told her. "A Formaisian Florin."

She took it, staring in wonder at the strange markings and shapes upon it. Fayre gold . . .

When she looked up again, he was on his feet. "I must go, Denora. I only wanted a stroll, you know. But now I've work to do!"

She jumped up and embraced him, heedless of his polite lack of response, then stepped back. "More adventures, Doctor? Will you return, some day?"

"Perhaps." A non-committal smile. "The old girl is sentimental about Earth, and as for here?" He shrugged. "Stranger things have happened." He strode to the door, opened it and paused on the threshold. "Gerant is lucky to have you, Denora. Be well."

A quick smile and he was gone.

? ? ?

"Doctor! You are leaving?"

The Time Lord turned to look. Father Beran, huffing along to catch him up.

"I must," the Doctor told him. "I am, as I said, a traveller."

"I . . . see." Like an itinerant travelling monk, the priest mused. A jester-monk. Then he shook his head a little. Now what had brought that image into his head?

"Despite my anger at your charade, I am glad you survived the ordeal, Doctor." There was a twinkle in the priest's eye.

The Doctor threw back his head with a guffaw. "So am I, father; so am I!"

Beran's smile widened, before he turned more serious as they waked along. "Doctor . . . when you had your . . . vision . . ." He hesitated, then said, "Due to the demons' deception, yours may be the only true vision. I find myself wondering . . ."

There was a short pause.

"What it was like?" the Doctor finished gently.

"I'm sorry;" the priest said, sheepish. "I should know better than to ask for a description of the ineffable."

The Doctor smiled. "Father, miracles are few and far between. The faith that is inside your heart is vastly more important than what I experienced."

Beran looked away, a rueful smile tugging his mouth. "I know."

Still . . .

? ? ?

Denora hesitated just a little too long; by the time she flew out of her cottage, skirts hefted in her hands, the Doctor was out of sight. She tried anyway, scampering down alleyways, heedless of the startled looks from her neighbors.

It was the strange noise, a hideous roar unlike any she had ever heard, that alerted her. Dashing down the lane, she was just in time to see a shimmer of magic, as something large and . . . blue . . . vanished before her eyes.

She had just missed him. She stood slumped, dejected. Hearing a dry cackle, she whirled.

Grandam Louis was leaning out of a window in the barn across the way. Denora's heart quickened. Someone else had seen the Doctor's magic, his true nature. Would the accusations of witchcraft begin again?

"And just what amuses you so, Grandam?" she said sharply, vexed.

The oldster shook his head, grinning. "Saw him come, saw him leave. But oh, what happened in between!"

Touched by God, father Beran had one day confided to her, as the ancient man had tottered by, grinning at something only he could see. Louis babbled much, divine madness spilling out of him, occasional pearls among the dung. He looked at her, bright-eyed as she approached his window ledge.

"Tell me--what did you see, then?"

But though he grinned wildly, he never would say.

FIN.