Chapter Six
The Doctor and Rose set off hand-in-hand to explore.
"C'mon constable Tyler, keep 'em peeled," he said with a grin. Rose almost squeaked with excitement. The Doctor was recalling the layout of the castle from the TARDIS scan, and could probably find his way around blindfold.
In the centre of the building they found the round court chamber, with the legendary table in the centre. The Doctor explained that it had originally been a Roman amphitheatre and the castle had been built on top of it.
Rose was overcome by the realisation of where she was. She leaned close to the Doctor and spoke in hushed tones. "I know we've been to distant worlds and far into the future and to distant pasts, but to be standin' in front of somethin' that's a myth or a legend and see that it's real, well, it's just..., amazin'." She stepped forward and touched the polished wood to make sure it was real.
The Doctor smiled at her. He loved to see things through her eyes, it made everything seem as though he was seeing it for the first time again. He took out his sonic screwdriver and scanned the room.
"Watcha lookin' for?" she asked him.
"Not really sure. Alien tech, unexpected energy spikes, stuff like that."
Rose suddenly remembered the Doctor's antics with the King's horse earlier. "Hey, you were going to tell me what all that was about with the horse," she said.
"Oh yes, Lightning's Shadow. He told me that the King rode past many deer and boar while he was out hunting. A bit strange don't you think?" he said with a raised eyebrow.
"Maybe the larder was full," she suggested.
"Orrr..., maybe they were hunting a specific something that didn't want to be found," he mused as his Gallifreyan brain ran ahead at high speed.
"You know the last time we met royalty and we ran into a mythical beast?" he asked her.
Rose grinned. "Queen Victoria and the werewolf. How could I forget? We got a knighthood out of that adventure," she said.
"Well, I'm not certain yet, but I think we may be meeting another mythical beast."
"Oh. What? Is it a unicorn?" she asked hopefully.
He gave a little giggle. "That is so 'My Little Pony' Rose Tyler. You're so cute at times."
"Shut up!" she said with a smile. "What is it then?"
"Think 'Saint George'," he told her.
"What?" she said. Then her jaw dropped. "No!? You mean a dragon?" Her words echoed around the chamber.
"Shhh," the Doctor breathed.
'A dragon', she mouthed silently, eyes wide.
"It's a strong possibility if I'm right. I'll tell the story tonight at dinner." He held out his hand and they set off to look for more clues.
They found the bottlery and kitchen, and chatted amiably to the staff, much to their surprise. Lords and ladies did not normally come into the kitchen, and they certainly didn't lower themselves to talk to the staff.
They walked along the minstrel's gallery which overlooked the dining room. The Doctor picked up a descant recorder off a music stand and gave it a 'toot'. He looked at Rose and waggled his eyebrows as he positioned his fingers over the holes.
He proceeded to play a piece of music from the score that was open on the stand. Rose was wide-eyed in amazement.
"I never knew you could play!" she said.
"In my second incarnation, I always had a recorder with me. It helped me think." He had a faraway look in his eyes as he remembered.
"What were you like back then?" Rose asked him. He rarely talked about himself, so when he did she was keen for him to continue.
"Well, I was..., me. It was my first regeneration so I was a bit disorientated to start with. Pudding basin haircut and a face like I was sucking a lemon all the time." Rose started to laugh.
"But I was pleasant enough and had some charming companions. No dress sense though! In fact it's only in these last two regenerations that I've developed any sense of style." He gave a shudder as he thought about some of the outfits he used to wear.
He had put down the recorder and picked up a lute, giving it a single strum.
"Do you play that as well?" Rose asked him, never having thought about him playing musical instruments before.
"Well, it has been a while," he said as he plucked each string checking its tuning. He started to pick out a tune. Rose started to laugh as she recognised the riff.
"Lay-la, you've got me on my knees. / Lay-la, I'm begging, darling please. / Lay-la, darling won't you ease my worried mind," she sang along with a grin. The Doctor was very good and played the riff with a Baroque flourish.
"Layla on a lute! That is so bizarre," she laughed as they left the gallery.
In a corridor that led to the main doors of the Great Hall, they saw a squire walking a wire haired wolfhound. At the shoulder it stood as high as the squire's waist.
"You there my good fellow!" the Doctor called after him. "May I speak with thou a while?"
The squire turned around and looked to see if the Doctor might be talking to someone else. "Me Sire? Of course," he smiled.
"What a magnificent hound you have there. What is his name?" the Doctor asked in a friendly voice as he and Rose approached.
"'Tis Cavall Sire, the King's favourite hound," he told them.
The Doctor held out the back of his fist and the dog sniffed and then licked his hand and sat down, looking into the Doctors eyes.
"Wouldst thou look at that!" the squire exclaimed. "He has taken to thee Sire, he normally ignores folk."
The Doctor leaned forwards and held the dogs ears and ruffled them, scratching behind his ears. Cavall leaned hard against his right hand, enjoying the sensation. The Doctor lowered his forehead against Cavall's and made a snuffling noise.
{Greetings Cavall, oh, that is your name isn't it?}
{It is the name given to me by my Master, yes}
{Oh good. I am the Doctor, and I was wondering if we could chat about what your eyes, your exceptional ears and your extraordinary nose have seen, heard and smelt recently}
{It is funny you should ask...} Cavall started.
The squire stood watching in amazement as the pair growled, snuffled and whined to each other.
Rose just rolled her eyes. "Not again," she said.
After a few minutes, the Doctor stood and held his fist out and gave a single bark. Cavall lifted a paw and placed it on the Doctor's fist and also gave a single bark.
The Doctor turned grinned at both of them. "Well that's that then," he said to Rose. "I think I now have most of the pieces of the puzzle. Many thanks Edmund, Cavall speaks very highly of you. However, he would appreciate more scratching behind the ear; he is particularly fond of that."
They left the speechless squire looking between them and the dog like he was watching a game of tennis.
They continued their exploration of the different floors of the castle, with many of the rooms set aside for guests. Arthur realised that if he wanted to unite the kingdoms against the invading Saxons, he needed to use Camelot as a residential conference centre where rulers could meet and get to know each other.
The King and Queen's Solar suite (a private sitting room), was off limits to visitors. The Doctor discretely scanned the hallway with his sonic and detected some unusual electromagnetic energy signatures. Probably from an off-world sword. He also detected some alien tech in another direction.
"Rose? Would you go down this hallway here and I'll meet you at the other end?" he asked her. "I'm going around this way."
"What are you up to?" she asked him suspiciously.
"You'll see," he said with a grin.
Rose strolled down the hallway, admiring the paintings and tapestries on the walls. She saw a figure turn the corner and then go back the way he had come. It was the man whose body language the Doctor had said didn't fit. She hurried to the end of the hallway and peeked around the corner and let out a 'hah'.
The Doctor was standing toe-to-toe with the stranger, giving him one of his triumphant grins.
"Not from around here, are you?" the Doctor said.
The stranger visibly relaxed and gave a single laugh. "No, and I reckon you two aren't either."
The Doctor held out his hand. "I'm the Doctor, and she's Rose," he nodded over the strangers shoulder.
As the stranger turned his head the Doctor held his grip on the handshake and lifted the sleeve of the man's jacket, revealing a leather bracer. The man's head snapped back to look at his wrist.
"Recognise this Rose?"
Rose approached and looked at the bracer. She popped the press stud and lifted the leather cover.
"A vortex manipulator, just like Captain Jack used to have," she said with surprise.
"Oh don't tell me you've met Jack Harkness," he said with despair in his voice. "How much did he take you for?"
"Oh, don't worry, I was on to Jack from the moment I met him. He was pretending to be what you are, a time agent." The Doctor took out his sonic and 'zapped' the gadget on the stranger's wrist.
"WHA'! What are you doing?" the stranger struggled and broke the Doctor's grip.
"I'm stopping you from causing a disaster by your good intentions." He turned to address Rose. "Y'know, my people used to keep these guys in check. Now they're gone, these time agents are popping up everywhere.
They mean well, but they don't see fixed points in time like I do." He had a distant, sad look in his eyes.
Rose reached out and held his hand. "What's the matter?" she asked him with concern.
"Back in 2001, when I had big ears and a leather jacket, I stopped a time agent from interfering in a terrorist attack." Rose put her hand to her mouth as she realised what he was talking about.
"I am responsible for 2,996 deaths." It was a statement of fact, not open for debate. "However, I am also responsible for saving millions. After the atrocity, governments around the world introduced new legislation to combat terrorism. Intelligence agencies started sharing information rather than keeping it to themselves."
He looked at the stranger as he finished his story. "What the time agent didn't know was that if that attack had been thwarted, the terrorists would have been enraged, their retribution unparalleled. The intelligence agencies wouldn't have spotted the missing enriched plutonium in Eastern Europe. They would have missed the fanatics sitting in hotel rooms in London, Washington, Paris, Berlin, Moscow and other capital cities, holding grapefruit sized chunks of plutonium."
He turned to look back at Rose, his eyes burning with unshed tears. "Do you know what happens when you spread your arms wide and then clap them together, holding enriched plutonium?" The stranger nodded and lowered his head. "You flatten an area in a two mile radius, creating a nuclear wasteland that is uninhabitable for thousands of years and condemn millions of people to a horrible death." He drew in a deep breath and regained his composure.
"So, Arthur's sword doesn't belong here. You come and take it away. At the battle of Mount Badon, 960 men are not killed by that sword and Arthur loses to the Saxons. The kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, Essex, Sussex and Kent do not unite. William invades but does not conquer. There are no Tudors, no Stuarts. No culture of scientific discovery or invention. North America is divided up into separate countries by European explorers. There is no British Empire. No unified response to invading armies."
He smiled at Rose and held out his hand. "One small act on a fixed time-line." Rose took his hand and squeezed, knowing the significance of that act. "Can have a large cascade effect through time."
They turned to the stranger. "So that is why I have deactivated your vortex manipulator, er... I didn't catch your name."
"Lance, the names Lance Elliott," he said quietly as he realised he was now a permanent member of the sixth century.
Rose snorted a laugh, spotting the word play. "LanceElliott? Sir Lancelliott? You're kiddin' me."
"Oh Rose, this legend just keeps on giving," the Doctor said with a laugh.
