Chapter Three
Weary and exhausted, Jeremy Larkin returned to the room at the inn. When he opened the door, he was both surprised and extremely pleased to find Henry Abington sitting up in his bed. The apothecary looked worse for wear, his coloring was still high and he looked as if he had lost weight – but he was alive!
"Henry! Are you recovered?" he asked, crossing quickly to his friend's side.
The familiar smile was weak, but it was there. "Let us say, 'recovering'."
"Providence be thanked!" Jeremy exclaimed.
"More like the Doctor be thanked." Henry halted as a cough rattled through him. Jeremy poured water from a flask on the bedside table and helped him to take a sip. The apothecary nodded his thanks and then added, "He is a most remarkable man. Where is he?"
Jeremy dropped into the chair beside the bed. "In custody and on his way to a courts martial."
"What? Upon what charge?"
He shook his head. It was absurd. He hadn't known the Doctor long, but he was certain – whatever the man was – that he was not a murderer. "Attempting to poison General Lafayette through the agency of his companion, Amelia Pond." Jeremy paused and then added, thoughtfully, "I suppose one can understand Sergeant Boggs' bias. The Doctor is English, after all."
"So is half of the population of the colonies," Henry protested, his color growing even more hot. "If we are going to start suspecting everyone with an English accent, we had best arrest most of the citizens of New York!"
Henry was breathing hard. Jeremy didn't like the look of him. He reached out and placed a hand on the sleeve of his friend's shirt. "You mustn't get excited. You need to rest."
Though the apothecary started to protest, it was all too clear that what Jeremy said was true. Henry sank back against the pillows and closed his eyes for a moment. Then, opening them again, he asked, "How is the general?"
"Alive. Other than that, I do not know. I am afraid my taking the Doctor's part did not endear me to Sergeant Boggs," he added with a wry grin.
"Sergeant Boggs is usually a very open-minded man."
"Not where the general's welfare is concerned."
"No, I suppose not." Henry retrieved the cup for himself this time and took another sip of water. "Tell me all that has happened."
Jeremy nodded. And did.
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Amelia Pond shifted uncomfortably as she felt a renewed river of sweat trickle down between her back and the set of stays Mrs. Waters had squeezed her into. She was still somewhat disoriented. When someone had struck her from behind, rendering her unconscious, she had been in the bedchamber of the Marquis de Lafayette. Now she was sitting in some kind of a dingy cell across from a very large, very unattractive woman who she presumed was her jailer. At least, she hoped she was her jailer and not a fellow cell mate. Daleks, Silurians, and Weeping Angels were one thing.
Goliath in a putrid purple gown was another.
"Hello," Amy tried, waggling her fingers. "I don't think we've been properly introduced. My name is Amy Pond, and you would be..."
The woman's brows formed in a 'v', like her knitting needles. She glared at Amy and then returned to her task.
"Right. Well, that takes care of that."
Several minutes passed in stifling silence. The room had a fireplace, which was guttering, and cast a thick choking smoke into the air. Outside it might be winter, but in the small cramped space composed of bricks and wood, a false summer reigned. Amy squirmed as another rivulet of sweat ran down between her breasts. She so wanted to grab one of the knitting needles Goliath-ina held and poke it down the laced front of her stays to scratch the itch the perspiration had ignited, but she feared what the woman would do. Jab her with the other one, most likely. So instead she began once again to pluck the roses on her ruined apricot silk gown.
One minute passed. Two. Four. More.
Finally, unable to stand it any longer, Amy all but shouted, "So what is it you're meant to do, you great hulk of a woman? Bore me to death?"
"That is not the fate intended for you, Amelia. Though if you press Madame Delaforge too far, she might string you up alongside your friend with that scarf she is knitting."
Amy recognized the voice as that of Lieutenant Rowland Montgomery. She turned to find the handsome man watching her through a short set of bars set firmly in the cell door. "So, it's first names now, is it? What do I call you? Rowland? Or is it Rowey?" She drew a breath against her rising indignation and added through clenched teeth, "Or maybe just 'traitor'?"
"If anyone is a traitor, it is you, Amelia," he answered smoothly. "Or better yet, your friend."
A sudden chill followed the trail of sweat down her back. If she had been taken, was the Doctor a captive too? But no. He was too smart for that. It was the eighteenth century, for goodness sake! How could one of these simpletons overcome the Doctor? This was no different from all those other places, other times they had traveled to...
Yeah. He'd been taken.
"So now what?" she demanded boldly. "Are you going to stick me in some deep dark dank dungeon where no one will find my bones for about 200 years?" That'd be about right, wouldn't it? A short hop, skip, and jump across the pond and the centuries and she and the Doctor could come view the remains.
"Or not," she muttered as her stomach tightened.
A key turned in the lock. There was a click and then the heavy wooden door swung inward, admitting Lieutenant Montgomery. He was dressed as a civilian now, in a dark brown coat and breeches. Two other men she could just make out lingered in the darkened corridor. Rowland Montgomery was still handsome, but the flickering torchlight turned it into a sinister kind of beauty; all sharp angles and hard stone.
"We have no intention of letting you die, Amelia. You served us well the first time around. I am sure you will do so again."
"Served you?" Amy frowned. "What? You mean, you took me to see Lafayette, intending to conk me on the head and bring me here? Whatever for? What good am I to you?" She hesitated, realizing how stupid that question was, expressed by a woman who was one rat bite away from death. "I mean, no one knows me here. Who would care what happened to me?"
The moment she said it, she had her answer – the Doctor. Captured and threatened, she could be used as bait, or as leverage to make him do whatever this man wanted him to do.
What else could it be?
"You will come with me," Montgomery said.
Amy rose to her feet. With a glance at Madame Delaforge who was still knitting, she backed away from the lieutenant and the door. "I will not."
"Then you will hang," he stated matter-of-factly. A moment later, Montgomery did something strange. He smiled as he held out his hand. "This is your jail break, Amelia Pond." He waited and then added in a low voice, "I will only ask once."
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The Doctor awoke face down on a clammy stone floor, nose to nose with a rather puzzled rat. A fat rat, actually, which did nothing to lift his mood. He'd been in a good many prisons in his nine hundred plus years. Fat rats were a bona fide indisputable indicator of thin prisoners.
Or dead ones.
The Doctor sniffed. Urine. Feces. Rotten straw and stale water. Sweat. Several kinds of mold and just a hint of animal decay. Not human, though.
Apparently at least once when it came to mano-a-rattus, the thin prisoner had won.
"Hip hooray for humanity," he remarked with more than a hint of sarcasm as he sat up and looked around at the pinnacle of man's inhumanity to man he was imprisoned in. The cell was barely ten foot square. The ceiling so low that, if he had been able to stand up – which he wasn't since his feet were shackled by short chains to the floor – he would have had to duck. There was no window. The only light that filtered in was from the corridor that ran before the cell. He couldn't see much, but the sounds of hopelessness and pain that haunted the empty passageway told him there were others, just like him, not all that far away.
He'd have to free them on the way out.
The Doctor's wrists were shackled as well – but to each other – so he was able to lift them to his chest. It took a bit of maneuvering, but finally he managed to get a pair of fingers inside the inside breast pocket where he kept his sonic screwdriver – only to find it missing.
"Now what have they gone and done with you, old friend?" he wondered out loud.
So far Jeremy Larkin was the only one to have paid any mind to what this century would have considered a magical device, and the only one to have seen him use it. So it followed, if someone other than Jeremy had taken the sonic, they must have prior knowledge of him, of who and what he was, and that was not a good thing. Such knowledge might influence the future. Indeed, it could change the future. It powerfully suggested that one of his former foes was here, that they had foreseen his coming, and that they would do anything – anything – to stop him from discovering their nefarious plans and putting a cold hard stop to them.
Of course, it might just have dropped out of his pocket when he hit the cobblestones and been snatched up by a five year old who thought it was a lolly.
Either way, it was imperative he get out of this cell and find the sonic.
The Doctor's green eyes flicked to the cell door. It was made of wood, of course, though that might prove an advantage if one had to escape the old fashioned way. The sonic didn't do wood. Since he couldn't see it clearly, he surmised that the door had a very big, indisputably impossible lock meant to keep in the kind of hard-bitten, non-redeemable inmate who usually got exiled to the lowest level of the prison. Still, if he could manage to get to the door and find something to pick the lock with, he might be able to escape. The time traveler's gaze shifted to the area immediately around him. What might he use? The stray piece of metal? Too brittle. That forgotten fork? Too far away. Maybe the broken piece of chain...
"Or how about a really big set of boots?" he muttered to himself.
Really big boots. With really big feet inside.
He wasn't alone.
There had been times when the console room of the Tardis had seemed too small. Especially at those awkward moments when Martha Jones or Rose had begun to talk about their feelings for him. Compared to where he was now, that space had been infinite. He'd just have to hope pot luck had thrown him a sumptuous feast, and that he and his cellmate were about to become bosom friends.
"Hello," he said cheerily. "I'm the Doctor. Pleased to make your acquaintance. And you might be..."
The shadow in the corner rustled and shifted forward until a man emerged from it – a familiar burly man with hairy paws, minus the darts.
And minus chains.
"Who am I, Doc?" the burly man growled as his fingers formed into fists. "Try your funeral."
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Jeremy Larkin had decided to try reasoning with Sergeant Boggs. Henry was right. Daniel was usually a reasonable man, not prone to quick judgments or prejudices. The frontiersman was understandably upset. He was responsible for Lafayette, and not only had the Frenchman fallen ill, but it seemed someone had made an attempt on his life. General Washington's camp was less than 10 miles away and it seemed once again, reasonable, to assume that Boggs would have taken the Doctor there. So, Jeremy had mounted his horse and spurred it on at a quick pace, arriving in camp just as the dawn broke, only to find that neither Boggs nor his unusual prisoner had been seen.
Weary... Well, exhausted really, Jeremy had begged a bunk off of a passing soldier and fallen into it, meaning to nap. Instead, he had fallen into a deep sleep. It seemed only a minute, though in reality it was something more like two hours later that a hand on his shoulder roused him. He had been recognized by one of the men and was requested to make an appearance at General Washington's headquarters. He and the General had met once, years before. He was surprised the older man remembered him, but then the deeds of Captain Yankee Doodle had already passed from truth into legend and even song. Jeremy had been quite amused one night to stand in the shadows near a tavern in Chester and hear himself spoken of as if he had been Ulysses, Hannibal, and Joshua all rolled into one ball.
George Washington, of course, had no such delusions. Of that he was sure.
The soldier whose bunk he had borrowed leant him a razor and a clean suit of clothes so he could appear presentable. Still, it was with trepidation that Jeremy went to attend upon the man known variously as 'His Excellency', 'the gentleman from Virginia', and the Commander-in-chief of the Continental Army.
General Washington was standing by the window, facing away from him when Jeremy entered. He was looking out over a field of snow. The last few winters, as if in defiance of a Providence which seemed at times to favor their Cause, had been bitterly cold and harsh. Jeremy knew what the great man was thinking. His men were out there, suffering, while he sat here in a mansion with a great fire blazing and a glass of port on his mahogany ormolu desk. The general's hands were clasped tightly behind his back, and when he turned there was a tension in his jaw that had nothing to do with the well-known difficulties he had with his teeth.
"Gilbert. Have you seen him?" the older man asked, cutting to the chase.
"I am sorry, sir. I have not."
Washington nodded. His shoulders seemed to slump and then he crossed to the chair by the desk and cast his long frame into it. "I hear the boy is ill. Do you know if this is true?'
"That I do know, sir. Yes. I have it from Daniel Boggs."
"A better source could not be found." The older man stared at the glass of port for a moment, and then started. He looked up with a slight frown. "I forget my manners, Captain Larkin. Take a seat. Would you like a glass of port?'
Jeremy started to decline, but then thought better of it. Perhaps if he accepted, the general would partake of his own. "Thank you, sir."
Washington rose and crossed to a side bureau. He returned shortly with a bottle and glass. As he poured the burgundy liquid into the crystal vessel, he asked, "And how is your father?"
"Well, sir."
The older man stopped the bottle and then looked at him. "Truly?"
"He mourns Robert's loss still," Jeremy admitted. "He feels it sensibly, though is now reconciled that it was for a worthy cause."
"Yes. They are all for a worthy cause. All those deaths..."
Jeremy knew the older man felt every one of them. "Sir, I - "
"I do not desire Gilbert's to be among them." The words were spoken like an order. "I need to know what condition he is in. Will you, Captain Larkin, return to him and thence to me and bring me word of it?"
Will you? It was not an order, but the plea of a father for news of his adopted son.
"Aye, sir. That I will." How could he refuse? "And General Washington, if I may, might I ask a small favor from you?"
For a moment the general said nothing and Jeremy feared he had offended him. When Washington spoke, he realized it was nothing of the kind and his esteem for the older man grew. "For the services you have rendered to your country, young man, in spite of what it has cost you, you may ask a great favor."
"Thank you, sir." He paused. How to phrase it? "A man has been taken prisoner and is being held in the village near Fishkill. He and his companion have been accused...of seeking to harm Lafayette." At Washington's look, Jeremy swallowed hard and continued. "I have not known this man long, but I do not think this true. Sergeant Boggs is...understandably upset. He fears for the Marquis' life as you do, sir. I cannot explain it, but I believe that...harming this man would prove far more dangerous than letting him live."
"And what are you asking of me?"
"If he is brought here, I beg of you, sir, to consider the circumstances – and my opinion – before condemning him."
Washington considered for a moment and then nodded. "What is his name?"
Jeremy opened his mouth to answer, but found he had none. "Sir, I do not know, but he calls himself 'The Doctor'. It – "
At that moment the door to General Washington's room opened and a lovely woman in a canary yellow sacque gown swept in. Her spiraling hair was honey-colored and piled high on her head in imitation of the latest fashion from France. A small hat in the shape of a boat with white sails was anchored jauntily on one yellow wave. Her face was not powdered, but her lips and cheeks were rouged. She smiled sweetly at Jeremy as she passed by, heading for a spot to the left and behind the general. Once there, she placed a hand on the back of the great man's chair and then deliberately looked Jeremy in the eye. He could not help but notice that for a woman of some advanced years – he would have put her past the fourth decade of life – she was slender as a younger woman, with a pure complexion and robust life crackling in the depths of her blue eyes.
At Jeremy's look, George Washington did something the young man thought he would never see – the older man blushed. "A friend of my wife's," he offered in explanation. "Madame Rivierre, la Dame de la Chanson."
The woman cocked her head and clipper ship hat. When she spoke, her voice had a husky quality to it. "I was visiting friends in Philadelphia. When I heard George was here, I thought perhaps Martha was with him. So I came to pay a call. When I found she wasn't," she briefly touched the general's shoulder, "I decided I would stay and make certain Mr. Washington was taking care of himself." Madame Rivierre paused. "I hear poor Gilbert is not doing so."
"General Lafayette is unwell, Madame. I do not know the cause or his condition at this time."
Washington glanced up at the woman. "I have asked Captain Larkin to ascertain how grave the situation is."
The woman's blonde eyebrows peaked, though she hid her surprise quickly. "Captain Larkin. I have heard of you, sir."
Jeremy rose to his feet. For some reason, that left him very uneasy. "Good things, I would hope," he said.
Her lips curled with a half-smile. "Great ones, actually."
Uncertain how to respond to that, Jeremy turned his attention back to His Excellency. "Sir, if I may have your leave to go?"
"Granted. Oh, and I will keep watch for any orders concerning this friend of yours. The...Doctor, you say?"
"Aye, sir. Thank you, sir." Jeremy executed a small bow. "Madame Rivierre. Good bye."
"Oh, let's not say 'good bye'," she countered unexpectedly, "but au revoir." The handsome woman moved from her place at the general's side and escorted him to the door. "I think you and I shall meet again, Captain Larkin."
Jeremy nodded.
He didn't know what else to do.
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Madame Rivierre, la Dame de la Chanson, saw the young man out the door. Then she closed it and leaned back, considering the deeper implications of young Larkin's appearance at this place, at this time, when according to history he should have been in Chester. She would have to tread carefully. One wrong word, one mistaken step, and everything could change. If America did not emerge as its own nation, toppling a world controlled by kings and queens, then the dominoes of tyranny would never start to fall. France would remain a monarchy. The Romanovs would rule. Ecco Dominus of Vastee Three would continue his three-handed stranglehold.
Democracy would die.
"Madame Rivierre, are you all right?"
She opened her eyes and took in the sight of the man seated before her. No matter how many thousands of generations had come and gone, how many men been born, reigned, and died, this man was still remembered. There was something about George Washington that was immortal; something about his goodness, his honesty and fair judgment.
It was a shame that what she had to do might put a blot on that good name.
Washington was frowning and shaking his head. The effect was wearing off. Reaching into the fleshy pocket between her breasts created by the tightly strung stays she wore, Madame Rivierre removed a small brass cylinder suspended on a golden chain. Twisting it, she exposed a pale pink lipstick; her own special brand, impregnated with a mild hallucinogen. She added a fresh coat to her lips, returned it to its nest, and then bent to brush them against the future president's, careful not to leave a visible trace.
"Sorry, Martha," she whispered with a wry smile, "all in the line of duty." After returning the lipstick to its place of concealment, she touched Washington's shoulder again. "The Doctor..." she began.
"The Doctor," Washington repeated. "Must save him."
"Oh no, George dear," Madame Rivierre, la Dame de la Chanson, also known as River Song corrected. "I am afraid you must let the Doctor die."
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Inglorious. That was the word for it. Opprobrious and downright humiliating.
He had gone eyeball to eyeball with the Atraxi. Defeated the Daleks. Stopped a Silurian invasion, and outwitted a whole army of Weeping Angels. And how was he going to die?
Beaten to a pulp by an enraged ignoramus.
"I say..." The Doctor scooted back, stretching the chains that bound his feet as far as they would go – which was about sixteen inches. "I may have been a bit hasty with that comment about halitosis..."
"I don't like you," the burly man from the tavern snarled.
"Really. Well, I find I have actually become rather fond of you in the last, say, two minutes." The time traveler swallowed hard as his cell mate's shadow encompassed him, plunging him into total darkness as surely as an eclipse at noon. The Doctor held up his hands. "What's say you snap these chains? Shouldn't be hard for an...able-bodied fellow like you. Why, look at those muscled cords...standing out...in your...neck..."
"What's say I snap your neck instead?"
"Well, now... No. I don't think that would do any good. Snapping my neck would, by rights, kill me." He swallowed again, thinking fast, even as the burly man's dirt blackened hands reached for him. This far from the Tardis, it might truly mean his death. Only once had he passed from one regeneration to another this great a distance from her, and then it had taken a future self to jumpstart the process. Today dead just might be dead. "I wouldn't be much good to you then, now would I? If I was dead, I wouldn't be able to let you in on...the secret." He paused dramatically. His attacker was close now, so close that his foul breath stirred the fringe of dark brown hair hanging low on the Doctor's forehead. So close the man's filthy fingers were crushing his really cool bowtie. "Aren't you dying to know. Sorry. Bad choice of words..."
"Secret? What secret?"
"Let go...and I'll tell you," the Doctor gasped as those fingers encircled his neck.
The man's eyes narrowed and his lips curled back in a feral grin, even as his grip tightened. "Tell me and I'll let go."
"I was...afraid...you'd say that." The Doctor thought furiously. If there was anything he found difficulty with, it was comprehending the mind of someone who could take pleasure in another's pain. As much as he despised his ancient enemies, the Daleks, and admired humanity, there were times when there was really very little difference between them. What would a brute capable of tossing a sack full of kittens into the river or tweaking the legs off of a grasshopper find more profitable than ringing his neck?
More profitable...
A wave of darkness swept over the Doctor as the man began to pinch his airway by a constant application of both thumbs. As he started to black out, the ridiculous notion that his killer might be identified by the prints he left on his bowtie made the Time Lord snort.
Which only enraged his attacker.
"I ain't a patient man," his bestial cell mate growled.
The Doctor coughed and tried to speak, but his words disappeared for lack of air. He raised a finger on one hand, as if hailing a cab or bidding an insistent student to wait a moment.
Or it might have been the last count of a man going down.
The pressure eased. Barely. "What? It better be good." The brute sneered. "Good as throttling a bandy legged chicken like you."
The Doctor's finger wagged in the air. He took it and pointed at his other arm.
"What? I don't see nothing."
The time traveler shifted his chained hands so the cuffs of his tweed coat fell back. He swallowed and managed to draw in enough air to whisper, "Gold..." And there it was, shining in a stray beam of light that penetrated the darkness of the cell.
The adjustable expansion band of his wristwatch.
The blackened hands left the Doctor's throat and seized his wrist with so much force he feared for a moment it might break. "You can have it," he breathed. "And there's...more like it in my...ship... It's anchored at...the harbor. Let me live...and you can have it...all."
The man snatched the watch off his arm. A second later one hand returned to his throat. "How much more? More than twenty guineas?"
"Much...more," the Doctor panted. Then, in spite of his weakened condition, curiosity got the best of him. "Might I ask, why that...precise sum?"
His attacker clutched the golden band in his free hand as he leaned in and breathed close to his ear, "That's what I'm to be paid for wringing your scrawny little neck and leaving your carcass for the rats to feast on. My master thinks you're clever. Thinks you'll get away before they string you up. But I'm a businessman, see..." The man loosened his grip, mocked dusting off the Doctor's coat, and even straightened his bowtie. "I never turn down a better deal. Still, you have to prove it. For all I know you don't have no ship, and there ain't no more gold than this."
"Paid to...kill me?" The Doctor shuddered with the possibilities such a bargain raised. "By whom?"
"Like I'd tell you..." The man stopped suddenly. He cocked his head and listened. "Looks like we're out of time."
"No. This is...very important. You must...tell me who..." The Doctor's voice trailed off as he heard what the other man had. Footsteps, echoing in the hall just outside his prison. "Is that...them coming? Is your master..." He paused and his eyes flicked to the burly man's face, searching it for a sign of something out of place. "Are you...human?"
The villain's lips curled back with sadistic pleasure as both hands returned to the Doctor's throat and he began to squeeze. The time traveler heard the key turn in the lock and a shout of alarm, even as the man who was killing him whispered.
"I wouldn't count on it, mate."