CANDY
Chapter Eight
The rain had ramped up into a thunderstorm; it was coming down in sheets illuminated weirdly by relentless lightning. I had no choice but to come in out of it; an elephant could handily hide in this. I wanted to connect with Nyssa and Felsy in the TARDIS but was accompanied instead to the Caramel Room, where a change of clothes awaited me. Soaked as I was, I didn't care what my new attire was as long as it was dry, and I had more on my mind than my appearance, and yet, passing a mirror in the hallway on my way back to the TARDIS, I couldn't help noticing that I was dressed somewhat haphazardly, a skinny paisley bow tie safety-pinned to my shirt collar, plaid trousers too high and too long, ill-fitting black jacket, my feet shod in something between a shoe and a boot. Had I really once dressed this way? I was sure I had. However, I had no time to do more than a triple take at my appearance, and hastened, attended of course, on to the TARDIS. There I found Nyssa distraught: Tegan had shown up, too exhausted to speak, her clothing in muddy tatters, bruises on her arms and legs but otherwise physically unharmed. Nyssa had wrapped her in a blanket but could not get her to move from the console room, where she huddled under the scanner. Felsy sat silently next to her and jumped, startled, when I ran to Tegan and squatted down in front of her, glad she was alive but horrified at her condition. I raised her chin to make her look at me, which she did through glazed eyes. I hugged her to me, then turned my attention to the child. I didn't know how to say what I needed to say so I just said it:
"Felsy, I have some terrible news. Someone bad hurt your mother. I am so sorry."
"She is dead, isn't she?" Felsy was calm. "I knew it. I knew they would kill her." Then she wept silently. I turned to Nyssa without rising.
"What happened?"
Nyssa shook her head. "She just showed up at the kitchen door, no one knows from where. They brought her here right away. Doctor, she is in no condition to be interrogated!"
"Am I interrogating her?" I stood up. Nyssa looked me up and down (which made me uncomfortable), opened her mouth, then shut it again; I think had our situation not been dire she might have laughed. I straightened my tie, or thought I had; perhaps I had made it worse. "The prince is still missing. I have a feeling he has been taken out of the… principality. If so, I doubt we will find him. We must hope for a ransom note. If the object is to prevent his coming to power, then all hope is lost. He may already be dead." At this, Felsy wailed, and I regretted speaking so openly in front of her; I'd forgotten that the two were close. "We shall hope for the best!" I quickly added, turning toward her. "We must assume he is alive!"
I asked the attendant waiting for me outside the TARDIS what was on the other side of the cane field in which Grita's body had been found. "More fields," he said. "But beyond those, sheer cliffs, and at the bottom of them, marshland. All beyond the fields belongs to Curtlo, about which little is known because it is quite isolated. Most of it is across the river on the other side of the marshlands. I know you are thinking about the prince. We all are. I do hope he is not there but I fear he is. And if he is…."
"Is there a way down? Is there a way up?"
"Maybe. There used to be a stairway. Must've taken years to complete. Someone blew it up long ago. I don't know whether we did or they did. No one talks about it. We leave them alone, they leave us alone."
It was late, so late it was early, and there would be very little time for sleep. Nothing could be done in the driving rain, so Nyssa took Felsy with her and we all slept, however briefly, in the TARDIS. The only disadvantage to our doing that was that we were indoors and the scanner gave us no information about the rain; in the Caramel Room I could have looked out the window.