Chapter Text
A mist, cool, wet, and golden in the late afternoon sun, moves through the sheep-grazed combes. It sweeps by the low, uneven hills. A shadow passes, and the ground, high or low, rolls into dark—a half-light, pure and magical.
It’s known as the Vale of Iden, and the Tardis makes an unusual sight here. It sits above a stream running towards the rocks below, deeply camouflaged in a thicket of brush. A sunset tranquility lays upon the scene as the Doctor looks for his companions. Both had gone exploring on their own.
Tegan walks by the stream, and Turlough has climbed a hill of ancient stone off to the Doctor’s right. Now he stands stock-still, looking down from the high rock to the other side of the hill, a side which the Doctor could not see.
Turlough was a lad of the pensive sort, aloof, always looking the other way.
Hands in pockets, as was his wont, the Doctor stands near his Tardis, the blue police call box which had brought them to the world of Rana. Its thin, blue door, one of two, stands open behind him.
He takes a deep breath, gazing out towards the dark gray Amran, or Echo, range. Years ago, he had set up a lone camp in that granite fortress to study the gray hill wolf. He had never felt so cold as at that time. Its white eyes and unearthly howls had chilled him, chilled him to the marrow. Even now, in reminiscence, he shivers.
Three days, on an uninhabited world called Deglos, the Doctor had been bitten by what he now called the Deglos crab, and trying to heal himself of the crab’s deadly toxin, he had depleted his supply of herbs and powders aboard the Tardis. He still had a festering wound on his lower leg and a touch of fever.
His old friend Noram, a natural healer, and his teenaged daughter Kam lived in Coria, a town with a bit of twisted history, and the Doctor’s destination. He’d help him replenish his supply of medicines, and perhaps cure him of his fever, too.
Time to go.
He called his companions in. Half-dazed by the beauty of the soundless hills, Tegan and Turlough reentered the Tardis reluctantly. They emerged again transformed into a medieval knight and his lady. Tegan’s long, tight-sleeved, emerald-green dress looked fetching under a short cape. Turlough wore a red wool tunic, and brown leggings.
Even the Doctor had gone ‘medieval.’ Over his laced-up shirt, he wore a long, quilted, amber vest. His tie shirt left a bare patch of skin between his two hearts. His fringed boots reached to mid-calf and he had tucked his pants cuffs into their wide, bell-like tops.
All three of them looked the part of quaint, medieval travelers.
Tegan’s gown gave her trouble right off as the three made their way to Coria on the other side of the hill. She hitched up its two sides out of the mud.
Giving the Doctor an earful, she said, “Doctor, this mud’s ruining my outfit! How can I meet your friends like this?”
She held up a sodden boot, its bottom caked in mud, its side scuffed on the rocks.
Forging ahead, the Doctor called back, “Everyone adapts here, Tegan, to mud. It rains a lot at this season. No one will notice how you look.”
“I don’t think I like how you put that, Doctor.”
“I didn’t mean—” He cut himself off. No use going the rounds with Tegan. She always won.
“Remember, Tegan,” said Turlough, speaking up for the first time. “Coria doesn’t take to strangers. We need to go in quietly. Why start off on the wrong foot?”
“Because your soles are made of hard leather. I’m already on the ‘wrong’ foot!”
“Peace, peace,” said the Doctor, smiling a thin smile. “We’re almost there.”
As the trio negotiated the steep hill, there was silence, then the Doctor broke it.
“On my last visit,” he said cheerily, “unsavory elements had moved in to Coria. Noram, my old chum, once stated he’d never leave. I hope he proves true to his word.”
Noram cherished his town, though it was not the same place it had once been. The Doctor felt that way about the Tardis.
A rust-bucket? Out of date? An old Type-40? Repair it, recharge it, replace it, but scrap it, no. It was home, ship, and time portal, beloved to him.
All three companions at last stood on the ridge overlooking the town below. “A bit of a ruin,” the Doctor said, echoing Tegan’s and Turlough’s thoughts exactly.
Tegan laughed. “That’s an understatement, Doctor. It’s a wreck!”
“It’s sheep-shearing time, too,” he answered. “Usually, that’s when the money flows in. Come, let’s go down.”
Tegan and Turlough traded a look and followed him down the dirt track.
In front of a noisy alehouse, lit by candles and rushes within, two dogs snapped at Tegan’s skirts as she, a bit hesitantly, inched by them. A few swift kicks of her soft-soled shoe though soon put the mongrels to rights.
The Doctor turned and smiled at her in a bemused way, then sniffing the air in some contentment, he said, “Sausages. Ale. Not what I would eat or drink, mind you, but the spices and barley malt do have a way of provoking one in a pleasant enough manner.”
How could he be so cheerful, on a rain-rutted road that ran higgledy-piggledy through this ghost town?
Tegan, likewise sniffing the not so salubrious air, grumbled, “You’re mad, Doctor. It’s not been a sudden change, either.”
“It must be the fever,” offered Turlough, sensing her thoughts. “Watch out! Don’t bump into those men, Tegan.”
She was indeed heading for a mash-up with a few local toughs lounging in the doorway of yet another pub. Like Turlough, she was trying to match the Doctor’s easygoing, devil-may-came pace. But suddenly, the Doctor stopped and put out a hand as she caught up.
Then—
At a thatched cob hovel, spruced up by flowers in the tiny front yard, he paused and pulled on a giant cowbell. It seemed to fascinate him, so he pulled on it again and again, the iron clanger hitting both sides of the bell with each pull.
When the door opened, he just barged his way in. With only a flick of his hand, he bade Tegan and Turlough to follow him.
“I’m going to rue this whole adventure,” said Tegan in an aside to an equally mystified Turlough, who merely grimaced.
At their entry, a bearded, older man stood back. At first baffled by their visit, when the Doctor ‘explained’ who he was, Noram’s filmy eyes lit up and his forehead crinkled into coarse rolls. He shook the Doctor’s hand repeatedly as the party stepped into the main room.
Noram’s hand showed signs of age that were not to be found in that of his youthful guest. And he, Noram, was the younger of the two by over 700 years!
He remembered his old friend, having seen him twice before, but had not at first recognized him in this regeneration. Kam, too, would have to get to know him all over again.
Noram held out his hand to Turlough as well. Turlough shook it in some satisfaction. He liked the gesture he had learned on earth, at a time when he was still trying to sort out his destiny. Like the Doctor, he was quite invested in it.
Hand-built furniture and plastered walls defined the living space. A fire blazed. On the hearth, a shaggy dog lay, his head on his furry paws, eyes half-shut. Ten years ago, a six-year-old Kam had romped with a new puppy on that same hearth.
“You’re very pretty,” said Kam to Tegan, who acknowledged the compliment with a shy nod.
Noram pulled the Doctor into an alcove where he mixed his concoctions on a mixing table that showed the same stains as a decade ago, when the Doctor had last received a supply of salves, balms, and powders from Noram. Then as now, it had a good ‘healer’s’ smell to it. That healer was Noram.
He took stock of the sore on the Doctor’s lower leg, nodding up and down as the Doctor described the crab incident on Deglos. Though Noram had never seen the crab, as it did not exist on Rana, the thought of it chilled him inside. Applying a soothing salve, he gave the Doctor a potion to drink for his small fever.
“Will there be a scar?”
“No, my secret salve will help take care of that,” said Noram, smiling.
With the wind on the howl outside amidst a spitting rain, it was good to stay in, though the hovel got a bit crowded when Kam brought her chickens in to shelter. A cat too prowled the rooms, looking wet, fur-ruffled, and evil-eyed.
“It’s not mine,” she told Tegan. “I guess it belongs to nobody.”
Tegan smiled and said, “Or to everybody.”
Kam laughed. “Not everyone likes cats, though. I’ve seen a man swack this one with his hand.”
“People can just be mean, Kam. They’ll get their comeuppance.”
“Comeuppance?” Kam’s brown eyes, set in an aura of wavy, brown hair, grew two sizes.
“It means—” Tegan had to think. “It means his just desserts.”
“Just desserts?”
“Poetic justice,” Tegan said, struggling to find a way to explain it. “His medicine.”
Kam brightened. “Oh, I think I get it now. He’ll be poisoned!”
It was Tegan’s turn to look dumbfounded.
In his alcove, Noram brewed up some more of his salve for the next day, and the Doctor helped by grinding some herbs to powder and slowly stirring them into the kettle. It hung from a rod inside Noram’s beehive oven.
“Is Athbar still afraid of the assassin’s knife?” asked the Doctor, stirring the brew. It would be mixed with lard for a thick, spreadable consistency once the herbs had blended together.
“He is,” said Noram, sitting back on a stool as his preparation steamed. “The king taxes him too much, too. He’d fight back, but Athbar lacks the mettle. Memna, his cousin, recently attacked this town. We were lucky to get away with our lives.”
Memna. Rich, certainly more so than cash-poor Athbar. Unlike Athbar’s, Memna’s castle was fine and sturdy enough. His tradesmen held markets and festivals. Coria, on the other hand, hadn't had a festival in donkey’s years. No trade meant no gain.
At times, Athbar raided Memna’s richer province and stole livestock, crops, and coin for his own coffers. A sortie of Athbar’s a few weeks prior to the Doctor’s visit had been the reason for Memna’s latest attack on Noram’s town.
“I remember ten years ago he was trying to build a bigger castle,” said the Doctor, leaning forward to sniff the brew. “It doesn’t look any bigger.” It sat on a hilltop high above the town, with only a thin string of a horse and cart path going up to it.
“He uses the lash frequently,” admitted Noram, “and little gets done. We’re all slaves to him. King Gana spies on him. Memna spies on him. Athbar vows that the next spy he catches he’ll put to death, and throw his carcass to the dogs.”
“That’s graphic enough,” said the Doctor. He shook his head. “Greed, how many men have fallen by it? And not known of their fall until they were down? Athbar deserves what he gets.”
Soon it was bedtime. Kam climbed a ladder to a small loft over the ‘sitting room.’ Tegan drowsed by the alcove oven with its own fire inside, and the three men slept close to the hearth while the dog nestled between them, scratching its fleas from time to time.
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A storm brewed up the next day. Chill skies burst. Still, the Doctor insisted on taking a walk through town, though, looking at Coria in the gray freshets of rain, inside he felt cold and rainy, too.
How fallen it was! The wretched hovels and shops, the alleys dark even in the gray light of day. It had been going down the last time he saw it, and now the sad ruin could do nothing for itself. He liked Noram, but he had no love for Noram’s town, and had in fact never liked it.
That evening, the Doctor’s fever spiked again. Noram offered another kind of solution: ale. The Doctor, not being fond of spirits, was not a tavern-goer, so Noram gave Kam a coin with instructions to return promptly with a jug.
Sick as he felt, though, the Doctor offered to accompany Kam and Snap. “I’d better go along, Noram, just to see she’s alright.”
Noram, who knew he could not win, merely nodded.
On this dull, wet night, walking beside the big, black dog, Kam did not talk much. The Doctor did not press her, but watched the sullen Corians loafing in the doorways instead. The two got a jug of ale from a crowded tavern, but when they turned to go back, three shadows emerged from the alley next to the tavern’s door.
Kam’s grip on Snap’s lead tightened. She looked up at the Doctor. With a soft word or two, he bade her to continue on without him.
“Run,” he said.
She eyed the ruffians without moving, then backed up and turned with the growling dog. And then she ran, just like the Doctor told her to.
The men grumbled about Kam’s taking off, and he moved to block efforts to go after her. Holding the jug in a free and easy way, he asked, “Is this what you want?”
He set the jug down on the cobbles between himself and the potential ale-thieves, then he himself began to back off until a fourth man stepped up behind him. His large hands took hold of the Doctor’s shoulders and thrust him against the tavern wall. His breathing quickening, the Doctor warily eyed the men, his face wet with the pelting rain.
“Who are you, stranger?” asked the fourth man, who might have been the leader of the gang.
“A visitor,” the Doctor replied. True enough. “A most frightened visitor.”
A few grunts, a few chuckles, and then the men shoved the Doctor away from the wall and up the alley.
He nearly tumbled as the ‘hands’ pushed him along. “What is it you want?” he asked harshly.
In a matter of minutes, he found himself shoved through a door, then into a cold, dimly lit room made of stone, not wattle and daub like Noram’s house. It backed up to the hill behind the town.
Chilled, he gazed at a few more men of the same sort as those who had brought him there. One short, heavyset man sat behind a desk, over which leaned a tall, dark, richly-dressed man, both in an agitated talk.
Gestures between them were abrupt and short. The words, stern. Yet it did not seem as if they were arguing, but rather have a conspiratorial discussion of some kind.
The Doctor was brought into the light of torches in wall sconces. Grim looks his way replaced the words between the two men.
“What have we got here?” asked the tall, dark man, curious. The Doctor recognized him. Lord Athbar, himself.
He had seen him only once before, on his first visit to Rana of several, when Athbar had been but a youth of about twenty-five. Now he was a graying man in his late forties, wearing a big frown. He didn't seem to welcome the visitor.
All in the room eagerly awaited the Doctor’s reply. Who was he? But the short man at the desk, who went by the title ‘sheriff,’ preempted him, saying, “A spy, milord, most likely.”
With such a pair as they, no wonder Athbar’s city was in near ruins and armed brigands roamed the streets.
“He doesn’t look much like a spy, Wilkin. In fact,” said Athbar in a high, proud tone. “I don’t know him. Turn him loose.”
The Doctor felt much relieved to hear that. Thinking of his luck, he flexed his arms of the holds on them and straightened. After all, Noram hadn't been too kind in his description of what Athbar would do if he ever caught another spy in his midst.
“Where are you from?” Athbar asked him.
The Doctor hedged a bit, then said, “From over the Amran range.” He had a nervous flutter in his voice, lifting up the last word precariously. He coughed.
“From Norhaven?”
Knowing a bit of the map of Rana, the Doctor nodded.
“That’s where King Gana’s last spy came from. He was tall and fair, like you. Have you ever been in Gana’s court?”
The Doctor detected more than curiosity in the man’s voice. Swallowing a bit, he said, quite truthfully, “Never!”
“I believe you have. I was warned about more of his spies. Now I see one before me.”
If Athbar had not found himself a spy, he would have made one up out of whole cloth. Any hungry tramp, any destitute farmer from the hills, might be a spy. This ‘spy’ looked like he could work. Maybe he could even help build Athbar’s castle.
“Did Memna, my cousin, send you? Tell me the truth!”
“No one sent me. I’m down here on a visit to Noram, the apothecary, to purchase medicines. My, ah, village is very poor, you see, and I—” Most of it was the simple truth, even if did lie about where he was from.
“Enough,” said Athbar in a tired, dispirited way, as if realizing he had not caught a spy, after all.
He stepped closer to the Doctor, almost nose to nose. His men again closed in on the Doctor’s arms, causing him to tense up. As his eyes narrowed on Athbar’s sharp features, a pale blue line appeared on the Doctor’s forehead, right over his brows.
“Away with him! To the castle!” Athbar cried. “I’ll find out who he is, or be damned.”
At his outburst, everyone fell back and began murmuring. The startled Doctor recovered his step and said, a bit testily, “I am who I say I am.”
No one believed him. And so upon a borrowed horse, cantering beside his four assailants, silent, deathly efficient men, the Doctor rode up to a sally port of the castle, or side entry. His horse was surefooted going up the cliff—the Doctor was probably not the first stranger the gelding had carried the two miles up to the fortress.
The visitor was locked away in a room of a cellar in one of the gate towers, the brightly-hued smithy just outside. Hearing the hammering, the disconsolate Doctor sat down on the straw-strewn floor and sighed. Not a sign of contentment. How had he got himself into this new mess, he wondered, after the Deglos incident?
He had gone out for a jug of ale with Kam and her faithful black dog. He had been jumped by four men in an alley. Now he was a prisoner in a mildewy stone cell in a tower of Athbar’s castle. He was more than a little adept, even ingenious, at getting into all sorts of fixes.
He wrapped his arms around himself, feeling cold gain, and not a little despondent. After a while, tired of sitting, he jumped up, thrust his hands in his pockets, and went to the door. A grill allowed the light of a rush torch on the opposite wall to pass into his cell. His lone guard, a burly man known as Ilfa, sat at a table with a jug of ale and a cup to drink it with.
He, unlike Turlough, didn’t seem like the pensive sort.
The Doctor threw himself down on the straw again. Hours passed, and the rush light died down to a faint glow. Nearly sleeping he watched a large rat moving about the cell. After it disappeared into a large hole, he composed his disordered thoughts to sleep. How long was it until daybreak? Without a window, he couldn’t tell.