‘It sounds as if you have,’ she said, plucking a tentative Astring, which emitted a feline whine.
‘Give it to me!’ I told her; somewhat impatiently perhaps, for it seems to me that her remarks sometimes teeter on the edge of criticism. The instrument only needs to be tuned..
‘Go on, then,’ she said; ‘I suppose you’ll tell me you’re a professional lyre-tuner next?’
‘I am naturally acquainted with the basic principles of harmonics,’ I informed her, stiffly, ‘as indeed with all scientific matters...’
And I was proceeding to investigate the dynamics of the apparatus, when my attention was drawn to a Roman centurion who had approached us unobserved; and who was now slashing savagely about the bushes with a sword of sorts, an expression of vexed perplexity on his forbidding features.
‘Have a care there, my good fellow!’ I advised him, not wishing him to discover the deceased and assume us responsible for its current condition. ‘You are damaging your valuable botanical heritage...’
‘Damaging my what?’ he enquired suspiciously.
‘Viper’s bugloss,’ I informed him. ‘These plants are not common in the Mediterranean eco-system...’ A remark which gave him the pause I had anticipated, and of which I took advantage to ask if he’d lost something.
‘Well, I thought I had,’ he replied, approaching us with the measured tread which had already carried the
Pax
Romana
so far afield; ‘but I seem to have found it, after all...’
He looked at the lyre in my hands, with what I can only describe as angry incredulity. ‘Forgive me,’ he said, ‘but am I, by any chance, addressing Maximus Petullian, the celebrated Corinthian ballad-monger, whose melodies have set a nation’s feet a-tapping?’
Rather to Vicki’s astonishment, I fancy, I decided to adopt the pseudonym so conveniently proffered. The question of my identity has often been a difficult one to resolve during my travels.
‘Precisely!’ I told him. ‘I am flattered to find that my reputation has arrived ahead of me...’
‘Oh, indeed,’ he confirmed; ‘and our meeting is therefore a most happy coincidence. Our Emperor was most concerned to learn that you had decided to
walk
to Rome, giving impromptu folk-recitals on the road; and he has sent me to give you safe conduct to the court. He is greatly looking forward to discussing with you the state of modern music, and would not wish to be disappointed in this by the circumstances of your death and mutilation by anti-social elements. You haven’t, I suppose,’ he continued thoughtfully, ‘already been attacked by any of the latter?
Such as legionary, second class, Ascaris, for instance? I only mention the name because he is a refractory fellow with strongly critical ideas on the art of fugue, which have disrupted many a regimental sing-song. Also he is known to be in the district. He once eviscerated a harpist,’ he amplified, ‘so I thought I’d better ask...’
I pointed out that my own viscera were still manifestly
in situ
; and with many a jocular expression of relief at this happy state of affairs, we continued in company on the road to Rome.
But, for some reason, I do not altogether trust the man, and I shall watch him closely...
Second Extract from the Journal of Ian
Chesterton
Should I ever be so unfortunate as to encounter the Doctor again, I shall try to redeem the occasion by telling him just what I think of his complacent incompetence, and its relevance to the apparently hopeless situation in which I now find myself.
Brilliant scientist as debatably he may be – at least in his own frequently expressed opinion – he appears to have less sense of the practical realities of life than the average ineducable fourth form drop-out, and about as much mental stability as a... as a... But why should I grope for a suitable simile, when such a meeting becomes increasingly unlikely? Nor can I bring myself to think that I shall ever again see my friend and colleague, Barbara Wright, whose well meant assistance has led to my present predicament; but no matter what the obstacles I must try to find her somehow, for her own situation can scarcely he better, and is probably even worse than my own.
Let me try to put events into some sort of rational order while I still have a clear mind; and indeed, the strength to do so, for I fear I cannot survive much more of this!
‘Of what?’ you ask, Headmaster, with your quite understandable end of term brusqueness? All in good time, I promise you - but first you must permit me a preamble, or you will be lost in the convolutions of the subsequent narrative.
Hardly had the Doctor and Vicki departed on their ill-advised expedition, when two strangers arrived at the villa.
I regarded them with some apprehension; for in spite of the Doctor’s confident assertion that the owners of the property are obviously on an extended vacation, I have never been happy in my mind about the terms of our dubious tenancy, and have been awaiting the return of the ground landlords with an anxiety not unmixed with a tendency to jump like a jerboa at noises in the night.
However, although rather rough-looking, the newcomers addressed us in a civil enough manner, asking if our holocaust - I
think
that’s what they said - if our holocaust was functioning effectively; being, they claimed, from the under-floor heating maintenance department in Assissium.
We assured them that since the installation of the system we had used no other; having, in fact, even gone so far as to tell our friends about it. And this having been established to their satisfaction, we invited them to join us in a goblet or so of Sarnian wine, for it was a warm day; and they accepted with what appeared to be pleasure.
Oh, why did it not occur to me then, Headmaster, that on a warm day the heating apparatus might reasonably have been expected to be off? But you can’t think of everything, can you?
For a while the conversation circled round various small-talk and gossip topics, such as the inadequate provision of bread and circuses by the municipal authorities; and whether in our opinion, they wondered, Nero really had killed his mother. Things like that. And then, out of the blue, the elder of the two - Sevcheria by name - asked Barbara if she had any news at all from Londinium these days?
She had the quick wit and intelligence to look blank -
for which I gave her full marks - and, adopting a mentally retarded expression, asked him why he should ever suppose such a thing?
At this the younger, and obviously subordinate artisan -
one Didius - grinned offensively - mind you, he’d had a couple by then - tapped his nose with a grimy forefinger, and said that she and her pretty little friend - yes, and where was she, by the way? - had not only made a generally favourable impression on the market traders of Assissium yesterday, but had incautiously enquired the current exchange rate as between pounds and lira, when purchasing a dress-length of white samite (Oh, mystic, wonderful, Barbara!) in the shopping precinct. So come on, now - they
were
Britons, weren’t they? Natives of that off-shore island where the good times are, and the girls know a thing or two, ha, ha!
I groaned inwardly - feeling that an outward manifestation of my horror at their indiscretion would serve no useful purpose at this time - and tried unsuccessfully to kick Barbara on the ankle; unfortunately knocking Sevcheria’s stool from beneath him in the process. At this he drew himself up to his full height, albeit with some difficulty, produced from beneath his toga one of those nasty looking, twisted daggers that Arabs use in films – you must have seen them – and said that if that was the way I wanted it, I could have it, and welcome!
I was still considering the implications of this, when Didius seized Barbara by the arm, and giggling suggestively, opined that she was certainly going to fetch a good price at the slave-sales in Rome: from which I deduced, correctly as it transpires, that these men were, in fact, slave traders, and not heating engineers at all, as they had deceptively claimed!
I acted on the instant, and leaped – from a sitting position, I ask you to note! – at Sevcheria’s knees, in the sort of tackle with which I once brought down the Old Boys’ wing three-quarter at a critical moment in the game (you will, no doubt, recall the occasion), but unfortunately at the same time Barbara aimed a blow at Didius’ head with an empty wine-jar, which coincided with my own athletic trajectory, and knocked me cold, thereby frustrating my initiative!
I knew no more until I regained my senses chained to a bench in what I can only assume to be a war-galley of Nero’s battle-fleet, a coarse voice enquiring if I felt better now, because if so perhaps I would care to join my fellow oarsmen in a little healthy exercise?
It is now, thank God, the coffee break; and I take this first opportunity of informing you, Headmaster, of the reason for my continued absence.
With my best wishes as always,
Ian Chesterton.
Second Letter from Legionary (Second
Class) Ascaris
Well, here I am again, Mater,
So please forgive writing, grammar, and punctuation as always. I said in my last that I would let you know at my soonest how things turned out with respect to the ambush of the lyre-player, Maximus Petullian; but I now find some difficulty in acquainting you with same, as I am no longer sure of the facts, and am beginning to doubt my sanity in consequence.
Yes, I know you have often kindly warned me of the danger of losing my reason if I carried on the way I was, but I no longer do so recently, and this is something else again, as I’m sure you will agree when I tell you, which I will now embark upon.
Listen: you will remember with pride, I am sure, as how I was about to leap from hiding upon that misbegotten minstrel with dagger drawn and teeth bared et cetera?
Right? Right! So this I proceeded to do, with all the ferocity at my disposal, which as per usual is considerable when roused, taking the poor old party round the throat with one hand while slipping my knife between his spare ribs with another; at which he forthwith died, with a most unmusical gurgle which was a pleasure to hear. I then concealed his remains in the shrub which I had recently vacated, leaving the instrument of death - as we call it, in the trade - protruding from his chest as instructed, so as to indicate to any interested prod-nose persons that Vandals were the cause, and by no means yours truly, Ascaris of the Ninth, which would never do.
So then, conscious of a job well done in all particulars, I left the bleeding remains to get on with it, and took myself off to a nearby tavern, there to report events to my superior officer, and receive any further instructions and/or praise which might be going. Whereupon, somewhat to my only very natural resentment, I should think, he declared in that classical Latin voice of his which always gets up my nostrils, that he’d best go and see for himself before handing out the rewards of merit, and off he forthwith popped.
Left to myself, I went into the bar - yes, I know what you’ve told me, but can’t you understand how I could truly do with a drop after my recent traumatic experience? For although killing is my second nature, it is my first - failed candidate for the priesthood, simply because I couldn’t handle the Hebrew, I ask you! - which has to be subdued on these
post mortem
occasions, and I find alcohol an admirable specific to this end, don’t I?
I was therefore entertaining the dwindling company to my generally admired rendition of the Second Ode of Horace, Book Three, when my shoulder sagged beneath the weight of a centurion’s hand.
‘Well, Ascaris,’ says he; ‘enjoying yourself, are you?’
I admitted that, for the nonce, I was indeed seeing the Roman World through rose-coloured retinas, and I invited him to join me in this enterprise, but he would have none of it. No: slapping me about the face with a metal-studded gauntlet, he asks, polite as you please, if I can refresh instead his memory as to where exactly I have dumped the deceased.
‘Why,’ I told him, spitting out a tooth for which I had no further use, ‘in the shade of an old apple tree, or some such. Last on the right as you go towards Assissium. If you start from here, that is...’
‘Then how is it,’ he enquired, in a voice throbbing, like they say with menace, ‘that the late-lamented blood-soaked victim, having cleaned the scarlet stains of your brutal assault off his toga, has just booked in to the first floor back of this select, grade twelve establishment? Answer me that, if you will be so very kind!’ Whereupon he once more swats me, this time in the bread-basket.
Partly because of this, I was not at once able to furnish an explanation, as you can well imagine. But in any case, I mean, well, look here, the time has been, as someone says somewhere, that the dead would lie where left. But now apparently the yawning graves yield their ghastly inmates, to push us from our bar stools. Which eventually, having got my breath back where it belonged, I said so, but he was not obviously impressed by such impromptu rhetoric; and has since told me that if I wish to rise, however eventually, to Legionary First Class, I must finish the job so ill-begun, this very evening. Which I now propose to attempt – but with what qualms of a morbidly superstitious nature I can only leave you to improvise.
I didn’t join for this, as I need hardly say, but will have another murderous go as requested, and let you know what happens
this
time...
Am going to have just one for the road, and then be about it.
In haste,
Your disturbed son,
Ascaris.
PS.
Why did you and Dad name me after a parasitic worm?
Always meant to ask...
Third Extract from The Doctor’s Diary
A disturbed night, as I was intelligent enough to anticipate, and therefore on the ‘quivive?’
After some reflection I had decided not to share with Vicki my suspicions about our travelling companion, considering that recent events – which included bodies in bushes and toads in bowls, you will recall – might possibly have unhinged her tiny mind sufficiently for one day.