The Spear of Destiny

PUFFIN

About Marcus Sedgwick

Books by Marcus Sedgwick

THE SPEAR OF DESTINY

Marcus Sedgwick was born and
raised in east Kent in the south-east of England. He now divides
his time between a small village near Cambridge and the French
Alps.

Alongside a sixteen-year career
in publishing he established himself as a widely admired writer
of YA fiction: he is the winner of many prizes, most notably the
Branford Boase Award for a debut novel (
Floodland
) and the Booktrust Teenage
Prize (
My Swordhand is
Singing
). His books have been shortlisted
for over thirty other awards, including the Carnegie Medal (four
times), the Edgar Allan Poe Award (twice) and the Guardian
Children’s Fiction Prize (four times).

He has written over twenty books
– his latest title in the UK is for younger readers:
Monster Mountains
, book two
of the Elf Girl and Raven Boy series.

Marcus was Writer in Residence
at Bath Spa University for three years, and has taught creative
writing at Arvon and Ty Newydd. He is currently working on film
and other graphic novels with his brother, Julian, as well as a
graphic novel with Thomas Taylor. He has judged numerous books
awards, including the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize and the
Costa Book Awards, and regularly writes reviews for the
Guardian
.

He has illustrated some of his
books, and has provided wood-engravings for a couple of private
press books.

His website is
www.marcussedgwick.com
and
you can follow him on Twitter:
@marcussedgw
i
ck

Novels:

Midwinterblood

White Crow

Revolver

The Kiss of
Death

Blood Red, Snow
White

My Swordhand is
Singing

The
Foreshadowing

The Dark Flight
Down

The Book of Dead
Days

The Dark Horse

Witch Hill

Floodland

The Raven Mysteries:

Flood and Fang

Ghosts and
Gadgets

Lunatics and
Luck

Vampires and
Volts

Magic and
Mayhem

Diamonds and
Doom

The Elf Girl and Raven Boy
series:

Fright Forest

Monster
Mountains

Scream Sea

‘You’re being very mysterious,
Doctor.’

The Doctor raised an
eyebrow.

‘Let me rephrase that,’ said Jo,
stabbing his shoulder with her forefinger. ‘More mysterious than
usual.’

The Doctor grappled with the
gear-lever of Bessie, the bright-yellow vintage roadster he was
so fond of driving. He frowned. The gearbox answered with the
sound of cogs trying to eat each other, but soon lost the fight
as the Doctor moved up into third. He smiled, looking ahead
along the bustling street of Piccadilly. It was a warm day and
the hood of the car was down. A few people stared and pointed at
them as they trundled past.

Jo sank a bit further back into
her seat as the Doctor waved at a couple of passers-by.

‘You know what I love about
London?’ he said, turning to her briefly.

She sighed. ‘I’m sure I can’t
guess.’

‘It’s the only city in the
universe where you can drive around in a car that’s seventy
years old and get away with it.’

‘Who says you’re getting away with
it?’ muttered Jo.

The Doctor waved again, and Jo
shut her eyes. ‘We couldn’t have taken the Tube, I
suppose?’

‘Now come on, my dear. Where’s
your sense of style?’

Jo stared, open-mouthed, at the
Doctor.

The Doctor was dressed in a green
velour smoking jacket over a purple frilly shirt, the collar of
which was large enough to sail a small yacht. It was
eye-watering fashion, even for 1973, but, in all honesty, it was
quite restrained. For the Doctor.

Jo shut her mouth. At least he
wasn’t wearing the Inverness cape for once. But she hated it
when he didn’t tell her what was going on. ‘Doctor!’ she wailed.
‘Will you please tell me what we’re doing?’

The Doctor turned up Dover Street,
scuffled briefly once more with Bessie’s gearbox and then
brought the car to a halt at the top of Hay Hill.

‘We’re going to a museum.’

‘You told me that much. A private
collection. To look at something?’

‘No,’ said the Doctor, grinning.
‘To steal something.’

‘I never had you down as an art
thief,’ said Jo.

They stood looking at the noble
frontage of the museum: just one of many magnificent Georgian
three- and four-storeyed houses in Mayfair.

‘Not art,’ said the Doctor.
‘Antiquities.’

‘There’s something in here that
interests you?’

‘Right,’ said the Doctor. His eyes
scoured the building as if he were trying to see through
it.

‘Something dangerous?’

‘Right again.’

‘And UNIT sent you here,’ said Jo
triumphantly.

The Doctor rounded on her. ‘My
dear girl,’ he said. ‘UNIT do not
send
me anywhere.’

Jo decided to tease the Doctor a
little. ‘But you do work for them, don’t you,’ she said, her
eyes twinkling. ‘Just like I do.’

The Doctor glared at her. ‘I have
offered my services to them during my … time here as a
scientific adviser, and in a purely unaffiliated manner. I am
not employed by them, and if at any time I choose to leave I
will do so. Now come on. Let’s get inside and have a look at
this thing.’

‘What thing?’ called Jo, but the
Doctor was already striding ahead and up the steps.

Maybe now wasn’t the time. He did
seem to be very preoccupied, and, really, she knew better than
to tease him about working for UNIT, the United Nations
Intelligence Taskforce. She also knew better than to remind him
that he had only agreed to work for them since he had been
exiled to Earth by the High Council of the Time Lords, having
been found guilty of violations of time. And, although the High
Council had now allowed the Doctor freedom to travel in time and
space once again, she certainly knew better than to mention his
exile.

Jo hurried up the steps, out of
the bright day and into the cool dark of the museum.

The Doctor had disappeared inside.
Fumbling for some money, she bought a ticket from a small desk
in the foyer and pushed through heavy glass doors into the
exhibition itself.

Various rooms stretched away in
front of her. People wandered around in the dreamy, irritating
way they do in museums. A security guard lifted his head and
looked at her. She walked on.

The ticket seller had pushed a
leaflet into her hand, and only now did she stop to read the
front.

The Hoard of the
King

Early
Scandinavian treasures recently uncovered in
Sweden

Presented by the Moxon Collection

Jo found the Doctor on the second
floor of the museum. He was staring through the glass of a
cabinet in the centre of the room. Inside the cabinet was an
unbelievably beautiful helmet with a face mask attached. It
appeared to be silver and gold, and was polished so fiercely it
shone like a small sun under the bright lights.

‘Is that what we’ve come to
steal?’ whispered Jo as she stepped up beside him.

The Doctor shook his head almost
imperceptibly. He nodded through the glass of the cabinet in
which the helmet sat to another, taller, case in the corner of
the room. Inside that case was a spear.

Its shaft was simple enough – of
wood that had done well to last the best part of two thousand
years – but the head of the spear was another thing of wonder
and beauty. Made of a long tapering piece of gold, it too glowed
brightly in the beam of a small spotlight.

‘Do you see it?’ asked the
Doctor.

‘Can we take a closer look?’
whispered Jo.

The room was emptying of people. A
guard sat in one corner, almost asleep in her chair.

The Doctor nodded. ‘Yes. But don’t
linger.’

They took a circuit of the room
and tried not to dawdle as they passed the spear. Now they were
closer, they could see small markings cut into the flat parts of
the golden tip.

‘Runes,’ said the Doctor. ‘In
Elder Futhark from the look of them.’ He turned to Jo. ‘The
runic alphabet of the Norsemen.’

Jo bent to peer through the glass
at the gold. ‘What does it say?’

‘There are no doubt more markings
on the other side, but those we can see from here say
Gungnir
.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘It’s a name.’

‘Of the man who owned it?’

‘No. Of the spear itself.’

‘The spear has a name?’

The Doctor nodded.

Jo suddenly straightened. ‘Is it a
good idea to be seen at the scene of the crime?’ she whispered,
glancing over her shoulder.

‘It’s not a crime scene,’ said the
Doctor. ‘Yet.’

He winked, allowing himself one
more close look at the spearhead, then took Jo by the arm. ‘Time
to go, I think,’ he said, and they headed for the stairs,
hurrying down to the ground floor. ‘Did you enjoy the
exhibition?’

‘What exhibition? I saw one helmet
and one spear.’

Jo smiled brightly at a security
guard on the door, who was staring openly at the Doctor’s
clothes. ‘Fascinating!’ she declared loudly, and then they
emerged from the darkness into the sunshine, blinking their way
back into the modern world.

‘We believe that the spear is
not all it seems,’ explained the Doctor as they headed back to
UNIT headquarters. ‘There have been a few temporal anomalies in
the area.’

‘What kind of anomalies?’ asked
Jo.

The Doctor turned Bessie into the
drive that led to UNIT, and she chugged happily over the gravel
as if eager to be done for the day. It was getting late, the sun
starting to dip behind the tall trees that lined their
way.

‘Small things. Like several
watches all losing time at once; a rash of people getting a
feeling of déjà vu; a clock striking thirteen. Small things, so
small that they might have gone unnoticed, were it not for the
fact the museum is opposite the bridge club of a friend of ours.
He told me; I spoke to the Time Lords; and here we are …’

‘And who’s this friend of
ours?’

The Doctor smiled. ‘The Brigadier.
Ah! There’s the old greyhound now. Shall we make our
report?’

Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart was
just walking out of the front doors as they pulled up, tugging
his cap on to his head as crisply as ever. He saw Bessie and
strode towards them. ‘Doctor! Miss Grant!’

‘You were quite right, Brigadier.
The spear has every indication of being a PTN.’