Part 4 (1/2)

The Doctor felt that his idea was gaining ground, and credulity. Casually he put his hands into his pockets, then leaned down towards Will's face. 'What year is it?' he asked him.

Will reacted with a broad grin. 'I knows that un,' he said in a pleased voice, as if he was answering a teacher's question in school. But despite his confidence he hesitated, walking around the Doctor and getting his brain into gear, making sure he got this right. 'Year's ... zixteen hunnerd an' forty ... three!' He finished with a triumphant flourish, but his hand was hurting again and he sat down in a pew and nursed it, grunting with the pain.

'Sixteen hundred and forty three, eh?' The Doctor looked at Will Chandler with much sympathy but, as yet, not a lot of understanding. His idea had been valid, after all. He was not really surprised, for each of the events which had piled one on top of the other since they arrived in Little Hodcombe seemed stranger and more inexplicable than the last. This one, though, was a real puzzle; what was happening in little Hodcombe was arning our to be much more complex and intriguing than the Doctor had first surmised.

Struck by a sudden thought, Will gave the Doctor an apprehensive look. 'Is battle done?' he asked. His voice shaking; he sat back and waited for the answer, terrified of what it might be.

'Yes,' the Doctor answered gently, rea.s.suring him and wiping away his dread. 'Yes, Will. Battle's done.'

But the calming effect of his words was shattered by the door being thrown open wide with a bang that echoed the length and breadth of the church. Whimpering with fright, Will dived behind a pew as Tegan and Turlough came tumbling up the nave.

They were so out of breath with running that when they reached the Doctor they could hardly speak. The Doctor, delighted to see them both safe and well, looked, at Will Chandler out of the corner of his eye and said cryptically, 'You're just in time.'

Misunderstanding him, Tegan cried out in frustration, 'Just in time? We almost didn't make it!'

'We have to get out of here!' Turlough's chest was heaving for breath, and his voice betrayed the stress he was suffering.

Recalling the incident in the barn made Tegan shudder: how could she put that into words? 'There's something very strange going on,' she said simply.

The Doctor, however, seemed to understand without the need for words. 'Yes, I know,' he said sympathetically.

At that moment, out of the corner of his eye Turlough saw Will peeping at them over the top of a pew. 'Who is that?' he asked, in a tone which betrayed extreme distaste at the sight of that grubby urchin face.

Tegan looked, saw Will's clothes and drew in her breath sharply, but refrained from comment. The Doctor merely smiled at Will. 'Will Chandler?' he asked, for confirmation. Will nodded, without taking his eyes off Tegan and Turlough.

'Where did he come from?' Tegan asked.

'Ah, well.' the Doctor said laconically. He smiled and shrugged. 'That's something we're going to have to talk about ...'

In the seventeenth-century parlour of Ben Wolsey's farmhouse, Sir George Hutchinson, country squire and, while the War Game lasted, Cavalier General Extraordinary, stood in front of the fire and casually played with the spongy, black, metallically-s.h.i.+ning ball. He kept kneading it in his fingers and examining it with neverending fascination.

From her position beside the window, Jane watched him with growing anger. She was about to have another go at his complacent arrogance when raised voices and heavy footsteps in the next room announced the arrival of Ben Wolsey and Joseph Willow.

As soon as the door opened and they marched in, Sir George turned to them eagerly. 'Where is she?' he demanded.

Wolsey raised his visor.

'We can't find her,' he

admitted. 'We'll need more men.'

Sir George was furious. With reddening face and narrowed eyes, his manner was suddenly extremely threatening, even towards the big farmer. He snapped, 'I want Tegan, not excuses, Wolsey.'

Ben Wolsey, taken aback, frowned with surprise at his tone. Jane was incensed. 'Don't listen to him, Ben,' she cried.

Sir George turned to her now. His eyes blazed and it was Jane's turn to be shocked by the vehemence of his manner and the anger behind his words. 'Miss Hampden! You're beginning to bore me with your constant bleating!' His att.i.tude was contemptuous in the extreme. He stood there in his finery and glared at her, his hand ceaselessly working at the silver-sheered substance; for a moment Jane thought he was going to throw it at her.

The Sergeant intervened to support his General. 'She doesn't understand,' Willow leered. 'We must have our Queen of the May.'

Queen of the May! Jane winced. Andrew Verney had told her once how Little Hodcomhe used to treat its May Queen. The story came back to her, and the picture his words had conjured up in her imagination returned with it.

It had made her feel sick then, and it made her tremble now. As if to reinforce her fears, Sir George fairly shouted, 'Precisely!' He looked at her with a gleaming smile and said, 'Think of it as a resurrection of an old tradition.'

Jane felt sick again. 'I know the way you plan to celebrate it,' she cried. 'I know the custom of this village. I know what happens to a May Queen at the end of her reign!'

Ben Wolsey looked genuinely surprised. His gentle, ruddy, farmer's face was as innocent as a baby's. 'We're not going to harm her,' he protested.

Jane shook her head. ' You You might not, Ben. I'm not so sure about them.' might not, Ben. I'm not so sure about them.'

Sir George closed the subject. He brought the conversation to an abrupt end by marching to the table and s.n.a.t.c.hing up his riding gloves. 'The tradition must continue,' he said, in a tone that was quiet, authoritative and brooked no opposition. It held something very like awe even reverence as he looked from one to the other of than and said, 'Something is coming to our village.

Something very wonderful, and strange.'

Then he cleared a path for himself between Wolsey and Willow and left the room. They watched him go, Cavalier and Roundhead in an all too serious War Game. Sir George's last remark hung cryptically in the air.

Wolsey, puzzled, said, 'We must find Tegan,' and made for the door.

'You're so gullible, Ben,' Jane shouted. 'You do anything he says!' If she had hoped that would stop him, she was disappointed. Wolsey ignored her, and went out without a word.

Willow was left alone at last with this nuisance of a schoolteacher, who was using every possible opportunity to try to spoil the fun. Uneasily Jane saw how his lips tightened now, and the deliberate way he took off his gloves. As he looked at her, his irritation changed to fury.

Jane saw it happen. She saw the cloud move across his eyes and felt fear tingle the small of her back. Joseph Willow was a man on a short fuse, and the fuse was already burning. 'Something is coming to our village,' Sir George had said, but so far as Jane was concerned it was already here, and showing in Willow's face a kind of madness.

Suddenly she wanted to get away from him. 'Right,' she said, marching towards the door. 'I'm going to the police.

I'll soon put a stop to this.'

But Willow thrust himself between her and the door.

Roughly he pushed her away. 'Shut up!' he shouted as she staggered backwards. 'Just be grateful it's the stranger who is to he Queen of the May it so easily could have been you!'

Jane recovered her balance and with all her strength slapped his face. Willow's cheeks reddened. His eyes filled with hatred. For a moment Jane thought he was going to strike her back, but instead he smiled, a cold smile that was laden with threat. 'It still might be you,' he said, 'if we don't find her.'

And with a triumphant smirk Joseph Willow, iron-s.h.i.+rted Sergeant-at-arms to General Sir George Hutchinson, turned on his heel and left the room. He slammed the door shut behind him.

Before Jane could follow, she heard a bolt being drawn and a key turned in the lock. Willow had made her a prisoner.

'There's been a confusion in time. Somehow, 1984 has become linked with 1613.'

Sitting in a pew in the church, crouched forward eagerly with his feet on the back of the pew in front of him, the Doctor was thinking out loud. His mind raced as he focussed his thoughts on Will Chandler's mysterious appearance and all the other strange events which had showered on them since their arrival in Little Hodcombe.

He was drawing on all his vast store of knowledge and experience -- and still coming up with blanks.