Part 9 (1/2)

The Doctor smiled at her concern. 'It has no force yet.'

He spoke rea.s.suringly, but the image seemed to Tegan to pulsate slightly, and to be growing brighter and stronger by the minute.

By now Ben Wolsey was over his initial surprise. Like the practical, rough and ready farmer he was, he now addressed the situation in a practical, down-to-earth way by aiming his pistol at the Malus image as he would at a crow or a rat. It was vermin, and should be treated as such.

'Will this put a stop to it?' he asked.

Holding up his hands to forestall any precipitate action, the Doctor hurried over to him. 'No, it won't,' he said quickly. 'I'm afraid you can't hurt it, because it has no substance.'

The image had the colour and texture of old stone, and to Ben Wolsey it looked as solid as a lump of rock. 'We have to do something,' he said.

The Doctor nodded. 'Yes. We have to prevent the re-enactment. The last battle must be stopped. We must spoil it in any way we can.' He paused, then explained: 'We have to reduce the amount of psychic energy being produced.'

The Doctor's words sent relief flooding through Tegan.

'Then we can forget the May Queen procession!' she cried.

But Wolsey shook his head and crushed her rising spirits.

'The cart to take you to the village is already here,' he said.

Disappointed, Tegan looked to the Doctor for support.

He was frowning heavily. She knew that look of old it meant that some fast and furious thinking was going on, so she waited for the plan forming in his mind to surface.

Suddenly he gave Wolsey a sharp, appraising glance and asked, 'Will there be guards for the procession?'

Wolsey shook his head. 'No, I'm the only escort. But they will send someone to investigate.'

The Doctor reached his decision. 'Then you make sure that Tegan and Jane get safely back to the church,' he said quickly. 'You can use the underground pa.s.sage. I must find Turlough and Will. And, er ...' as he headed for the door he glanced at the image of the Malus growing stronger on the wall 'Good luck!'

He set out on his search, and left them to their preparations.

Tegan turned to the farmer. 'Do you know where my clothes are?' she asked him.

'I'll fetch them for you,' he promised, 'but stay as you are for the moment.'

'Why?'

He sighed, a picture of the unbounded obsession of Sir George Hutchinson filling his mind. 'Because if you don't turn up in that cart, Hutchinson will turn out the whole village to search for you ... and the Doctor won't stand a chance.'

Tegan's heart sank. Shc knew he was right, and that she was going to he Little Hodcombe's Queen of the May whether she liked it or not.

Will kept running until he reached the village. Once there, he hid in an orchard to catch his breath and get rid of the painful st.i.tch in his side. Then he crept warily from house to house, from one hiding place to another, gradually making his way towards the Village Green. Every step he took was dangerous, for there were troopers everywhere.

He reached the last cottages surrounding the Green, and looked nervously up and down an open section of road to make sure it was clear. Then he scampered across it like a bolting rabbit and hid on the other side, among the p.r.i.c.kly foliage of an overgrown climbing rose which festooned a wooden fence.

After a few moments he had recovered his composure enough to reach up and peer between the pale relics of dead rose blooms towards the Green. The th.o.r.n.y branches criss-crossed his vision like barbed wire. When he saw the Green, his heart nearly stopped.

He caught his breath and bit his lip. Tears rushed to his eyes and his spirits sank to the bottom of his buckled shoes. He could hardly believe his eyes, for what he saw there on the Green he had seen before he had seen before: everything was exactly as it had been when he pa.s.sed the Village Green on his way to Little Hodcombe church before the terrible battle in 1643.

Everything was happening again all over again, every detail. There was the tall maypole with its white ribbons whirling gently in the breeze, just as they had then. Near it were the foot-soldiers building up a bonfire for the festivities' fearful climax. And there were the troopers, and the bravely fluttering banner, and the horses and the gaudy uniforms all the colour and activity which had brightened that day too, before it was crushed, and transformed to screams and blood and ashes.

Will sobbed. On that bright afternoon Squire Hutchinson had cantered about the Green on his big chestnut horse, masterminding the preparation and here was the new Squire, Sir George another Hutchinson -dressed in identical Cavalier clothes, riding up to the spot where his Sergeant was telling the soldiers to build the pyre ever higher. 'It's perfect!' Sir George cried triumphantly. Will could hear him clearly, in his hiding place among the roses.

Sir George turned to gaze out across the Green to the houses and streets of the village. He seemed to be looking directly at Will, whose heart thumped madly as he dived down out of sight.

In the narrow, bare hut on the outskirts of the village, Andrew Verney stopped hurling himself at the door and sank exhausted onto a bale of straw. He held his aching shoulder and looked groggily across at Turlough, who gave the door one more battering and then, gasping for breath himself, dropped down beside the old man.

'The door must give way soon,' he groaned.

'Agreed,' Verney, said. 'But at the moment all we're doing is wearing out our shoulders.'

Frustrated almost beyond endurance by that stubborn piece of timber, Turlough staggered back on to his feet.

'There's no other way!' he cried, making ready to charge the door again.

As Turlough attempted to break down the door, a farm cart, decorated with flowers and boughs of greenery and pulled by a glistening white horse, was rolling away from Ben Wolsey's farmhouse. Watching farmhands cheered, and women in seventeenth-century clothes threw rose petals over their Queen of the May.

The cart was her royal carriage. Tegan rode high upon it, looking, in that spring-coloured dress, every inch like a queen setting out to greet her subjects. Jane Hampden was on the cart too, as the Queen's companion. The 'carriage'

was driven by Ben Wolsey, sitting forward on the box with the reins held loosely in his hands.

Now, as the cart left the farmyard, he flicked the reins and the horse kicked and pulled faster. Villagers lined the route; they waved and threw rose petals. The Queen and her companion exchanged nervous glances and gritted their teeth, steadying themselves for the trials to come.

A fierce heat overlay the village and wrapped itself about the surrounding countryside. The activity which throbbed and stirred inside it made waves which rippled through the fervid air and rolled and crackled like static electricity across the fields, to be drawn as if by a magnet towards the church. Inside it they were swept up into a physical force which charged the Malus with energy.

The energy of a poltergeist may toss objects about a room or cause furniture to travel across a floor. Moment by moment now, the Malus was swelling with the power of a hundred thousand poltergeists. It was making ready to burst free of its bondage in the fabric of Little Hodcombe church.

Still it grew. Energy flushed through it like blood and breath, and packed into muscle and sinew. It drew in more power from the village and still more, and as it swelled smoke poured from its gaping mouth and plaster and masonry spouted out of the wall and flew all over the nave.

After centuries locked in the womb of the church wall, the Malus was being born at last.

The Doctor was worried. His search for Turlough and Will Chandler had taken him through all the streets of the village and he had seen not a sign of either of them. Now he was getting close to the Village Green, the busy sounds of activity up ahead and a monotonous rhythmic clatter of drums told him that very soon he would be able to go no further.

The sun seemed brighter and hotter than ever, and the atmosphere throughout the village was so extraordinarily clear that every detail was sharpened to a bright, luminous precision. The Doctor wished it would reveal his friends, lbr all his theories about what might have happened to there were unhappy ones.

Suddenly, as he darted across a sunlit road into the cover of an overgrown rose hedge, he saw Will Chandler.

Will squatted on the ground, half hidden by the hedge; he looked as if he had been stunned. He was in shock. The Doctor crouched down beside him. 'Are you all right?' he asked him gently.

Will nodded, but his expression was lifeless and his eyes seemed to be drawn far back into his head, to be looking inward as if he was seeing something far away in his memory. 'It's just like before,' he muttered. His hand flopped to indicate the scene beyond the hedge.

The Doctor frowned. 'You mean, the last time you saw the Malus?'