Part 32 (2/2)

'And did you ask her?' asked Gila, suddenly intent. 'What happened when you rescued her and asked her for all the big answers?'

Sadly, with a strange smile, Angela shook her head.'She's never told me anything. She chuckles. She just laughs. Laughter is her only answer.'

Chapter Twenty-Eight.

Welcome Back

On the island they spent some time organising their camp and settling in for the night. Ms lay by the fire and the Turtle went off to fish, claiming that he wasn't really very good at it, but he'd see what he could do. The Doctor looked thoughtful, staring into the flames.

'Iris, when we get out of all this, I'd like to read those diaries of yours. If you don't mind.'

She perked up and looked at him. 'Really? I thought you objected to them.'

'Maybe I was a little hasty.'

'You were!'

'Sorry if I was rude to you. Sometimes I hate it when people mention things from the past. I forgot so quickly you see. Some things, anyway.

I don't like the thought that other people know much more about me than I do.'

'Don't worry about it,' she said.

'Maybe if I read what you've wrttten. l'd learn something. I go cras.h.i.+ng around the place, making the same mistakes, getting involved in all the same problems. Perhaps if I listened a bit more, I'd manage to have a quieter life.'

'Do you want a quieter life?'

He laughed. 'No.'

She struggled to sit up. It was cooler now on the island, with the sun gone. 'Listen. You go on and make the same old mistakes if you want.

Live the same glorious life again and again if that's what you want. I envy you that. You're a young man again! You can do exactly what you want.'

She reached out for his hand and went on. 'If I get through this whole thing and manage to get myself better, and if by any chance I get to be a younger woman again, that's exactly what I'll do. I won't take the weight of any history along with me again.'

They sat for a while in companionable silence. Then from down the dusky beach there was a shout and they turned to see the Turtle scurrying up the damp sand, with a clutch of squirming fish skewered on a branch.

'I think...' he called out nervously,'I think our transport problem is solved.'

'Oh yes?' shouted Iris.

'Someone has followed us.'

Iris rolled her eyes.'Not that big b.l.o.o.d.y fish, I hope.'

'No,' laughed the Mock Turtle, and pointed.

Through the gently cras.h.i.+ng waves, rolling steadily through the churning spume and froth of the beach, came a dark, familiar shape.

'I don't believe it,' said the Doctor.

'Bless her heartl'yelled Iris.'She's found us!'

Emerging from the shallows, and with sea water streaming from her windows, leaving her a clean and glorious crimson, came the number twenty-two to Putney Common. Seaweed was clumped like laurels on her bonnet.

Julia had ordered that the crew were to put on all their finery. This night was to be their last as paid servants to the Empress and so the Kristeva was bedecked and beribboned. The pirates covered their s.h.i.+p and themselves with all the fancy dress they had h.o.a.rded over the years of looting and scavenging. The dressing-up trunks they had salvaged from wrecks came out, as did the gaudy vestments ripped from the backs of unfortunate, happened-upon seafarers.

Julia was drinking with Wittol, the heron-like creature who was her trusted lieutenant. They drank from thin gla.s.s boiling tubes, holding them carefully at their necks, and sipping the hot, sour nectar inside. 'She promises us,' said Julia, 'that she will give me my freedom if we come through this.'

Wittol was amused. ”Then you can sail off into the sunset,'

'Never go near hated Hyspero again.'

'What made the Empress decide to let you off the hook?'

Captain Julia shrugged.'I don't know and I don't care.'

'Only a year ago - when you told her you didn't want to be her heir - she wouldn't hear of it. She was ready to impound you and your s.h.i.+p immediately, and have all of us slain. Just for being your crew.'

'I think my mother wants to be Empress for ever,' said Julia. 'At one time she couldn't bear to think of giving up the throne. Then, as she got older, she had to think about it, and wanted to train me up for the job. You're right, Wittol - she always deplored my carousing and adventuring. Yet now she seems content - after this mission is accomplished - to let me go off and please myself.'

'Perhaps she has found a way to be Empress for ever, after all.'

'I wouldn't put anything past the current Scarlet Empress. She's always messing about with witchery and necromancers. Maybe shewill live eternally.'

'It must have something to do with our prisoners,' the heron said. 'Why not interrogate them and find out what makes them so special? Hmm?

They look like a rabble to me.' Wittol's eyes burned. He had scores to settle with the prisoners.

Julia was thoughtful. 'We could keelhaul them, I suppose. Or make them walk the plank.We haven't had a really good torturing in donkey's years.'

'Shall I fetch them up?'

'Why not?'

Miraculously, the bus was quite dry inside.

'Oh, isn't she a marvel?' cried Iris, as the Doctor helped her aboard.

'Is this really a TARDIS?' asked the Mock Turtle in an awed tone. He braced himself and stepped through the double doors. 'Oh,' he said, looking around.

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