Doctor Who_ The Myth Makers Part 2

For, as they told me later, Vicki and Steven, his two companions, had been watching the progress, or rather, the retreat of events on the scanner, and they were pardonably worried. After all, he had only stepped out for a moment to enquire the way; and now, here he suddenly wasn't! You can imagine the conversation...

'They didn't look like aboriginal bushmen, Steven,' mused Vicki. 'Do you think this is is the Kalahari Desert or has he got it wrong again?' the Kalahari Desert or has he got it wrong again?'

'Of course he has!' snapped the irritated ex-astronaut.

Sometimes he found Vicki almost as tiresome as the Doctor.

After all, he hadn't joined the s.p.a.ce-Research Project to play the giddy-goat with Time as well! And if he didn't get back to base soon, awkward questions were gong to be asked. I mean, compa.s.sionate leave is one thing, but this was becoming ridiculous.

'If only,' he said, 'the Doctor would stop trying to pretend he's in control of events we might get somewhere! Why isn't he honest enough to admit that he has no idea how this thing operates? Then perhaps we could work out the basic principles of it together after all, I do have a degree in science! But no he's always got to know best, hasn't he? Now Now look at him look at him trussed like a chicken and being taken to G.o.d knows where!'

'Well, if they are bushmen,' said Vicki, looking on the bright side, 'perhaps they've taken him to see their cave drawings?'

Steven regarded her with the sort of explosive pity one does well to avoid. 'Oh, do use what little sense I've tried to teach you!

Those men were Ancient Greeks that's who they were. Don't you remember anything anything from school? Its my belief we've gatecrashed into the middle of the Trojan War and, if so, Heaven help us! Ten years that little episode lasted as I recall!' from school? Its my belief we've gatecrashed into the middle of the Trojan War and, if so, Heaven help us! Ten years that little episode lasted as I recall!'

'Well, whoever they were, they seemed to treat him with great respect...'

'Don't be silly, Vicki, they were laughing at him!'

'Yes,' she admitted, 'perhaps he made a joke?'

'If so, let's hope it was a practical one for a change! They didn't look as if they'd appreciate subtle humour...'

'I don't know, Steven... I thought the Greeks were civilized?'

'Only the later ones. I imagine these sort of people were little better than barbarians!'

'But I've always been told they were heroes. Magnificent men who had marvellous adventures. You know, like Jason and the Argonauts.'

'I'm afraid you've been reading too much mythology, Vicki real life was never like that. But I suppose, in a sense, these characters would have been the original myth makers...'

'What do you mean?'

'I mean the ruffians whose rather shady little exploits were magnified by later generations, until they came to seem seem like heroes. But they were certainly nothing of the sort and that's why I'm worried about the Doctor.' like heroes. But they were certainly nothing of the sort and that's why I'm worried about the Doctor.'

'All right then, Steven. Have it your way. So, what can we do?'

'I know what I'm going to have have to do, darn it, if we're ever to get out of this; follow them, and see if I can't rescue him before he gets his brilliant head cut off! Not that it wouldn't serve him right.' to do, darn it, if we're ever to get out of this; follow them, and see if I can't rescue him before he gets his brilliant head cut off! Not that it wouldn't serve him right.'

'Well, can't I come too? If this is is the Trojan War, I'd hate to miss it, and I'd love to see the real Agamemnon...' the Trojan War, I'd hate to miss it, and I'd love to see the real Agamemnon...'

Steven sighed. 'Yes and no doubt he'd love to see you. You still don't understand, do you? Vicki, these people weren't gentlemen and they certainy didn't treat women even young girls like ladies! No, you must stay here till I get back!'

'And what if you don't get back?'

'Thank you, Vicki nice of you to think of that. Well, in that case, whatever you do, don't let yourself get taken prisoner. Just stay inside the TARDIS and no one can get at you. You should be quite safe!'

'Yes, but supposing...'

'Look here, I haven't time to argue just do as you're told for once!'

She watched him rebelliously, as he opened the double doors, her brain seething with mental reservations. But she said no more.

And Steven stepped out on to the plain of Scamander, took his bearings, and loped off after the rest of us.

6.

A Rather High Tea.

For some reason not intentional, I a.s.sure you, I contrived to arrive at the Greek camp before the others. Possibly Odysseus and his men had got themselves involved in some more mayhem and casual butchery on the way home it would have been like them. And as for Achilles, it may have been time for his evening press-ups or something but I really don't know. And it really doesn't matter. At all events, I found it easy enough to avoid the sentries, who didn't seem to be a very smart body of men playing skittles, most of them, with old thigh bones and a skull which had seen better days; and pretty soon I found myself outside the Commander's quarters the wartent of Agamemnon.

And a fairly squalid sort of affair that was! Made, as far as I could tell, of goat-skin and badly cured goat-skin at that it flapped and sagged in the humid air, each movement of the putrid pelts releasing an unmentionable stench, which. one hoped, had nothing to do with the evening meal! Because, as I could see through the open tent-flap, Agamemnon himself and a dinner guest were busily attacking the light refreshment with all the disgusting gusto of a dormitory feast in a reform school.

And how did I know it was Agamemnon, you may ask? It was impossible to mistake him one has seen portraits, of course, and heard the unsavoury stories: a great coa.r.s.e bully of a man, who looked as though he deserved every bit of what was coming to him when he got home. Couldn't happen to a nicer fellow! The Furies must have been off their heads, hounding his family the way they did. A justifiable homicide, if ever there was one, I'd say! But that, of course, is another story; and far off in the future, at that time.

No, it was Agamemnon all right: those rather vicious good looks and the body of an athlete run to seed look fine on the Mycenaean coins, but not in the flesh. And there was plenty of that in evidence; relaxed and unlaced as he was, after a hard day beating the living daylights out of the domestic help, I suppose, and generally carrying on. A sprinkling of the latter cowered cravenly in the offing, playing 'catch the ham-bone' amid a shower of detritus which the master tossed tidily over his shoulder, while otherwise engaged in putting the fear of G.o.d into Menelaus.

For that's who his companion was, without a doubt; apart from an unfortunate family resemblance, there was a wealth of sibling feeling concealed in their gruff remarks.

'You drink too much,' belched Agamemnon, with his mouth full or at least, it had been full before he spoke. Now... well, never mind. 'Why can't you learn to behave more like a king, instead of a dropsical old camp follower? Try to remember you're my brother, and learn a little dignity.'

Blearily, Menelaus uncorked himself from a bottle of the full-bodied Samoan. 'One of the reasons I drink, Agamemnon, is to forget that I'm your brother! Ever since we were boys, you've dragged me backwards to fiasco and this disastrous Trojan escapade takes the Bacchantes' bath-salts for incompetence! If not the Gorgon's hair-net,' he added, anxious to clinch the matter with a telling phrase. 'Ten foul years we've been here, and... well, I'm not getting any younger. I want to go home!'

'You won't get a lot older if you take that tone with me brother or no brother! What's the matter with you, man? Don't you want to see Helen again? Don't you want to get your wife back?'

'Now I'm glad you asked me that because, quite frankly, no, I don't. And if you'd raised the point before, you'd have saved us a great deal of trouble. If you want to know, I was heartily glad to see the back of her.'

Agamemnon looked shocked. 'You shouldn't talk like that in front of the servants,' he said, lowering his voice to a bellow.

'Well, it wasn't the first time she'd let herself be shall we say abducted?' said Menelaus, raising his to a whisper. 'There was that awful business with Hercules, remember? And if we ever do get her back, I'll wager it won't be the last time either. I can't keep on rus.h.i.+ng off to the ends of the Earth after her.

Makes me a laughing stock...' He recorked himself, moodily.

'Now, you knew perfectly well what she was like before you married her. I warned you at the time, no good would come of it. But since you were so besotted as not to listen, it became a question of honour to get her back. Of family family honour, you understand?' honour, you understand?'

'Not to mention King Priam's trading concessions, of course!

You're just making my marriage problems serve your political ambitions. Think I don't know?'

Agamemnon sighed deeply. The effect was unpleasant, even at a range of several yards. Candle flames trembled, and sank back into their sockets: as did his brother's blood-shot eyes.

'There may be some truth in that,' he admitted, 'I don't say there is, but there may be. However, I must remind you that these ambitions would have been served just as well if you had killed Paris in single combat, as was expected of you. That's what betrayed husbands do, d.a.m.n it! They kill their wife's lovers.

Everybody knows that. And Paris was quite prepared to let the whole issue be decided by such a contest he told me so. So don't blame me because you've dragged us into a full scale war because I won't have it.'

Menelaus looked aggrieved. 'But I did did challenge him, if you remember? First thing I did when I noticed she'd gone! Ten rotten years ago! And the fellow wouldn't accept.' challenge him, if you remember? First thing I did when I noticed she'd gone! Ten rotten years ago! And the fellow wouldn't accept.'

'True,' said Agamemnon, giving a grudging nod with a chin or two. 'So you did, and so he wouldn't. He's as cowardly as you are!'

'Once and for all, I am not a coward! I wish you wouldn't keep on.'

'Well, if you're such a fire-eater, why don't you challenge someone else, then if only for the look of the thing? Why not challenge Hector, for instance?'

In a vain attempt to increase his stature, Menelaus staggered to his feet, 'Are you demented? Not even Ajax would go against Hector, it would be suicide!'

'Now you don't know till you've tried, do you?' asked his brother, reasonably. 'I think this is a very good idea of yours.

Tell you what, I shall issue the challenge first thing in the morning on your behalf. That will lend credibility, won't it?'

And no doubt he would have done, too. Menelaus obviously thought so, and blanched beneath his pallor to prove it.

But at this moment Achilles made the entrance for which he'd been rehearsing. He had wisely discarded any elaborate form of words in favour of the simple, dramatic announcement: 'Hector is dead!' and he waited stauesquely for his well-earned applause.

To his surprise, he didn't get it. Mind you, Menelaus did mop his brow and sink back on his quivering b.u.t.tocks: but Agamemnon's reaction was perhaps not all that could have been desired by a popular hero of the hour. Generals are not used to having their master-plans so abruptly rebuffed... He tapped the table with a fist like diseased pork.

'When?' he inquired irritably. 'How in Hades did that happen?'

'This afternoon,' explained Achilles, rather lamely his whole effect spoiled. 'I slew him myself, after an hour or so of single combat,' he added hopefully, trying to recapture the original impetus.

'Oh, you did, did you? Well, congratulations, of course. Still there's another good idea wasted!'

'What do you mean "wasted"?' pouted the understandably crestfallen combatant; 'Here, have I been wearing my sandals to shreds...'

'Yes, yes, yes of course you have,' agreed Agamemnon, too late for comfort, 'it's just that Menelaus here was about to challenge him, weren't you? Well, now we'll just have to think of something else for him to do, d.a.m.n it! Still, you mustn't think I'm not pleased with you, because I am. You've done very well better than anybody could have expected. So, why don't you sit down and tell us about it?'

'If you don't mind,' said Achilles, rather stiffly, 'I think I'd prefer to make my report officially, tomorrow morning before our a.s.sembled forces, if that could be managed.'

'I suppose something might be organized on those lines...'

'But for the moment, I have other more important news!'

'More important than the death of Hector? What a busy day you've been having, to be sure. Go on, then.'

Achilles took a deep breath. This, you could tell he felt, was the high spot. 'At the height of my battle with Hector, there came a sudden lightning flash, and Father Zeus appeared before me!'

There was a silence, during which Menelaus spilled his wine.

'Eh?' he enquired nervously.

'It's all right, Menelaus,' comforted his brother, 'he's been listening to too much propaganda, haven't you Achilles? Mind you, I don't say we couldn't use a story like that it's quite a good notion in fact. But you mustn't go taking that sort of thing seriously or you'll lose the men's respect.'

'But it's true, I tell you!' said Achilles, stamping petulantly, 'He appeared from nowhere, in the shape of a little old man...'

Agamemnon considered. One had heard heard of these cases, of course. 'Hmm... did he, indeed? And where is he now, this little old man of yours?' of these cases, of course. 'Hmm... did he, indeed? And where is he now, this little old man of yours?'

'I'm afraid I have to report that Odysseus and his men took him prisoner!'

Now it was Agememnon's turn to attempt the leaping to the feet routine. He succeeded only partially then thought better of it, and did the table-thumping trick again instead. 'They did what what?'

'Odysseus mocked him. Then they seized him and they're dragging him back here now. I ran ahead to warn you..

'You did well.' Recognition at last! 'Perdition take Odysseus!

After all, you can't be too careful these days. It may may, in fact, be be Zeus and then where would we all be?' Zeus and then where would we all be?'

'Precisely,' agreed Menelaus, taking another large gulp of his medicine.

' May May be Zeus?' trumpeted Achilles, indignantly, 'I tell you, he appeared out of thin air, complete with his temple.' be Zeus?' trumpeted Achilles, indignantly, 'I tell you, he appeared out of thin air, complete with his temple.'

'Oh, he would do that's what he does!' moaned Menelaus.

'Heaven help us!'

'Be quiet, Menelaus!' said Agamemnon. 'Guard, go seek the Lord Odysseus and command his presence here.'

But it wasn't a good day for Agamemnon; for the second time in as many minutes, his initiative was frustrated by events.

Even as the guard struggled to attention, preparatory to completing his esteemed order, Odysseus himself barrelled through the tent-flap.

'Command?' he questioned, bubbling with menace, 'who dares command Odysseus?' And he flung the good Doctor into the centre of the appreciative audience before him.

7.

Agamemnon Arbitrates.

It was not, perhaps, the dignified entrance the Doctor would have chosen, left to himself; but with his usual resilience, he determined to make the best of a bad job. Rather neatly he did it too, in my opinion.