Doctor Who: The Massacre Read Free Page B

followed suit.
    ‘Is honour satisfied, Simon?’ Lerans asked as he reclined again in his chair.
    ‘For the time being, Viscount Lerans,’ Duval replied as he put down his goblet and walked to the bar. ‘I owe this gentleman a glass of white wine,’ he said, pointing to the Doctor. ‘Be so kind as to serve both him and his companion another.’ He placed a coin on the bar.
    ‘That’s most agreeable of you, sir,’ the Doctor replied as Duval nodded briefly to him and then, without looking at the group at the table, left the inn.
    As soon as Duval had gone, Lerans burst out laughing.
    His friend, Nicholas Muss, looked at him angrily. ‘Why do you provoke quarrels, Gaston?’ he demanded. ‘Aren’t things difficult enough for us as they are?’
    ‘I would have thought that after yesterday’s marriage we are, for the first time, my friend, in a position of strength,’
    Lerans replied, ‘and the Catholics must accept that we are no longer the underdogs.’ He stood up. ‘Let’s go to the Louvre and hear the latest gossip of the Court.’ He threw a gold coin on the table and with a curt bow to the Doctor and Steven led the way out.
    The Doctor and Steven watched while Antoine-Marc poured their goblets of wine. Then the Doctor picked his up and beckoned to Steven to follow him to a table where they sat down out of earshot of the landlord.
    ‘It is the nineteenth of August in the year 1572,’ the Doctor whispered dramatically.
    ‘Is that a guess or good judgement?’ Steven queried.
    ‘And, if the latter, what’s it based on?’
    ‘Their conversation.’ The Doctor glanced at the landlord pocketting the coin that Gaston had left on the table while the barboy put the empty goblets on a tray.
    Then the Doctor leant forward confidentially. ‘The young Protestant King Henri of Navarre married the Catholic Princess Marguerite of Valois on the eighteenth of August and Duval said the nuptials were celebrated yesterday.’
    ‘Yes, I heard that,’ Steven confirmed.
    ‘In which case, this is neither a place nor a time in which to tarry,’ the Doctor said categorically.
    ‘Then drink up and we’ll move on,’ Steven replied. The Doctor reached across the table and grabbed Steven’s hand.
    ‘No, first there is someone here I wish to talk to,’ the Doctor said and explained that it concerned a scientific matter which would hold no interest for Steven. ‘A simple exchange of ideas to give me a better understanding of his work,’ he concluded.
    ‘But you’ve just said we should be on our way,’ Steven protested.
    ‘There’s no immediate danger and I shall be gone for only a few hours at the most,’ the Doctor assured him.
     
    ‘What’s his subject?’ Steven asked, his curiosity aroused.
    ‘He’s an apothecary.’ The Doctor tried to sound off-hand.
    ‘Not struck off, by any chance?’ Steven remembered the Doctor’s distant look when they were in the street and the murmured ‘I wonder.’
    ‘That’s – er – rather what I hope to – hum – find out,’
    the Doctor answered uncomfortably.
    ‘And you know where his shop is?’ Steven persisted.
    ‘The general area – yes,’ the Doctor sounded vague.
    ‘Then I’ll help you find him,’ Steven smiled. ‘It’ll cut the time in half and then we can be off.’
    ‘I’d rather you didn’t.’ The Doctor was on the defensive.
    ‘He’s a secretive man and does not take kindly to strangers.’
    ‘So, you know him.’
    The Doctor shook his head. ‘Only read about him in some half-destroyed documents I once found. His name was Prenlin, or Preslin, and he was on to something quite important, but the documents didn’t say what. As I’ve said, they were half-ruined and he was only a footnote.’
    Steven sipped his wine. ‘But an intriguing one and you want to play detective.’
    The Doctor semi-smiled. ‘I suppose you could put it that way,’ he admitted.
    ‘Then off you go, Doctor, and I wish you luck. But where shall we meet, and