A Mean Time in Greenwich
Title: A Mean Time in Greenwich
Author: nhw
Characters: One, Susan
Rating: G
A/N: Written for queuedub for the First Doctor ficathon.
“So, sir Doctor,” the King asked, “You ask me to believe your tale of treasure in the Tower?”
“Why yes, sir - my Lord - your Grace,” the stranger replied. It went against his nature to give the correct honorific, but the situation was desperate.
The King paused ominously, and the whole room held its breath. Then he began to laugh. “Truly, we never thought that the day would come when a stranger would dare to try and tell us the location of my own Crown Jewels! Does not everyone in London know that there are treasures in the Tower? Old man, these are no new tidings.”
The elderly visitor was clearly taken aback. But the King was in jovial mood. “Come, attend on us again after our supper, and then we will send you on your way; perhaps you can go to Rome next, and tell His Holiness where the bones of St Peter are. Where is the girl? Ah, yes, a pretty thing; she may attend at table, too.”
They were bustled out of the audience room, and out of the palace building, to find a space to sit in the autumn sunshine overlooking the Thames. Its mouth was choked with ships; Susan’s throat was choked with sobs. “Grandfather, how will we get back to the TARDIS now?”
“My dear, don’t fuss!” the Doctor replied, “We will think of something. We are, after all, only a few miles downriver here at Greenwich; if we must, we can walk back to the Tower, and try and persuade the next shift of guards to be more flexible about admitting us. But who would have thought it so difficult to get back into the Tower once we had got out of it? If I had realised, we would never have left the Ship.”
Susan was biting back tears. “Why is this always happening to us?” she asked. “Ever since we left home, the Ship has been taking us from one crisis to another. We only just got away from the planet Quinnis, and now this! Couldn’t we find somewhere to settle for a while?”
The Doctor was not listening to her, but his thoughts were moving in a similar direction, “Child, I think we will have to do something about your knowledge of this planet’s history. We do seem to keep coming back here rather often. Perhaps we should go a few hundred years forward, base the TARDIS in a junkyard, put you in a local school to absorb some of this world’s knowledge; maybe I could even get rid of that confounded Hand of Omega for a short while. We could stay for a few months. Would you like that, my dear?”
“Why, yes, Grandfather!” cried Susan, though with a certain desperation. “I do have a funny feeling that this planet my be very important for us both. Perhaps I -”
But they were interrupted by the King’s steward. “Sir, you are a doctor?”
“Why yes, I think you could say that.”
“Pray come this way. The King has need of you.”
The supper had gone reasonably well, until the King was taken with a sudden abdominal pain, and began shouting for help. His steward remembered the old man who claimed medical qualifications, and went to find him. Now, an anxious crowd of the King’s household awaited the Doctor’s emergence from the private chamber. Some cast sympathetic glance to Susan, dressed in utterly foreign clothes, seated on the floor and looking very much out of place. But most could hear raised voices from within.
The door between the dining hall and the King’s quarters burst open. It was the old physician, beside himself with outrage. “Does that man listen to any of you?” he demanded. “He must know that the human body can take only so much strain. If he does not give up on feasting, drinking such vast quantities of that expensive swill you call wine in this period, and above all frolicking with his lady friends - ” at this point several faces among the female courtiers turned red - “he is doomed to an early end, and an unhappy reign. It is his royal choice of course; I cannot be answerable for the consequences!”
The King now emerged from his chamber, incandescent with fury. He appeared to have been hastily rearranging his clothing after the Doctor’s examination. “We will not endure such insolence in our own palace - or anywhere else, for that matter!” he shouted. He also appeared to have much recovered from his earlier indisposition.
The Doctor had not finished. “If it is your royal wish to surround yourself with sycophants and flatterers, then you alone must carry the responsibility for failing to listen when someone tells you the truth! It is no surprise that you do not recognize it when you hear it!”
The King grabbed the nearest platter from the table and hurled it in the Doctor’s general direction. Most of it missed, but the Doctor, shielding himself, caught a piece of meat - the tailbone of a royal chicken - and threw it casually back at the King. It landed on the royal bald patch, neatly crowing the King’s thinning red hair. The face beneath the hair now almost matched it in colour. “Take this man out of my sight! Take him to the Tower! And that whining child of his as well! We will consider what their fate should be tomorrow.”
It was a subdued and yet almost relaxing ride upriver. Susan, exhausted by the strain, fell asleep, while the Doctor engaged their guards in a discussion of London’s commerce and recent history. It was not the first time that a guest at Greenwich, or Hampton Court, or Whitehall, had suddenly been informed that the arrangements for their accommodation had been altered, and it would not be the last; the normal practice, in the absence of other instructions, was to let them out of the Tower two days later.
“I suppose,” the Doctor said to the guard, as their boat moored, “that there are still parts of the Tower that you don’t know.”
“No chance, sir,” scoffed the man. “I been walking these walls for fifteen year; there a’n’t no part of them I don’t know like the back of my ’and.”
“Well,” said the Doctor, “I’ll wager you a week’s wages that I can find a large blue box near the base of the Salt Tower.”
“Sir,” the guard replied, “Unless it has appeared there by magic since yesterday forenoon, there is no chance of that. But for a week’s wages, we can go and have a look.”
And around the corner, there indeed it was, humming slightly to itself. “Come and see it!” the Doctor invited the guard, who was backing away uneasily. “Look, it is not harmful to touch - Susan, come and show him!” And Susan, and then the Doctor, slipped inside the machine, unde the gaze of the guards, who knew of course that while the prisoners might go inside the big blue box, they would at some point have to emerge again, and there was no other way out.
At least, so they thought for about another ten heartbeats.
Much, much later, when they landed on the planet of the Sensorites, the Doctor and Susan were able to look back on this and laugh, to the bemusement of Ian and Barbara who thought they were simply name-dropping. But it hadn’t seemed so funny at the time.
Author: nhw
Characters: One, Susan
Rating: G
A/N: Written for queuedub for the First Doctor ficathon.
“So, sir Doctor,” the King asked, “You ask me to believe your tale of treasure in the Tower?”
“Why yes, sir - my Lord - your Grace,” the stranger replied. It went against his nature to give the correct honorific, but the situation was desperate.
The King paused ominously, and the whole room held its breath. Then he began to laugh. “Truly, we never thought that the day would come when a stranger would dare to try and tell us the location of my own Crown Jewels! Does not everyone in London know that there are treasures in the Tower? Old man, these are no new tidings.”
The elderly visitor was clearly taken aback. But the King was in jovial mood. “Come, attend on us again after our supper, and then we will send you on your way; perhaps you can go to Rome next, and tell His Holiness where the bones of St Peter are. Where is the girl? Ah, yes, a pretty thing; she may attend at table, too.”
They were bustled out of the audience room, and out of the palace building, to find a space to sit in the autumn sunshine overlooking the Thames. Its mouth was choked with ships; Susan’s throat was choked with sobs. “Grandfather, how will we get back to the TARDIS now?”
“My dear, don’t fuss!” the Doctor replied, “We will think of something. We are, after all, only a few miles downriver here at Greenwich; if we must, we can walk back to the Tower, and try and persuade the next shift of guards to be more flexible about admitting us. But who would have thought it so difficult to get back into the Tower once we had got out of it? If I had realised, we would never have left the Ship.”
Susan was biting back tears. “Why is this always happening to us?” she asked. “Ever since we left home, the Ship has been taking us from one crisis to another. We only just got away from the planet Quinnis, and now this! Couldn’t we find somewhere to settle for a while?”
The Doctor was not listening to her, but his thoughts were moving in a similar direction, “Child, I think we will have to do something about your knowledge of this planet’s history. We do seem to keep coming back here rather often. Perhaps we should go a few hundred years forward, base the TARDIS in a junkyard, put you in a local school to absorb some of this world’s knowledge; maybe I could even get rid of that confounded Hand of Omega for a short while. We could stay for a few months. Would you like that, my dear?”
“Why, yes, Grandfather!” cried Susan, though with a certain desperation. “I do have a funny feeling that this planet my be very important for us both. Perhaps I -”
But they were interrupted by the King’s steward. “Sir, you are a doctor?”
“Why yes, I think you could say that.”
“Pray come this way. The King has need of you.”
The supper had gone reasonably well, until the King was taken with a sudden abdominal pain, and began shouting for help. His steward remembered the old man who claimed medical qualifications, and went to find him. Now, an anxious crowd of the King’s household awaited the Doctor’s emergence from the private chamber. Some cast sympathetic glance to Susan, dressed in utterly foreign clothes, seated on the floor and looking very much out of place. But most could hear raised voices from within.
The door between the dining hall and the King’s quarters burst open. It was the old physician, beside himself with outrage. “Does that man listen to any of you?” he demanded. “He must know that the human body can take only so much strain. If he does not give up on feasting, drinking such vast quantities of that expensive swill you call wine in this period, and above all frolicking with his lady friends - ” at this point several faces among the female courtiers turned red - “he is doomed to an early end, and an unhappy reign. It is his royal choice of course; I cannot be answerable for the consequences!”
The King now emerged from his chamber, incandescent with fury. He appeared to have been hastily rearranging his clothing after the Doctor’s examination. “We will not endure such insolence in our own palace - or anywhere else, for that matter!” he shouted. He also appeared to have much recovered from his earlier indisposition.
The Doctor had not finished. “If it is your royal wish to surround yourself with sycophants and flatterers, then you alone must carry the responsibility for failing to listen when someone tells you the truth! It is no surprise that you do not recognize it when you hear it!”
The King grabbed the nearest platter from the table and hurled it in the Doctor’s general direction. Most of it missed, but the Doctor, shielding himself, caught a piece of meat - the tailbone of a royal chicken - and threw it casually back at the King. It landed on the royal bald patch, neatly crowing the King’s thinning red hair. The face beneath the hair now almost matched it in colour. “Take this man out of my sight! Take him to the Tower! And that whining child of his as well! We will consider what their fate should be tomorrow.”
It was a subdued and yet almost relaxing ride upriver. Susan, exhausted by the strain, fell asleep, while the Doctor engaged their guards in a discussion of London’s commerce and recent history. It was not the first time that a guest at Greenwich, or Hampton Court, or Whitehall, had suddenly been informed that the arrangements for their accommodation had been altered, and it would not be the last; the normal practice, in the absence of other instructions, was to let them out of the Tower two days later.
“I suppose,” the Doctor said to the guard, as their boat moored, “that there are still parts of the Tower that you don’t know.”
“No chance, sir,” scoffed the man. “I been walking these walls for fifteen year; there a’n’t no part of them I don’t know like the back of my ’and.”
“Well,” said the Doctor, “I’ll wager you a week’s wages that I can find a large blue box near the base of the Salt Tower.”
“Sir,” the guard replied, “Unless it has appeared there by magic since yesterday forenoon, there is no chance of that. But for a week’s wages, we can go and have a look.”
And around the corner, there indeed it was, humming slightly to itself. “Come and see it!” the Doctor invited the guard, who was backing away uneasily. “Look, it is not harmful to touch - Susan, come and show him!” And Susan, and then the Doctor, slipped inside the machine, unde the gaze of the guards, who knew of course that while the prisoners might go inside the big blue box, they would at some point have to emerge again, and there was no other way out.
At least, so they thought for about another ten heartbeats.
Much, much later, when they landed on the planet of the Sensorites, the Doctor and Susan were able to look back on this and laugh, to the bemusement of Ian and Barbara who thought they were simply name-dropping. But it hadn’t seemed so funny at the time.