Doctor Who: The Reign of Terror (17 page)

Lemaitre looked up earnestly. 'I am
completely at your service Citizen First Deputy,' he pledged. 'You
have only to give the word.'

Robespierre bowed in acknowledgement.
'The Convention meets tomorrow,' he continued quietly. 'I have discovered that certain influential
members - traitors all of them - are planning to bring an indictment
against a senior member ...'

Lemaitre rose gravely to his feet. '
You have their names?'

Robespierre seemed unaware of the
question. He paced more relentlessly than ever. 'I realise that they
are forever plotting, but this latest intelligence suggests that more
and more of the Paris Commune are taking sides against me.'
Robespierre stopped in front of his visitor, his greenish eyes
blazing like emeralds. 'They plan to prevent me from speaking. They
are determined to destroy me!'

Lemaitre shook his head loyally. 'All
is not yet lost. You still have many friends in the Convention,' he
declared.

The First Deputy resumed his pacing
again. 'But can I trust them? They may turn against me to save their
own necks,' he speculated, his feeble voice sounding more transparent
than ever as he waved his long bony fingers in an attempt to
reinforce his argument. 'Mark my words, Lemaitre, if their plot
succeeds, tomorrow, the Twenty-Seventh of July, 1794 ... the Ninth
Thermidor ... will be remembered in history as a momentous day.'

Lemaitre's eyes shone with intense
purpose. 'Give me the names of the rebels, Citizen! They will be
executed at once!' he promised.

Robespierre paused, fixing Lemaitre
with his reptilian stare. 'Patience, Citizen,' he cautioned. 'They
are not working in isolation. They know they will need the support of
the military. Meetings must have been arranged ...

'By whom? Barras?'

'Paul Barras,' Robespierre nodded. 'It
is my guess that he-is the ringleader. But we must be absolutely
certain before we strike. We shall not enjoy a second opportunity,
Lemaitre.'

The visitor tapped himself on the chin
with the silver knob of his long cane. 'Tell me what I must do,' he
murmured eagerly.

Robespierre moved closer and spoke very
quietly as if he suspected that the very walls had ears. 'I
understand Barras intends to leave Paris tonight, presumably for a
meeting. I want to know where, with whom and the substance of the
discussions. Armed with this
information I may be able to defeat the enemies of the Revolution.'

Lemaitre thought carefully. 'Barras
might just be a decoy,' he warned.

Robespierre nodded grimly. 'Precisely
my fear. By tonight my people will be everywhere ... ' He drew even
closer to Lemaitre. 'But Barras is your personal responsibility.'

Lemaitre bowed. 'I am honoured. I shall
not fail,' he vowed, moving to the door. With his fingers on the
handle he paused and turned. 'Against which member will the
indictment be brought?' he asked.

There was a long silence.

'Against Robespierre,' came the
ice-cold reply. 'Against me ... Against the Revolution itself...
'

Ian and Jules approached the house very
cautiously, but there was no sign of Leon Colbert's associates.
Jules's gamble appeared to have paid off.

'We shall have to give up the house
soon,'Jules told Ian as they entered the dining room. 'It is becoming
too dangerous now.'

They both stopped in their tracks.
There, dozing in an armchair, sat Barbara.

'Barbara, we thought you'd been
arrested again!' cried Ian joyfully.

Barbara opened her eyes and smiled.
'Yes, we were, but when we reached the Conciergerie we met the
Doctor!'

Ian's face brightened even more. 'The
Doctor? At the prison?'

'Yes; dressed up as if he was running
the Revolution single-handled. From the look of things, he's got half
the people there taking orders right, left and centre,' Barbara
chuckled.

'That sounds like the Doctor all
right!' Ian laughed, feeling better already. He glanced around the
room. 'But what about Susan? Isn't she with you?'

Barbara quickly explained what had
happened at the prison.

Ian whistled in astonishment at the
Time Lord's bare-faced audacity. 'Just walked out did
you ... ? I don't know how he gets away with it half the time!' he
exclaimed. 'What did the Doctor tell you?'

Barbara tried hard to remember.
'Nothing very much We hardly had any chance to talk. But he should be
here with Susan soon. No doubt we'll hear all about his adventures
then.'

'Several times over,' Ian said wryly.

Jules looked utterly bewildered as he
tried to follow their conversation in English. 'Please ... the
Doctor?' he inquired.

'Susan's grandfather,' Barbara
explained, reverting to French. Suddenly she noticed Ian's
bandaged forearms. 'Ian, whatever happened to your wrists?' she
asked in shocked tone.

Ian shrugged. 'Let's just say they fell
into the wrong hands,' he quipped bravely. 'Fortunately Jules
arrived in the nick of time.' He took Barbara's hands and frowned.
'You look as if you've been digging roads!' he commented wryly.

Barbara quickly explained. Then she
asked where Leon had got to. There was a hollow, awkward silence.

'Leon is dead. I killed him,' Jules
eventually replied in a hushed voice.

Barbara looked horrified. 'You killed
him?' she exclaimed, jumping up.

Jules raised his arms helplessly.
'Barbara, I fear that Leon was the traitor we were looking for,' he
said bleakly. 'He deserved to die. There was no choice.'

Ian put his arm round Barbara's
shoulders. 'It was the only way, Barbara,' he assured her.

Barbara backed away from the two men,
staring at them as if they were insane. 'What on earth do you mean, a
traitor?' she protested incredulously, sinking onto a chair.

'As soon as I got to the church Leon
turned on me,' Ian told her. 'He was prepared to murder me in cold
blood.'

'Leon was betraying us and our
movement,' Jules explained sadly.

Barbara tossed her head defiantly. 'He
was only a traitor in your eyes, Jules!' she retorted aggressively.
'To his own people he was a patriot.'

Ian sat down beside her. 'Barbara,
please try to understand,' he pleaded. 'We have taken sides just by
being here. It was Jules who shot Leon, but it could just as easily
have been me who pulled the trigger ... ' He held up his lacerated
wrists. 'If Leon's soldiers had not already strung me up like a pig
in an abattoir.'

Jules was staring resentfully at
Barbara. 'I suppose Robespierre is a knight in shining armour in your
eyes,' he said harshly.

Barbara jumped up again, bursting with
indignation. Jules, just because an extremist like Robespierre
behaves ... '

Ian intervened again, drawing her
aside. 'Barbara, Jules has saved my life. He and Jean saved all our
lives. Their enemies are our enemies,' he argued earnestly.

There was a tense silence.

Eventually Barbara sat down again. 'Yes
I know,' she conceded in a more subdued tone. 'But the Revolution is
not all bad, Ian. Neither are the people who believed in it. It
changed things for the whole world and good, honest people sacrificed
their lives for that change ... '

Ian shook his head irritably. 'Really,
Barbara, we're not in your classroom at Coal Hill School now ... '
he objected.

With a sigh of exasperation, Barbara
stood up again and wandered away in defiant isolation. 'Take a look
at your history books before you start making judgements ... ' she
challenged.

Jules had been struggling to follow the
latter part of the dispute in English. History books ... ?' he
echoed, utterly perplexed. 'Whatever do you mean? There has never
been a revolution like this before. Never in all history!'

Ian had become so worked up that it was
all he could do to resist the temptation to reveal to Jules what the
future held for France over the next one and a half centuries. But a
sharp warning glance from Barbara reminded him of the Doctor's strict
views about such things and so he reluctantly clammed up. But it was
immensely frustrating to be able to see into the future and yet not
be able to do anything to change it!

The Doctor seemed to have been gone for
hours. Susan lay in the foetid dungeon anxiously listening for some
hint of his promised return. At long last she heard a movement
outside the door.

'Grandfather, is that you? I thought
you were never coming back,' she whispered, running to the door.

'Listen carefully,' the Doctor hissed
through the spyhole. 'I want you to crouch down on the floor behind
the door and stay out of sight whatever happens, do you understand?'

Susan wanted to ask a dozen questions.
'But, Grandfather ... '

'Do it now, child!' the Doctor
commanded sternly. 'And don't move or make a sound,'

Trembling with fever and with nerves,
Susan obeyed. Biting her fist to stop herself from crying out, she
crouched against the wall and waited to see what would happen next,
her heart pounding like mad.

The Doctor strode back to the alcove
and found the gaoler slumped morosely over his table drinking cognac
from yet another bottle.

'Where is Lemaitre?' the Doctor
demanded, banging the table with his stick. 'It's scandalous that I
am kept waiting like this!'

'I'm expecting him back any time now,'
mumbled the gaoler, scratching his bandaged head with the neck of the

bottle. 'I don't know what he's going
to say about all this business ... '

'Neither do I!' the Doctor retorted
sharply. 'The young girl has vanished!'

The gaoler gaped at the Doctor in total
disbelief. Then he sprang up, dropping the bottle and snatching at
his keys. 'Vanished?' he shrieked. He scuttled off along the vault
feverishly searching for the dungeon key on the crowded ring. 'She
can't be ... '

Picking up the cognac bottle, the
Doctor set off in pursuit. He found the mortified gaoler peering
through the spyhole and fumbling clumsily with the lock.

'She's gone ... She's gone ... '
the gaoler repeated in a raucous croak, like a shocked parrot.

As he finally turned the key, the
Doctor crept stealthily up behind him and hit him smartly over the
head with the cognac bottle. The gaoler grunted and slid onto his
knees against the doorframe, knocked almost senseless.

The Doctor pushed open the door and
grabbed Susan's hand. 'Quickly, Susan, quickly!' he cried, dragging
her out of the dungeon.

He was about to lock the gaoler in the
cell when Lemaitre's voice suddenly rang out like a death knell.
'Guards! Guards! Here at once!'

There was a confusion of shouts and
running feet and several soldiers burst round the corner and
surrounded them with levelled bayonets. Next moment, Lemaitre himself
appeared, smiling grimly.

The dazed gaoler staggered to his feet
holding his freshly-wounded head. 'He tricked me, Citizen ... He
tricked me ... ' he complained pathetically, pointing at the
Doctor.

Lemaitre ignored him. 'Lock her away!'
he ordered, poking Susan with his cane.

The guards bundled the tearful and
terrified girl back into the dungeon and locked the door. Susan threw
herself onto the bed and sobbed with bitter disappointment.

Lemaitre thrust the fawning gaoler
aside and confronted the Doctor with a cold but respectful
expression. 'I think that it is time we had a little talk,' he
proposed quietly, moving aside to let the Doctor precede him flanked
by two guards.

The Doctor nodded vigorously and set
off between his escorts in the direction of Lemaitre's room. 'I
couldn't agree more, Citizen,' he replied with an enigmatic smile.

As he strode into the austere
interrogation room at the end of the narrow passage, the Doctor
rapped indignantly on the flagstones with his walking stick. 'To
start with I really must insist on that young girl's release,' he
announced.

Lemaitre shut the door behind him. 'Do
you recognise this, Citizen?' he asked, holding up a small shiny
object between his thumb and forefinger.

The Doctor squinted at the ring he had
given to the tailor in part exchange for his new clothes and a shadow
of doubt passed over his severe countenance. He quickly suppressed
his fear as to how much Lemaitre knew about him and shrugged
absently. 'No, should I?' he replied, casually turning it over in his
fingers.

Lemaitre shot him a look which advised
him not to play silly games. 'It is your ring, Citizen. You gave it
in exchange for your splendid attire and your insignia of Provincial
Deputy.'

The Doctor snorted with derision. 'I've
never heard such an absurd fairy tale in all my life,' he protested.

Lemaitre circled the outraged Time
Lord. 'You appreciate that I could have had you arrested at any
moment?' he remarked ominously.

The Doctor pondered this puzzling
factor. 'Yes indeed. Why didn't you?' he inquired, offering the ring
back to Lemaitre.

'Please keep your ring, Citizen,'
Lemaitre requested, continuing to circle the Doctor with slow
deliberation. 'I did not arrest you because, the political situation
being as it is and my own situation being what it is, I need friends
- even if they are enemies - people on whom I can call for help.'
Lemaitre stopped in front of his puzzled prisoner. 'And if I have
some hold over them, then so much the better ... '

There was a pause. The Doctor smiled
wryly. 'No wonder you didn't want me to leave the prison.'

Lemaitre smiled bleakly. 'I knew that I
should never see you again if I let you leave.'

The Doctor tapped his nose with his
stick. 'But you
relaxed things today. I could have
walked out of the Conciergerie at any time ... '

Lemaitre waved his finger as if
scolding a naughty child. 'And deserted your granddaughter? I think
not.'