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door would be locked, I thought, but then when I tried it, it was not. Now why should that be? I pulled
the slab of wood slowly to me, expecting it to creak, but it did not.
The darkness inside was complete. The door closed behind me with a soft thud. I had to feel my way
along the corridor inside, one hand on the wall to my right, my other hand out in front of my face. These
would be the servants' quarters. The floor under my feet was naked stone. I passed several doors. They
were all locked, save for one which gave access to a large, empty cupboard with a faint acrid, acidic
smell which made me suspect it had once contained soap. I banged my hand on one of its shelves and
almost swore out loud.
Back in the corridor again, I came to a wooden stairway. I crept upwards and came to a door. From
the bottom of the door there was the very faintest suggestion of light, hinted at only when I did not look
directly at it. I twisted the handle carefully and pulled the door towards me, for less than a hand's width.
Down a broad, carpeted corridor lined with paintings I could see that the source of the light was a room
at the far end, near the main doorway. I heard a cry and what might have been the sound of a scuffle, and
then another cry. Footsteps sounded in the distance, and the light in the doorway changed an instant
before a figure appeared there. It was a man. That was about all I could ever be sure of. The fellow
came running down the corridor, straight towards me.
It took me a moment to realise that he might actually be heading for the door I was hiding behind. In that
time he covered about half the length of the corridor. There was something wild and desperate about him
that put a terror into me.
I turned and jumped down the dark stairs, landing heavily and hurting my left ankle. I stumbled towards
where I thought the unlocked cupboard door ought to be. My hands flailed around the wall for a moment
until I found the door, then I pulled it open and threw myself inside just as a bang and a thin wash of light
announced that the man had thrown open the door at the top of the stairs. Heavy footsteps clattered
down.
I leant back against the shelves. I put ray hand out towards the swinging shadow of the cupboard door
to pull it back, but it was out of my reach. The man must have run into it, for there was a loud bang and a
yelp of pain and anger. The cupboard door slammed shut and I was left in darkness. Another, heavier
door slammed somewhere outside and a key rattled in a lock.
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I pushed the cupboard door open. A small amount of light was still falling down the stairway. I heard
some noise from the top of the stairs but it sounded distant. It might have been a door closing. I went
back to the top of the steps and looked out through the half-open door. Down the broad corridor, the
light changed again in the doorway near the main entrance at the far end. I got ready to run again, but
nobody appeared. Instead there was a stifled cry. A woman's cry. A terrible fear shook me then, and I
started to walk down the corridor.
I had gone perhaps five or six steps when the main doors at the far end of the hall were thrown open and
a troop of guards rushed in, swords drawn. Two of them stopped and looked at me, while the rest made
straight for the door where the light was coming from.
`You! Here!' one of the guards shouted, pointing his sword at me.
Shouts, and a woman's frightened voice, came from the lit room. I walked on trembling legs down the
hall towards the guards. I was grabbed by the collar and forced into the room, where the Doctor was
being held by two tall guardsmen, her arms pinned, forced back against a wall. She was shouting at the
men.
Duke Ormin lay motionless on his back on the floor, in a huge pool of dark blood. His throat had been
cut. A thin, flattened metal shaft protruded from above his heart. The flat metal shaft was the handle of a
thin knife made all of metal. I recognised it. It was one of the Doctor's scalpels.
I think I lost the power of speech for a while. I lost the power of hearing too, I believe. The Doctor was
still shouting at the men. Then she saw me and shouted at me, but I could not make out what it was she
was shouting. I would have fallen to the floor had I not been supported by the scruff of the neck by the
two guards holding me. One of the guardsmen knelt by the body on the floor. He had to kneel at the
head of the Duke to avoid the still spreading pool of darkness on the wooden floor. He opened one of
Duke Ormin's eyes.
A piece of my brain still functioning told me that if he was checking for signs of life this was a foolish
thing to do, given the amount of blood that had flowed over the floor, and the quite stationary shaft of the
scalpel protruding from the Duke's chest.
The guardsman said something. I have a feeling it was `Dead' or something similar, but I cannot recall.
Then there were more guards in the room, until it became quite crowded and I could not see the Doctor.
We were taken away. I did not hear things properly again, or find my own voice until we arrived at our
destination, back at the main palace, in the torture chamber, where Duke Quettil's chief questioner,
Master Ralinge, was waiting for us.
Master, I knew then that you must forsake me. Perhaps I was not supposed to be forsaken, according
to the original plan, for that note, purportedly from you, did use the word `privately' which implied that
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the Doctor was to go alone, and not take me along with her, so I could believe that I had been supposed
to remain innocent of whatever the Doctor was accused of. But I had followed her, and I had not thought
to tell anybody else of my fears.
I also had not thought to stand my ground when the man who must have been the real murderer of Duke
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