ALL WAS WELL in Wilkin’s world, but then it always was. Wilkin would simply not permit it to be any other way. He had found his place and purpose in life. The place was St Cedd’s, and the purpose was to maintain the order and calm established here centuries before, until the time came for him to hand over the task to an equally calm and ordered successor. Wilkin saw himself as a cog in the wheel of time, positioned here to ease the lives of those around him, and was a firm believer in the bit of the Bible that said ‘A soft answer turneth away wrath’, if not many of the other bits. But even he had his limits.
The encounter with the Doctor-with-no-name and his charming companion had put him out not one jot. If people chose to wear ridiculously long multicoloured scarves and to turn up on occasions decades apart not looking any older, it was none of his business.
But now, as he pinned another notice on the board and permitted himself just a tinge of inward pleasure at the thought of scrambled eggs on toast and the BBC’s Saturday serial in a few hours, he found himself bristling for the first time in years.
A quite ludicrously dressed person was stomping – yes, that was the only word for it, stomping – through the entrance to the courtyard. Now obviously it was no business of Wilkin’s if people chose to attire themselves in long silver capes and wide-brimmed silver hats, and went about carrying old carpet bags, that was their own affair.
But this fellow had none of the Doctor’s affability or charm, and Wilkin was quite sure he had never seen him before.
He was in his early thirties, and might have been handsome – his features were symmetrically pleasing and he had full, sensual lips – were it not for two things. Firstly, there was the jagged scar that ran across the right side of his face, so that actually it wasn’t symmetrical at all. And secondly, those full, sensual lips were curled arrogantly in a permanent disdainful sneer. All sneers were disdainful, Wilkin admitted to himself, but this one conveyed unfathomably deep levels of coldness and condescension.
‘You!’ the stranger barked.
Wilkin shot back his own best look of coldness and condescension, which was pretty good but couldn’t really compete. He then turned back sniffily to the notice board.
‘You! Gatekeeper!’ the stranger barked again.
Wilkin looked about the otherwise empty courtyard with exaggerated politeness. ‘Were you addressing me?’
‘I want Chronotis,’ said the stranger.
Wilkin winced at the lack of formality. ‘Professor Chronotis?’
‘Where is he?’ the stranger demanded.
Wilkin wanted this rotter out. ‘He will not want to be disturbed. He is with the Doctor – a friend.’ He added with emphasis, ‘A very old friend.’
The stranger stared down at him for several seconds. He hands moved as if to open the carpet bag. Then, without another word, he turned on his high silver platform heels and stomped back out of the courtyard.
Good riddance. Wilkin wondered where on Earth he had been brought up, with manners like that.
It would have surprised Wilkin to discover that the stranger had not been brought up on Earth at all. It would have surprised him even more had he learnt that his intervention had quite probably saved the lives of the Professor, his very old friend the Doctor and the fair Romana. And it would have left him agog with fear and horror had he been party to Skagra’s thoughts as he stomped back out to the streets around St Cedd’s. Though of course Wilkin would never have shown it. He was only ever inwardly agog.
Skagra was considering the information the Earth gatekeeper had supplied. So Chronotis had an old friend called the Doctor.
The Doctor, the Doctor…
Something about those words had made Skagra retreat and reconsider. He was certain that he had read something about this ‘Doctor’ in the course of the researches that had led him here halfway across the universe. And any ‘very old friend’ of Chronotis could not possibly be an Earth human. So the Doctor was a Time Lord.
Skagra needed more information. Who was this Doctor? Doctor who?