Read Online Doctor Who: The Myth Makers by Donald Cotton - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Donald Cotton
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anyway – ‘You purblind satyr. Why, you’re half enchanted already. Get back to your Spartan adulteress, before you make a complete fool of yourself again. I tell you, she must die!’
‘I do wish you’d both be quiet for a moment,’ sighed Priam,
‘Now, you mustn’t be frightened, child; you shall die when I say so, and not a moment before.’
‘That’s very comforting,’ said Vicki.
‘Good girl! There – you see? Neither of you has any idea how to handle children. It only needs a little patience and understanding. Now, tell me first of all – what is your name?’
‘Vicki,’ said Vicki.
‘Vicki?’ he repeated doubtfully. ‘That’s an outlandish sort of name, isn’t it?’
‘A heathen sort of name if you ask me!’ contributed his bouncing daughter.
‘Nobody did ask you, Cassandra! Well, I really don’t think we can call you Vicki – far too difficult to remember. No, we must think of another one for you. A Trojan type of name, that won’t arouse comment. What about... let me see – what about Cressida? I had a cousin called Cressida once – on my father’s side of the family. Always liked the sound of it. Would that suit you, do you think?’
‘It’s a very pretty name,’ said Vicki.
‘Very well, then – Cressida it shall be.’
‘Thank you,’ said Vicki, ‘that’s who I am, then.’ And from that instant she was lost forever, and at last found her proper place in Time and History! For we are the prisoners of our names, more than ever we are of what we imagine to be our destinies. They shape our lives, and mould our personalities, until we fit them. We are only what our names tell us to be, and that is why they are so very important. And why, incidentally, the Doctor never revealed his own. It preserved his independence from Fate, and made him an unclassifiable enigma; which was an advantage in his line of work, as you will appreciate. I mean, supposing his real name had been... but no –
never mind! I digress again – and that’s tactless of me, when Priam was still speaking.
‘Now then, Cressida, you claim to come from the future?’
She nodded modestly. ‘So, presumably, you know everything that’s going to happen?’
‘Well, not absolutely everything, because, after all, I’m only quite young. There are lots of places and times I haven’t been to yet.’
‘Quite so. But on the other hand, I expect you know a good deal about this particular war we’re having at the moment? Or you’d hardly be here, would you, now?’
She considered the question. ‘Well to be honest, I only know what I’ve read. And I’m told a lot of that is only myth – nothing at all to do with what really happened.’
Confound the girl! My book is essentially true – although to be fair, I do embroider a bit here and there, for the sake of dramatic shape. Poetic licence, it’s called – but then, as I say, I hadn’t written it at the time; so I was as much in the dark as the rest of them.
‘Never mind,’ said Priam, the cunning old fox! ‘Look, Cressida – come along into the palace, and you can, I’m sure, give me some sort of indication of what to expect, a general outline of Greek strategy, as it were; and in any case, I expect you could do with something to eat?’
‘Thank you – yes, that would be very nice.’
‘Yes indeed,’ said Paris, ‘I haven’t had anything to eat since
–’ Priam turned on him impatiently: ‘You get back to the front.
If you haven’t killed Achilles by nightfall, I shall be very seriously displeased.’
‘Oh, very well,’ Paris agreed, gloomily, ‘but I really don’t see why Troilus shouldn’t go? More his sort of thing.’
‘Because you are now, Heaven help us all, my eldest son, and you must shoulder – I use the word loosely, of course – your responsibilities. And if, by any chance, Achilles should kill you , then Troilus will have two elder brothers to avenge – and will fight the better for it. Do you follow?
‘I do wish you’d both be quiet for a moment,’ sighed Priam,
‘Now, you mustn’t be frightened, child; you shall die when I say so, and not a moment before.’
‘That’s very comforting,’ said Vicki.
‘Good girl! There – you see? Neither of you has any idea how to handle children. It only needs a little patience and understanding. Now, tell me first of all – what is your name?’
‘Vicki,’ said Vicki.
‘Vicki?’ he repeated doubtfully. ‘That’s an outlandish sort of name, isn’t it?’
‘A heathen sort of name if you ask me!’ contributed his bouncing daughter.
‘Nobody did ask you, Cassandra! Well, I really don’t think we can call you Vicki – far too difficult to remember. No, we must think of another one for you. A Trojan type of name, that won’t arouse comment. What about... let me see – what about Cressida? I had a cousin called Cressida once – on my father’s side of the family. Always liked the sound of it. Would that suit you, do you think?’
‘It’s a very pretty name,’ said Vicki.
‘Very well, then – Cressida it shall be.’
‘Thank you,’ said Vicki, ‘that’s who I am, then.’ And from that instant she was lost forever, and at last found her proper place in Time and History! For we are the prisoners of our names, more than ever we are of what we imagine to be our destinies. They shape our lives, and mould our personalities, until we fit them. We are only what our names tell us to be, and that is why they are so very important. And why, incidentally, the Doctor never revealed his own. It preserved his independence from Fate, and made him an unclassifiable enigma; which was an advantage in his line of work, as you will appreciate. I mean, supposing his real name had been... but no –
never mind! I digress again – and that’s tactless of me, when Priam was still speaking.
‘Now then, Cressida, you claim to come from the future?’
She nodded modestly. ‘So, presumably, you know everything that’s going to happen?’
‘Well, not absolutely everything, because, after all, I’m only quite young. There are lots of places and times I haven’t been to yet.’
‘Quite so. But on the other hand, I expect you know a good deal about this particular war we’re having at the moment? Or you’d hardly be here, would you, now?’
She considered the question. ‘Well to be honest, I only know what I’ve read. And I’m told a lot of that is only myth – nothing at all to do with what really happened.’
Confound the girl! My book is essentially true – although to be fair, I do embroider a bit here and there, for the sake of dramatic shape. Poetic licence, it’s called – but then, as I say, I hadn’t written it at the time; so I was as much in the dark as the rest of them.
‘Never mind,’ said Priam, the cunning old fox! ‘Look, Cressida – come along into the palace, and you can, I’m sure, give me some sort of indication of what to expect, a general outline of Greek strategy, as it were; and in any case, I expect you could do with something to eat?’
‘Thank you – yes, that would be very nice.’
‘Yes indeed,’ said Paris, ‘I haven’t had anything to eat since
–’ Priam turned on him impatiently: ‘You get back to the front.
If you haven’t killed Achilles by nightfall, I shall be very seriously displeased.’
‘Oh, very well,’ Paris agreed, gloomily, ‘but I really don’t see why Troilus shouldn’t go? More his sort of thing.’
‘Because you are now, Heaven help us all, my eldest son, and you must shoulder – I use the word loosely, of course – your responsibilities. And if, by any chance, Achilles should kill you , then Troilus will have two elder brothers to avenge – and will fight the better for it. Do you follow?
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