The Adventuress of Henrietta Street by Lawrence Miles

Author:Lawrence Miles [Miles, Lawrence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Science Fiction, Space Opera, London (England), Doctor Who (Fictitious Character)
ISBN: 9780563538424
Publisher: BBC
Published: 2001-11-14T08:00:00+00:00

Shortly thereafter, Lisa-Beth left Scarlette to head back to the TARDIS alone.

She had business to attend to at the tavern.

Much later that morning, Lisa-Beth was awoken from her sleep at the stroke of eleven. She’d imbibed some quantity of alcohol herself, so in the end it was only the throbbing of the Church’s bells that roused her. She woke to find that

‘I had been reimbursed for my night’s labours’, but for once the money wasn’t the first thing on her mind.

Outside the boarding-house, in the rapidly-emptying streets of the harbour-town, the bell was still chiming. It was the day of the wedding, and the guests were being called to the ceremony.

CALVARY

If the meetings in the Church had been masquerades, then this was the carnival.

There were ten horses, all of which had presumably been acquired from the islanders, and all of which made their way through the town’s streets towards the Church as the bell tolled. If the onlookers hadn’t been scurrying for cover, they might have once again wondered how this could possibly have been a celebration. It looked more like a scene from the Revelation, ten monstrous horsemen and horsewomen making their way to the place of final judgement.

The horses were big, muscular, powerful: most of the guests had tried to make sure that their own mounts were more impressive than the others. Each one 201

was ridden by a single figure, the majority of the attendees hidden by their chosen masks, although on this day they’d gone out of their way to make an impression. They came in robes of a hundred different colours, they came in clothes embroidered with silver and gold, they came as if they were the three magi following the star. Their faces were the faces of animals, of characters from the Commedia del Arte, or in some cases of creatures which didn’t have faces at all. A skeleton; a medieval Devil; a white-faced harlot with red-painted cheeks; a snouted beast with the tusks of a boar and the red eyes of a Russian bear. Even Mr Van Burgh came masked this time, although nobody could quite understand what his mask was supposed to be, and the only one present who ignored the masquerade was the elder Mayakai. Unable to ride unaided, her servants had provided for her something akin to a small version of an Indian pagoda, which had been mounted on the back of an enormous workhorse. The servants walked at her side, as most servants did.

One way or another, all thirteen of the parties who’d been invited had come, although for one reason or another three of them didn’t arrive on horseback.

In the procession through the town, a hurriedly-dressed Lisa-Beth stood in (ironically) as representative of the Hellfire Set on Scarlette’s behalf, while Katya walked by the side of the Russian delegate, on the orders of the Empress herself. As the horses headed up the slope of the hill towards the Church, only one guest was truly absent. There was no sign

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