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locker_monsterTitle: The Boy Who Waited (8/49)
Rating: PG
Characters: Rory, with appearances from Barbara
Timeline: set between "The Pandorica Opens" and "The Big Bang"
Summary: London, 1996. Barbara Wright prepares the Pandorica for exhibit at the National Museum. As the work unfolds, she recounts the lengthy history of the stone box and its loyal protector, the Lone Centurion.
Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to the BBC. Everything else is me taking liberties with history.
A/N: A huge thank you to my beta![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
punch_kicker15. This story would still be sitting on my hard drive if it weren't for you.
Antioch, 1119 A.D.
Surviving excerpts from the personal journal of Hugues de Payens (translated from the original Medieval French)
… bandits grow bolder with each passing day. The presence of my knights and I do nothing to deter them. Only yesterday we discovered the remains of a caravan of pilgrims, all brutally slaughtered for the few possessions they carried. We will have to be more vigilant…
… followed a group back to Antioch. We wait for night to fall to make our approach…
… bowed to our superior numbers. They had numerous treasures in their possessions and obscene amounts of gold stolen from helpless pilgrims. My knights had to exercise extreme restraint in the sight of such…
* * *
Rory stormed outside. It was perceptibly cooler now that the sun had set. Maybe the night air would do him some good and calm his temper. He wandered out into the courtyard of the bandits’ hideout and stared up at the empty night sky. He missed the constellations. Back in Leadworth, he and Amy used to lie out in a field outside of her house at night. He would trace out the shapes of the characters from their star formations and Amy would recount the tales of their heroics. Heracles. Perseus. Orion.
It was hard for Rory to take this place seriously. Every time he heard the name of the city, Antioch, all he could think about was the Holy Hand Grenade from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. That inevitably led to thoughts about killer bunnies. The first time he had laughed out loud, de Payens had been drafting a strategy to storm the bandits’ hideout and he regarded him with a perplexed expression. Rory had clamped his mouth shut and let the knight continue.
Back inside he could hear his fellow knights taking stock of the bandits’ holdings. There was so much gold but no way to return it to the rightful owners. Smaller collections they had found in the past had gone back to the Church, as the knights kept nothing for themselves, but Rory wasn’t sure if the Pope needed all of this money. He wanted to give the money to the less fortunate in Jerusalem. There were plenty who could have used the funds.
Footsteps sounded behind him and he glanced back over his shoulder. De Payens stood framed in the doorway of the dwelling and motioned to him to come inside. When Rory got closer, he saw that the knight’s mouth was set in a grim line.
“What is it, Hugues?” Rory’s French had improved vastly during his year with the knights, but he and de Payens had the habit of slipping back into Latin sometimes.
“One of the bandits wishes to speak with you.”
“With me?” Rory did stand out in his Roman armour, but that was the only outstanding thing about him. The realization came a second later. The bandit recognized him.
And if the bandit recognized him, he might know about the Pandorica.
“Show me,” demanded Rory.
There must have been something in his expression, perhaps a wide eye urgency, that invoked a frown from de Payens, but the knight didn’t say anything. He simply led Rory to the main room where they had the bandits tied up. Two bodies were in the corner, both covered up, but four bandits remained, each bruised and bleeding from the fight.
One bandit in the middle looked up hopefully when Rory entered the room. That was his man. He looked slightly older than the others, with a wrinkled lined face, but that might have been a result of toiling out in the sun. During the fight he must have been hit in the face. His nose was swollen and blood had dried in the dark hairs of his beard.
Rory strode over, flinging aside his cape to reveal the sword at his hip. The bandit swallowed nervously as he came up in front of him. He thought of remaining standing, so he towered over the bandit, but he sensed that the others in the room were all watching him. De Payens’ frown came back to him and another, older memory, too; his swearing of the Knights Templar oath. They were knights, but they weren’t ruthless.
Rory squatted down, his armour clacking and groaning with his movements. He was eye to eye with the bandit now, but the man still regarded him with an air of uncertainty. “You wanted to speak with me?” He spoke calmly in French, but with authority.
The bandit mumbled something, but Rory didn’t catch what he said. He looked to de Payens, who stood behind the bandits.
“He spoke French to me,” de Payens said in Latin.
With a sigh, Rory tried again. “Did you want to tell me something?” he asked, his tone more fierce.
The bandit muttered again. This time, Rory heard something familiar. “Alone? You want to talk to me alone?” There was a vague nod from the bandit.
“Centurion.” It didn’t matter which language de Payens used. The concern in his voice was obvious to everyone.
“I will be fine,” Rory assured him. He looked around at his fellow knights and conveyed his reassurance in a look. The other knights, unconvinced, looked to their leader.
Rory walked a fine line with de Payens when it came to command decisions. The man was his leader, but Rory was also more than your average knight. When it came down to it, he was a thousand years older than de Payens and more than capable of making his own choices.
De Payens spoke, but reluctantly. “All right. We will be in the courtyard.” He seemed resigned to the fact that Rory wouldn’t be backing down anytime soon. If he hadn’t been trying to put on a tough face to intimidate the bandit, Rory would have thanked de Payens.
The knights trooped out with their captive bandits. Rory watched them leave and when they were outside, he turned back to the bandit before him. “Well? Speak your mind.”
The bandit had his head down. “The Pandorica…” he whispered.
For a normal person, the bandit’s hushed tones might have been inaudible, but Rory had excellent hearing. Had he a pulse, it would have been racing right now. “Do you know where it is?”
The bandit slowly looked up and right then, Rory knew he had been a complete idiot.
A wicked grin cut across the bandit’s face. In the blink of an eye, his hands were free and he leapt up and shoved Rory back into the wall. The blow didn’t do much to disorient Rory and he raised his arm to punch the bandit in his already bloodied nose.
A blade flashed in the bandit’s hand and it was driven up into Rory’s armpit. There was enough force behind the strike that the knife pierced through Rory’s armour and continued into the wall, pinning him there. The bandit twisted the knife, digging in the blade a bit further. Rory grit his teeth, muffling his grunt of pain.
“You will not find the Pandorica,” the bandit hissed into his ear. His breath was hot on Rory’s skin. “My master keeps it hidden.”
“Yeah, that’s great,” Rory muttered in English.
Then he drove his knee into the bandit’s crotch.
The bandit yelped like a little girl, but unlike in comedies, he didn’t fall over. To give him some encouragement in that department, Rory slammed his forehead against the bandit’s, delivering a quick head butt. He barely felt a thing, thanks to his helmet, but the bandit’s eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed into a pile of limp limbs.
The bandit’s shout had not gone amiss by the other Knights Templar. De Payens rushed in with half of their force trailing behind him, their swords drawn. Rory grimaced, and not just from the pain racing down his side.
“Hello,” he greeted, waving at them with his not pinned arm. “Everything is fine, really.”
One of the younger knights coughed politely into his gauntlet.
De Payens re-sheathed his sword. He didn’t look amused, but Rory saw a smile lurking in the depths of his gaze. “Tie him up with the others.” He nudged the unconscious bandit with the toe of his boot. “And check him for weapons this time.” The other knights dragged him out of the room.
When de Payens looked back, Rory tried to appear as casual as possible. You might have thought he was lazily leaning back against the wall if not for the knife sticking out of him.
The corners of de Payens’ mouth twitched, but he didn’t break out in a full blown smile. “Are you gravely injured?” he asked, stepping up to examine the damage.
“It is just a flesh wound,” replied Rory, unable to help himself.
De Payens stepped back. “I will have to pull out the knife.” He seemed apologetic even though none of this had been his fault. A less kind man might have lectured him about discretion while still stuck to the wall.
Rory braced himself. “Do it.”
De Payens gripped the hilt of the knife. Someone from the 21st century might have counted to three. Rory was glad he didn’t. De Payens yanked out the knife without any warning and Rory allowed himself a full bodied cry of agony. Now free, he slid down to the floor and waited for the pain to pass. While he could be hurt, he was lucky that he couldn’t be incapacitated for long.
With his good arm, he probed the area of the wound. There was, for a lack of a better word, a hole. He could poke his finger it in and follow the trajectory of the knife blade. He didn’t feel any muscle, or bone, or anything. Just empty space. He was like a shop window dummy. Solid plastic.
De Payens crouched down next to him. “Do you require a doctor?”
Rory eyed the knife still held in the knight’s hand. It must have been unnaturally sharp to have punched through his armour. The bandit had also been smart enough to exploit one of the weak points of its design. “I will be fine.” He’d need help closing the wound, though.
“Did he tell you anything?” De Payens stood up. He gripped Rory’s good arm and helped him to his feet.
“He did, actually.” Rory tentatively moved his injured arm and found he still had good mobility. “He said the Pandorica is hidden by his master.”
“His master?” De Payens tugged thoughtfully on his beard. “I never thought that these bandits might be part of a larger organization.”
That was a disturbing thought. Rory had always thought that the bandits were just separate groups of greedy thieves praying on foreigners unfamiliar with the territory. He didn’t want to know that they were all taking orders from a single person.
“Are you certain you are all right?” de Payens asked him as they headed back to the courtyard.
Rory was cradling his injured arm close to his chest, but he was sure that wasn’t what the knight was talking about. “It could have been worse.” He should have listened to de Payens’ warning. Had a few knights stayed in the room, he could have avoided a knife in the arm.
“Centurion.” De Payens stopped him before he entered the courtyard. “At least now you know the Pandorica is still in the Holy Land.”
“A bright side to everything?” Rory had learned early on that de Payens was an eternal optimist. It seemed to stem from his steadfast faith in God.
“You could have easily given up on this search long ago, but you honour your oath no matter what. I always admired your loyalty as a child,” added de Payens, slightly sheepishly.
“As a child?” Rory had just assumed that de Payens was a well-read man. He hadn’t figured that the man’s familiarity with him could be traced back to childhood.
“The first Latin composition I ever read was about you. De Fideli.”
With Faithfulness. Rory knew it well. The poem wasn’t about him per se, but it was about a soldier’s unwavering commitment to the cause.
De Payens was right. At least now it was confirmed that the Pandorica hadn’t left the Crusader States. Their search wouldn’t be so fruitless after all.
Rating: PG
Characters: Rory, with appearances from Barbara
Timeline: set between "The Pandorica Opens" and "The Big Bang"
Summary: London, 1996. Barbara Wright prepares the Pandorica for exhibit at the National Museum. As the work unfolds, she recounts the lengthy history of the stone box and its loyal protector, the Lone Centurion.
Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to the BBC. Everything else is me taking liberties with history.
A/N: A huge thank you to my beta
punch_kicker15. This story would still be sitting on my hard drive if it weren't for you.1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49
Antioch, 1119 A.D.
Surviving excerpts from the personal journal of Hugues de Payens (translated from the original Medieval French)
… bandits grow bolder with each passing day. The presence of my knights and I do nothing to deter them. Only yesterday we discovered the remains of a caravan of pilgrims, all brutally slaughtered for the few possessions they carried. We will have to be more vigilant…
… followed a group back to Antioch. We wait for night to fall to make our approach…
… bowed to our superior numbers. They had numerous treasures in their possessions and obscene amounts of gold stolen from helpless pilgrims. My knights had to exercise extreme restraint in the sight of such…
* * *
Rory stormed outside. It was perceptibly cooler now that the sun had set. Maybe the night air would do him some good and calm his temper. He wandered out into the courtyard of the bandits’ hideout and stared up at the empty night sky. He missed the constellations. Back in Leadworth, he and Amy used to lie out in a field outside of her house at night. He would trace out the shapes of the characters from their star formations and Amy would recount the tales of their heroics. Heracles. Perseus. Orion.
It was hard for Rory to take this place seriously. Every time he heard the name of the city, Antioch, all he could think about was the Holy Hand Grenade from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. That inevitably led to thoughts about killer bunnies. The first time he had laughed out loud, de Payens had been drafting a strategy to storm the bandits’ hideout and he regarded him with a perplexed expression. Rory had clamped his mouth shut and let the knight continue.
Back inside he could hear his fellow knights taking stock of the bandits’ holdings. There was so much gold but no way to return it to the rightful owners. Smaller collections they had found in the past had gone back to the Church, as the knights kept nothing for themselves, but Rory wasn’t sure if the Pope needed all of this money. He wanted to give the money to the less fortunate in Jerusalem. There were plenty who could have used the funds.
Footsteps sounded behind him and he glanced back over his shoulder. De Payens stood framed in the doorway of the dwelling and motioned to him to come inside. When Rory got closer, he saw that the knight’s mouth was set in a grim line.
“What is it, Hugues?” Rory’s French had improved vastly during his year with the knights, but he and de Payens had the habit of slipping back into Latin sometimes.
“One of the bandits wishes to speak with you.”
“With me?” Rory did stand out in his Roman armour, but that was the only outstanding thing about him. The realization came a second later. The bandit recognized him.
And if the bandit recognized him, he might know about the Pandorica.
“Show me,” demanded Rory.
There must have been something in his expression, perhaps a wide eye urgency, that invoked a frown from de Payens, but the knight didn’t say anything. He simply led Rory to the main room where they had the bandits tied up. Two bodies were in the corner, both covered up, but four bandits remained, each bruised and bleeding from the fight.
One bandit in the middle looked up hopefully when Rory entered the room. That was his man. He looked slightly older than the others, with a wrinkled lined face, but that might have been a result of toiling out in the sun. During the fight he must have been hit in the face. His nose was swollen and blood had dried in the dark hairs of his beard.
Rory strode over, flinging aside his cape to reveal the sword at his hip. The bandit swallowed nervously as he came up in front of him. He thought of remaining standing, so he towered over the bandit, but he sensed that the others in the room were all watching him. De Payens’ frown came back to him and another, older memory, too; his swearing of the Knights Templar oath. They were knights, but they weren’t ruthless.
Rory squatted down, his armour clacking and groaning with his movements. He was eye to eye with the bandit now, but the man still regarded him with an air of uncertainty. “You wanted to speak with me?” He spoke calmly in French, but with authority.
The bandit mumbled something, but Rory didn’t catch what he said. He looked to de Payens, who stood behind the bandits.
“He spoke French to me,” de Payens said in Latin.
With a sigh, Rory tried again. “Did you want to tell me something?” he asked, his tone more fierce.
The bandit muttered again. This time, Rory heard something familiar. “Alone? You want to talk to me alone?” There was a vague nod from the bandit.
“Centurion.” It didn’t matter which language de Payens used. The concern in his voice was obvious to everyone.
“I will be fine,” Rory assured him. He looked around at his fellow knights and conveyed his reassurance in a look. The other knights, unconvinced, looked to their leader.
Rory walked a fine line with de Payens when it came to command decisions. The man was his leader, but Rory was also more than your average knight. When it came down to it, he was a thousand years older than de Payens and more than capable of making his own choices.
De Payens spoke, but reluctantly. “All right. We will be in the courtyard.” He seemed resigned to the fact that Rory wouldn’t be backing down anytime soon. If he hadn’t been trying to put on a tough face to intimidate the bandit, Rory would have thanked de Payens.
The knights trooped out with their captive bandits. Rory watched them leave and when they were outside, he turned back to the bandit before him. “Well? Speak your mind.”
The bandit had his head down. “The Pandorica…” he whispered.
For a normal person, the bandit’s hushed tones might have been inaudible, but Rory had excellent hearing. Had he a pulse, it would have been racing right now. “Do you know where it is?”
The bandit slowly looked up and right then, Rory knew he had been a complete idiot.
A wicked grin cut across the bandit’s face. In the blink of an eye, his hands were free and he leapt up and shoved Rory back into the wall. The blow didn’t do much to disorient Rory and he raised his arm to punch the bandit in his already bloodied nose.
A blade flashed in the bandit’s hand and it was driven up into Rory’s armpit. There was enough force behind the strike that the knife pierced through Rory’s armour and continued into the wall, pinning him there. The bandit twisted the knife, digging in the blade a bit further. Rory grit his teeth, muffling his grunt of pain.
“You will not find the Pandorica,” the bandit hissed into his ear. His breath was hot on Rory’s skin. “My master keeps it hidden.”
“Yeah, that’s great,” Rory muttered in English.
Then he drove his knee into the bandit’s crotch.
The bandit yelped like a little girl, but unlike in comedies, he didn’t fall over. To give him some encouragement in that department, Rory slammed his forehead against the bandit’s, delivering a quick head butt. He barely felt a thing, thanks to his helmet, but the bandit’s eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed into a pile of limp limbs.
The bandit’s shout had not gone amiss by the other Knights Templar. De Payens rushed in with half of their force trailing behind him, their swords drawn. Rory grimaced, and not just from the pain racing down his side.
“Hello,” he greeted, waving at them with his not pinned arm. “Everything is fine, really.”
One of the younger knights coughed politely into his gauntlet.
De Payens re-sheathed his sword. He didn’t look amused, but Rory saw a smile lurking in the depths of his gaze. “Tie him up with the others.” He nudged the unconscious bandit with the toe of his boot. “And check him for weapons this time.” The other knights dragged him out of the room.
When de Payens looked back, Rory tried to appear as casual as possible. You might have thought he was lazily leaning back against the wall if not for the knife sticking out of him.
The corners of de Payens’ mouth twitched, but he didn’t break out in a full blown smile. “Are you gravely injured?” he asked, stepping up to examine the damage.
“It is just a flesh wound,” replied Rory, unable to help himself.
De Payens stepped back. “I will have to pull out the knife.” He seemed apologetic even though none of this had been his fault. A less kind man might have lectured him about discretion while still stuck to the wall.
Rory braced himself. “Do it.”
De Payens gripped the hilt of the knife. Someone from the 21st century might have counted to three. Rory was glad he didn’t. De Payens yanked out the knife without any warning and Rory allowed himself a full bodied cry of agony. Now free, he slid down to the floor and waited for the pain to pass. While he could be hurt, he was lucky that he couldn’t be incapacitated for long.
With his good arm, he probed the area of the wound. There was, for a lack of a better word, a hole. He could poke his finger it in and follow the trajectory of the knife blade. He didn’t feel any muscle, or bone, or anything. Just empty space. He was like a shop window dummy. Solid plastic.
De Payens crouched down next to him. “Do you require a doctor?”
Rory eyed the knife still held in the knight’s hand. It must have been unnaturally sharp to have punched through his armour. The bandit had also been smart enough to exploit one of the weak points of its design. “I will be fine.” He’d need help closing the wound, though.
“Did he tell you anything?” De Payens stood up. He gripped Rory’s good arm and helped him to his feet.
“He did, actually.” Rory tentatively moved his injured arm and found he still had good mobility. “He said the Pandorica is hidden by his master.”
“His master?” De Payens tugged thoughtfully on his beard. “I never thought that these bandits might be part of a larger organization.”
That was a disturbing thought. Rory had always thought that the bandits were just separate groups of greedy thieves praying on foreigners unfamiliar with the territory. He didn’t want to know that they were all taking orders from a single person.
“Are you certain you are all right?” de Payens asked him as they headed back to the courtyard.
Rory was cradling his injured arm close to his chest, but he was sure that wasn’t what the knight was talking about. “It could have been worse.” He should have listened to de Payens’ warning. Had a few knights stayed in the room, he could have avoided a knife in the arm.
“Centurion.” De Payens stopped him before he entered the courtyard. “At least now you know the Pandorica is still in the Holy Land.”
“A bright side to everything?” Rory had learned early on that de Payens was an eternal optimist. It seemed to stem from his steadfast faith in God.
“You could have easily given up on this search long ago, but you honour your oath no matter what. I always admired your loyalty as a child,” added de Payens, slightly sheepishly.
“As a child?” Rory had just assumed that de Payens was a well-read man. He hadn’t figured that the man’s familiarity with him could be traced back to childhood.
“The first Latin composition I ever read was about you. De Fideli.”
With Faithfulness. Rory knew it well. The poem wasn’t about him per se, but it was about a soldier’s unwavering commitment to the cause.
De Payens was right. At least now it was confirmed that the Pandorica hadn’t left the Crusader States. Their search wouldn’t be so fruitless after all.
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Date: 2013-05-13 08:24 pm (UTC)WOW.
This became my headcanon a few chapters back, but...
WOW.
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Date: 2013-05-14 11:29 pm (UTC)My favourite chapters are further along, but I have a nice graphic that lays out what's to come. I'll post it at some point.