Doctor Who and the Empire of Glass | Page 9

lights of Venice glimmering on the water had seemed to Steven to be receding just as fast as he rowed, but now, as he looked over his shoulder he saw a long stone embankment with low wooden piers projecting from it into the water. Flaming torches on poles lit up a large square, thronged with people. He was too tired to care.
"What is this place, Doctor?" Vicki asked. "A strange little republic," the Doctor replied, "that lasted for several thousand years with little more than superficial change. The city was originally founded by refugees from the Roman mainland who were fleeing the various and frequent invasions by Goths, Huns, Avars, Herulians and Lombards -"
"I didn't know that there were any attempted alien invasions this early in Earth's history," Vicki said, frowning.
"They weren't aliens, child," the Doctor said reprovingly, "they were tribes. Dear, dear; your knowledge of your own history is sadly lacking! They were savage, rapacious tribes. The refugees fled their depredations and settled here in the lagoon, on the many islands and sandbanks. They built houses on wooden piles driven deep into the mud of the lagoon. Gradually they linked those houses by paths and by bridges. That was over a thousand years ago. Now they have a city built on wood and mud. Just wood and mud. Imagine that!" he cackled.
Steven found that he could. Only too well, in fact. He had just spent a chunk of his life imprisoned in one city on stilts, and the last thing he wanted to do was visit another. He still had nightmares about the Mechanoid city crashing in flames to the jungle floor, the sound of its supporting struts snapping echoing like cannon fire through the night air. And what had the Doctor said earlier on about Venice sinking some time in the future? Just how far in the future? he wondered.
He glanced again over his shoulder, half-expecting to see the entire city slide beneath the waters of the lagoon, then he shrugged. If it happened, it happened. There was nothing he could do about it. Turning his back on the city, he continued rowing.
The Doctor was still telling Vicki about the history of Venice, and how the city had made itself into the most important trading centre in Europe, but Steven found his attention slipping. The island behind them had long since vanished into the mist and the darkness, and the moon glittered on their wake like a thousand watching eyes. The noise of shouting and laughter from Venice itself, somewhere just over Steven's shoulder, blended into a hypnotic murmur, and Steven realized that for several minutes his eyes had been fixed on a log, drifting along behind the dinghy. It was just a darker spot against the waves, but it was the only point of interest in the ever-changing, ever-similar backdrop of the waves. In his half-hypnotized state, he could almost imagine that it was the head of something swimming behind them, following them from island to island.
And then it vanished abruptly beneath the waves, almost as if it had realized Steven had seen it.
The hubbub in the Tavern of St Theodore and of the Crocodile almost deafened Galileo as he carried his flagon of Bardolino wine away from the bar and towards an unoccupied bench. The place was large and sprawled over several rooms connected by low doorways. It was popular with the local gondoliers, and he had to detour around large groups of them as they argued raucously, scuffled affably, fell over drunkenly and generally comported themselves in the ebullient Venetian manner that he had come to know well.
Venice, city of opposites: mystery and misery; excess and penury; hard marble and soft water. No matter how often he visited, he was never sure whether he loved it or hated it.
Galileo took a long swig from the flagon, and almost choked. The wine was sour and left a bitter aftertaste in his mouth; he kept forgetting how bad the wine was here compared to home. It was evidence of God's wit that when he was in Padua he wished he was in Venice, and when he was in Venice he wished he was in Padua. When he was in Rome, of course, he couldn't decide where he wanted to be, so long, of course, as he didn't have to be in Rome.
His thoughts turned to Marina. Fiery, lusty Marina. Although they had been together for ten years, and she had borne his children, they had never married. Even the notoriously easygoing Venetian authorities would have drawn the line at the Professor of Mathematics at Padua University marrying a common strumpet, and his mother would have died of shame! He hadn't been faithful to Marina - she had never expected him to be - but he loved her