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gone.
    She dived around the corner of a barn, and stopped. She was gasping for breath and leaned against the barn wall for support, beside its open doorway. The bricks, warmed by the sun, burned against her back.
    Tegan pressed the handbag against her forehead to feel its coolness, but no sooner had she done so him it was roughly snatched out of her fingers, and with a shock she saw a hand disappear with it into the barn.
    She thrust herself off the wall and into the doorway, but the deep shadow inside made her pause. It looked solid as a wall, black and still – she could see nothing in there ‘What are you doing?’ she shouted. The shadows soaked up her voice like blotting paper. ‘Give me that back!’ she called again.
    Taking a deep breath, she stepped forward into the velvet darkness. It wrapped itself around her like a cloak.
    After the glare outside it took a moment or two for Tegan’s eyes to grow accustomed to the gloom. Then she saw a floor stretching away into even deeper shadow, littered with farm produce, implements, sacks and bales of hay. A rope hung from a hook on the wall and a rickety wooden staircase led up to a dark gallery above.
    Everything was still. There was no sound, and no sign of the person who had snatched her handbag. He had simply disappeared. Unless... Tegan approached the stairs. The thief might be above her head at this moment, crouching up there in the dark gallery, waiting quietly for her to give up. But Tegan was not about to give up – she decided she had been pushed around enough for one day.
    It was a basic fact of Tegan’s nature that her emotions sometimes drove her to take risks. That was part of her courage. Now her frustration and anger were coming to a dangerous head and she was quite prepared to venture where others would fear to tread: with a glance at the inky blackness above, and knowing full well that there was probably something nasty up there waiting fine her, she began to climb the steps.
    But when she was only part way up the staircase the big door of the barn slammed shut with a bang like a cannon going off. Now she was enclosed in total darkness. The noise set her nerves tingling, and now that the light from the doorway had been cut off she felt a sensation of claustrophobia so choking that she was forced to turn and hurry back down the steps towards the door.
    She felt as if the barn, like those great dark beasts in nightmares, had opened its arms to envelop her. She had to get out fast, or be swallowed up.
    In his Cavalier clothes Sir George Hutchinson looked like a brilliantly plumed bird as he swept into Ben Wolsey’s parlour. What he saw – his Sergeant pointing a pistol into the eyes of a stranger – displeased him, for it implied unlooked-for complications when there were already enough matters of overwhelming importance to be dealt with.
    ‘What’s this?’ he growled.
    Without taking his eyes from the Doctor, Willow explained, ‘He tried to escape, sir.’
     
    With a gesture of impatience Sir George pushed down Willow’s arm. ‘But he isn’t a prisoner, Sergeant Willow.’
    He kept his voice mild and friendly, for the stranger’s benefit. ‘You must treat visitors with more respect.’
    Surprised by his Commander’s attitude, Willow lowered the pistol. Sir George smiled placatingly at the Doctor, then turned away to glance at Wolsey and find somewhere to lay his hat. The Doctor, no longer under immediate threat, felt encouraged to speak to the new arrival: Sir George was only too obviously involved in these War Games, and he also seemed to be in control around here.
    ‘What is going on?’ he demanded, like Sir George keeping as civil a tone as he could manage.
    Sir George spun round. His eyes glowed. ‘A celebration!’ he cried. His expression displayed pleasure and triumph and his voice an eager, tense excitement. He moved close to the Doctor, almost alight with anticipation, like a firework about to go off. ‘On the thirteenth of