‘Ah,’ Rossi grinned. ‘Well, you see, somewhere in this area an entire Dukedom vanished. A whole town with a castle and everything was based around here, or in the hills or somewhere in the vicinity of that lake beyond the orange groves. I’m trying to find its borders.’

‘How do we know?’ Sean asked as the kettle boiled.

‘It’s in the records in the library,’ Tonio said in good but heavily accented English.

Jayne and Ben stared at Tonio in mute shock – and slight horror.

He grinned. ‘Oh right, you both thought I didn’t understand English,’ he laughed, a deep bellowing laugh.

So did Professor Rossi. ‘Now that,’ he said, ‘is funny.

 

Did neither of you realise?’

Dumbly, they both shook their heads as Sean busied himself with the tea, determined not to catch their eyes.

‘But that means…’ Jayne started.

‘Everything we’ve said…’ added Ben.

‘About you…’ Jayne again.

‘You… you heard… Oh God… kill me now…’ Ben put his sieve down and sat hard on the ground.

Tonio tousled Ben’s dark hair and winked at him, before throwing a look to Jayne. ‘Sorry, you lose.’

‘Course I do,’ Jayne said. ‘When does life ever go Jayne Greene’s way?’

The laptop bleeped and, leaving the students to sort out the tea and Tonio’s confession, Professor Rossi accessed his emails in response. Nothing from the Bursar, but there was one message:

From: Madam Delphi

To: [email protected] Subject: SAN MARTINO

Professor Rossi

My congratulations, you have rediscovered your heritage, and you are indeed in San Martino, just as you hoped. Click on this link to be taken to my site for more information about this delightful Italianate kingdom and its secrets.

The Professor was about to call the students over, but thought it would be better to check that this wasn’t a hoax.

(Although how did anyone know they were searching for

San Martino? He hadn’t even told the students the name of the kingdom). So he clicked the hotlink.

Instead of a new webpage, the screen was instantly filled with a pulsating ball of bright white light, highlighted with lilac edges and spirals.

Instinctively he let his hand reach forward to touch the screen… to go into the screen, to go through the screen…

as if his right hand was being consumed by the transfixing ball of energy.

Then he withdrew his hand, and looked at it.

Crackling around the fingertips were the vestiges of purple pulses of energy, like tiny flickers of raw electrical power. He turned his hand over, studying the little pulses until they seemed to vanish for good, absorbed into his skin. He rubbed his fingers together, and then looked back at the screen. It just displayed Sean’s eBay victory again.

The Professor stood up and turned to face his students and held his arms out, hands flat. ‘We’ve done it,’ he breathed.

Instantly distracted from their own petty concerns, the four young people walked over, Jayne and Sean taking an offered hand each, excitedly returning the gesture, if unsure what they were celebrating.

After a second, they wordlessly released the Professor’s hands, and Rossi then grabbed Ben and Tonio’s hands. And they in turn took Sean and Jayne’s, the five now forming a circle.

In unison, they all raised their linked hands into the air, purple electricity building and crackling around them.

The others followed the direction of his gaze as the

Professor looked up into the sky.

‘Welcome back,’ he said quietly.

Dinner was subdued in the Noble household.

Sylvia silently put food on plates. Donna silently passed the plates from the work surface to the dining table. Wilf silently poured water into tumblers – three matching ones from a petrol station, and a larger one with Donald Duck on it. The Doctor had that.

The Doctor sat there, uncomfortable with domesticity at the best of times, utterly ill at ease right now.

‘Dubai?’ Sylvia said, suddenly sitting up.

The Doctor shot a look at Donna – what was he supposed to say?

‘With the horses,’ Wilf helpfully prodded.

‘Horses?’ The Doctor was like a rabbit caught in headlights. ‘Horses. Yes, marvellous things.’

‘The Sheikh of Dubai put us up for a couple of weeks,’

Donna interjected. ‘ Didn’t he?’

Sylvia started eating. Something cheese-y and macaroni-y the Doctor had guessed, but he wasn’t quite sure. Something that looked like this had once tried to bite off his toes on the coast of Kal-Durunt in the Keripedes Cluster.

He gently eased his fork into it.

‘I’m sorry it’s not as posh as what you get in Dubai, with horses and sheikhs,’ Sylvia said. ‘But I had no notice from either of you that you were coming.’

‘Oh, well, we couldn’t have Donna missing today,’ the Doctor said brightly. Too brightly. Wrong occasion for

Tigger-Doctor, better to be Eeyore-Doctor tonight.

‘I thought the Emirates were run by emirs, not sheikhs,’

Sylvia said, pouring herself more water. ‘But what do I know? I just sit here every day, waiting for people to turn up out of the blue, expecting to be fed.’

The Doctor just threw a look at Donna that he thought said ‘help’ but Donna clearly took to mean ‘no, it’s OK, ignore me, oh and right now would be the time to pick a really good fight with your mum’.

So Donna did.

‘What is your problem, Mum? Most people would kill to have family around them.’

Wilf tried to intervene, but Donna was going off on one now.

‘I mean, Mooky goes away for two weeks, her parents throw a bloody party to celebrate her return. And all she’s done is go shopping in Glasgow. I get to see the gala-well, to see the world, things I never thought I’d get the chance to do, and all I get is moans.’

Sylvia didn’t look up from her food. ‘Yeah, but they probably knew where Mooky was. All I know is when your granddad there bothers to say he had a postcard. And I’m never allowed to read them, oh no.’

Donna was going to chastise Wilf for that when she remembered that said postcards were usually sent from another star system entirely.

‘OK, Mum, I’ll start sending you postcards too.

Promise.’

‘Oh it’s not just that,’ Sylvia said. ‘It’s the whole life I have. Your dad’s gone, you’ve gone, and I’m stuck here as

nursemaid for your granddad’s bit on the side.’

Donna opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again.

Then, as that comment sank in, her mouth opened again, but still no sound came out.

‘Bit on the side?’ the Doctor asked Wilf.

Wilf glowered at Sylvia. ‘She’s a friend,’ he said. ‘I’m not gonna marry her.’

‘I should hope not,’ Sylvia said. ‘Mum would turn in her grave.’

‘Ahhh, so that’s what it’s all about,’ Wilf sighed. ‘You think Eileen wouldn’t approve. You think somehow me seeing a poor, sick old lady would make Eileen sad. Well, you’re wrong. She was your mother, but she was my wife.

I knew her better than that.’

The Doctor remembered why he didn’t ‘do’ families.

‘Lovely macaroni cheese, Mrs Noble,’ he said, stuffing his mouth. ‘Mmmmm…’

‘It’s mushroom raclette,’ she snapped.

‘Not macaroni?’

‘Mushroom.’

‘It’s… great… very cheesy. And…’