Brother Ignatius stared at Ward. His eyes were like the glass eyes of a doll. His bag sat between them; Ward's eyes were constantly drawn to it.

"He will not speak himself," Tamerlane continued, "for he has taken a vow of silence. You have only to answer my questions honestly and in full. You will not ask questions of me. Let's start with an easy one. What is your name?"

"George Orwell." It was the name he had given the prison clerk when he was brought in.

"Very well, George. Now, a slightly more difficult question. How is it that you found yourself in the Catacombs?"

"Catacombs?"

Tamerlane turned to Brother Ignatius and nodded. The Doctor opened the bag, his pale, spindly fingers working at the clasp like a spider wrapping a fly. He took out a pair of rubber gloves and pulled them on.

"I ran into the Temple to hide," Ward said quickly. "I forgot you can't go in there."

"Hide from whom?" Tamerlane said.

The Doctor put a syringe on the table. Then, one by one, three glass vials. The liquids inside were white, red, and black respectively. Then a jar of what looked like water.

"The Reds," Ward said.

"Why would you be hiding from the Reds?"

"They'd arrest me."

"On what charge?"

Ward thought quickly. "Homelessness."

The Doctor put a pair of needle-nosed pliers on the table beside the syringe.

Tamerlane nodded. "It's true that vagrancy is an arrestable offence. How is it that you came to be homeless?"

"My parents are dead."

The Doctor laid a very small knife beside the pliers. Its blade had been sharpened so many times that it was a strange, crescent moon shape. Its point was a needle.

"Who were your parents?" Tamerlane said.

"I - I don't know. They were executed when I was a baby."

Tamerlane rubbed his chin with one great, soft hand. He appeared to be giving serious consideration to what he had been told.

The Doctor had finished unpacking the bag, and his disquieting eyes had settled on Ward again.

"In my experience," Tamerlane said, "when someone is too forward with their story, it's almost certainly a lie."

"I'm not lying."

"We shall have to test this. Ignatius?"

The Doctor picked up the syringe and the vial of pearlescent white liquid from the table. He pushed the needle through the thin rubber membrane that sealed the vial, puncturing it, then drew the contents up into the syringe. It made a tiny sucking sound as it drank up the last of the residue from the vial. The Doctor came around the table holding the syringe up in one gloved hand.

Ward instinctively backed up against the door. "What are you going to do?" he said, forgetting that the Doctor couldn't talk.

"Just a sedative," Tamerlane said. "It will calm you."

The Doctor's pale head shone in the lamplight. His eyes stared emptily into Ward's. There was a vinegary smell about him, as if he had been pickled.

Ward had never been injected before. Was the Doctor really going to plunge that thing into his body?

A hand clamped over his wrist. He had expected the doctor's touch to be limp and clammy, but it was surprisingly strong. He tensed and looked away, feeling only a slight point of pressure in the crook of his elbow, followed by a red dot of pain, which turned quickly into a dull ache. He didn't feel the needle being removed.

The Doctor released him and moved back to the table. Ward rubbed the aching spot on his arm and watched as the Doctor flushed out the needle in the jar that looked like it contained water. He squirted the water out of the syringe onto the floor, in the direction of the drain, then lay it back on the table, in the exact position it had been in before.

Ward didn't feel any different. Perhaps his headache had subsided a little, but that was all.

After a minute or two of silence had passed, the Doctor and Tamerlane exchanged a look. Tamerlane nodded. The Doctor came over to Ward and led him to the chair. Ward didn't resist. Either the Doctor was too strong or Ward was too weak. His arms and legs complied. He had trouble keeping his head raised – his chin kept lolling down onto his collarbone. Distantly he felt the hard surface of the chair beneath his buttocks, distantly he heard the manacles snap closed over his wrists and ankles, distantly came the thought that he should be preventing this, but it seemed just a suggestion, and anyway he was so tired. The doctor lifted Ward's chin and buckled the leather collar around his neck. He slipped two fingers under the collar to ensure that Ward's breathing was not constricted. For this Ward felt oddly grateful. A knot of black fear niggled at his consciousness, but it seemed unable to rise to the surface of his perception. What he wanted, more than anything, was to fall into a long, dreamless sleep.

The next chapter contains horror. If you're easily scared, um... harden up or something.