After supper, The Doctor called the three boys to the drawing room together. He looked at them carefully. Peter and Garrick were often taken to be twins. The year between them, to say nothing of their tangled family tree made less difference as they got older, and they were inseparable in school or play time.

The Ninth Child looked like them at a glance. After a couple of showers had rinsed away the gold cosmetics from his face he was much more like an ordinary boy, anyway. Age, eyes, height and weight, hair colour, complexion were much the same. There was a difference in the shape of his nose and the set of his jaw, and when he spoke with that proud, regal manner, he stood out a mile from any Earth born children.

But at a glance the similarity was enough.

"Do you understand that there may be a conspiracy of some kind surrounding you?" The Doctor asked the boy.

"They said it might not be about me," he pointed out. "Because you are minor nobles of this world."

"There's no 'minor' about me, sunshine," The Doctor replied with a note of dry humour in his tone. "But an attack on you seems more likely right now. Which means we need to take precautions.”

"What sort of precautions?"

"The sort where the four of us get away from here early tomorrow morning. I want you all to pack warm, serviceable clothing, strong shoes, waterproof coats before you go to sleep. We'll have a quick breakfast first thing and get on our way."

Josah looked doubtful. Peter and Garrick looked excited. An adventure with The Doctor sounded interesting, even with The Ninth Child tagging along.

"Did my mother say it was all right?" Garrick asked.

"Mine, too," Peter added.

"They both gave up arguing half an hour ago," The Doctor answered them. "They'll both be up in the morning with tearful hugs. We'll get those out of the way before getting on with our manly adventure."

The two boys laughed. Then The Doctor called Josah to him. He examined the boy from head to foot with the sonic then concentrated on the neck.

"That hurts!" Josah cried out. "You cannot harm my person. It is a capital offence."

"I'm not interested in your person," The Doctor responded. "I am interested in the fact that you have a microchip inserted under your skin, possibly when you were a baby."

"He has a chip, like a pet dog?" Garrick laughed, earning himself a disdainful scowl from Josah.

"More sophisticated than that," The Doctor answered. "This has, among other things, a transponder signal."

"Just like a dog," Peter insisted, much to Josah's annoyance. "For finding him if he is lost."

"More like for secretly monitoring his whereabouts," The Doctor suggested. He straightened the boy's collar and gently pushed him away to indicate that the examination was over. "You go on up to bed, sunshine. I want a quick word with my boys before they join you."

"If it is a matter that concerns my person, I will not be excluded," Josah replied haughtily.

"Nobody is concerned with your person," The Doctor told him. "Go to bed."

Josah had obviously never been told that before in his life, but there was something in the steely silence that followed The Doctor's instruction that brooked no refusal even from an absolute monarch.

Josah was asleep when Peter and Garrick came up to bed. They noticed that he had made an effort to pack a rucksack for himself. It wasn't a very good effort. He had forgotten spare socks and underwear and the clothing he had packed was crammed in haphazardly, but he had tried. Peter sorted it out along with his own bag before brushing his teeth and getting into his pyjamas.

As they lay down, both boys rubbed the backs of their necks unconsciously and a rueful thought passed between them telepathically.

"I bet our mums didn't agree to THAT part of the plan."

But for the most part they went to sleep excited by the prospect of an adventure with The Doctor - an adventure that might just contain an element of danger - more of it than their mothers had been told about but probably less than two boys of their age would have liked.

“It's going to be fun,” Garrick murmured as he dropped to sleep.

“It’s going to be the ultimate wake up call for The Ninth Child," Peter thought in his last moment before sleep came over him.

Garrick and Peter rose quickly to the early morning alarm. Josah needed prodding and shaking several times and he still looked half asleep when he reached the breakfast room. He ate the fully cooked breakfast put in front of him, prepared by Rose and Jackie on behalf of their respective sons.

"Be good," they both told the boys as they hugged them before they were off.

"Be careful," Rose added with a glance at The Doctor. "Just because your dad would jump off a cliff doesn't mean you have to follow him."

"And you don't have to follow Peter if he does, " Jackie told Garrick. Then she let go of her son and grasped Josah in an unexpected embrace. "You look after yourself, too."

Peter and Garrick waited for an imperious objection to his royal person being touched, but strangely Josah seemed moved by the motherly show of affection. He was quiet as he went outside to the people carrier. He didn't even argue about where he sat.

"It doesn't matter where you sit anyway," The Doctor told the boys as they fastened their seat belts. "We're only going a short way by car."

It was still dark, so even those few miles through the London streets were different enough to be a little exciting. They tried to guess where they were going, ruling out airports and railway stations as they finally stopped at a car park near the Thames. All three boys were curious as they shouldered their bags and followed The Doctor across a footbridge to a place called Eel Pie Island.

Garrick explained to the others why the strip of dry land in the middle of the Thames had such an odd name. Peter was more interested in the geological history of what had once been three small islets or ‘aits’ that eventually joined into one.

Josah was impressed by the boats in the marina where the boys were told to wait while The Doctor went into the office.

"We must be going somewhere by boat," he said to Peter. "I wonder why, when your father has his time machine."

"Christopher has the TARDIS," Peter answered. "My father sent him on a special journey to find out something. As for us, I'm not sure where we are going, but I think I know WHY we're doing it this way."

He was about to explain his theory, but The Doctor came out of the office with a key and a bundle of documents. He nodded to the boys and headed towards a slipway where a sleek hydrofoil waited. It was bright yellow with a red stripe along the side. The cabin was completely enclosed, no draughty open sections, and there were windows all around.

All three boys were impressed.

“How fast can it go?” Josah asked.

“Up to fifty knots,” The Doctor answered. But there is an ten knot speed limit on the Thames so it won’t be going anything like that fast. Ten knots feels quite impressive on water, though.”

The boys were still impressed. They climbed into the wide rear seat where it didn’t matter who sat in the middle since there was an all around view. The Doctor insisted on them putting on life jackets and fastening safety belts before he powered up the hydrofoil engines. They knew why when the boat accelerated forward and they were pressed back into their seats.

“Granddad,” Garrick said. “That speed limit….”

“Speed limits are very important, on land and on water,” The Doctor replied. “And I fully expect you boys to be safe drivers when you grow up. But as you know from so many of my stories about the old days, I don’t tend to worry about such things.”

“Especially if you WANT to draw attention to your actions,” Peter murmured so quietly he wasn’t heard above the hum of the hydrofoil. He knew exactly what his father’s plan was, now. He just wasn’t sure where the final showdown was going to take place.

By severely exceeding the speed limit, disturbing river front Londoners with the engine noise and the wake that could erode the banks on both sides of the Thames, they left the city behind in an hour. In the first morning light of a crisp winter’s day The Doctor slowed the hydrofoil and they could all enjoy the view. Peter really started to wonder where they might be going. It had to be somewhere along the coast. The hydrofoil wasn’t meant to go out onto the open sea. It had to be a quiet place, with no neighbours. Otherwise why were they going anywhere at all? Mount Lœng House was secure enough to hide Josah in if that was all they were doing.

The Doctor had something bigger planned, but something with no risk to anyone else.

He unfastened his seatbelt and slid into the passenger seat beside The Doctor.

“How much did you tell mum and grandma Jackie?” he asked his father.

“Enough to assure them we were going to be safe,” he answered.

“We’re not, though, are we? They’ll come to wherever we’re going. They’ll trace Josah through that transponder.”

“Don’t you worry about that, son. I know exactly what I’m doing.”

“I’m not worried. But you shouldn’t lie to mum.”

The Doctor laughed.

“She’s used to that by now. And Jackie never takes anything I say at face value. But both of them trust me even if I am economical with the truth at times.”

“But you tell us to be truthful. Isn’t that… hypocritical?”

“That’s my boy,” The Doctor told him with a wide smile. “Most Humans of your age wouldn’t even know the word ‘hypocritical’.”

“I’m top in grammar lessons,” Peter reminded him. “But that’s not the question.”

“Top in keeping to the point, too.” The Doctor’s smile widened into a grin. “Yes, it is. But that’s how it is. When you’re as old as me you’ll know when a lie – even a string of them - is better than absolute truth. Until then stick to honesty. It’s a good quality in children.”

Peter smiled. He understood what his father was saying, perfectly.

He sat back and looked out at the bare, wintery, mostly flat, mostly agricultural lands of Essex and Kent that flanked what was increasingly the Thames estuary rather than the River Thames. Even Josah quietly admired the scenery, occasionally commenting about a feature such as a grain silo or a wind turbine used to power a small farm that wasn’t connected to the national grid. These structures were found on his planet, too, though he knew little of their functions.

“You need to learn some of these things,” The Doctor told him. “A monarch who understands his people might stand a chance of real love from them, not just a sort of blind adoration.”

Josah looked as if he might argue about that dismissal of his right to rule, but there was – as always - something about The Doctor that made it difficult to exert any authority over him. It was as if this man who dressed in such an ordinary way, who talked like a commoner, who joked about solemn and serious matters, had more power invested in him than any other being in the universe.

Very soon, they were truly in the estuary. The incoming tide would have pulled against any ordinary boat, though the hydrofoil didn’t even register a slight swell. The dry land was further and further away and ahead the sea met the sky on the horizon.

“Oh, I think I know where we’re going, now!” Peter smiled secretively and waited to see if he was proved right when The Doctor turned the hydrofoil from its more or less middle course and the Kent coast came closer. Before they reached the dry land, though, they came towards a peculiar structure that rose out of the sea – something that looked half medieval castle keep and half apartment block with a rounded grey stone wall supporting a later extension of red brick and glass.

“The Grain Tower Battery,” Peter announced triumphantly. “I read about it at school. It was built in 1855 to protect the entrance to the river Medway which joins the Thames here. It was one of several stone forts built along the coast of the British Isles during a period of political uncertainty. It was used defensively in the two world wars of the twentieth century, after which it was decommissioned and was abandoned for decades before it was converted into a luxury hotel for the very rich who wanted to get away from it all.”

The Doctor nodded in satisfaction. When Peter said he had read about something what he meant was that he had memorised the information and could recall it instantly.

“During the Dalek invasion, the wealthy owner of the battery hid there with his family and their staff, holding out until liberation. Unfortunately for them, they found the source of their wealth wiped out by the economic collapse. The Battery was neglected again until ten years ago when it was refurbished as a luxury retreat for the super-rich.”

“You ARE rich,” Josah pointed out to The Doctor. “But are you super-rich?”

“I’ve never worried about it,” The Doctor replied. “And nobody questioned my status when I booked us in for a family holiday away from it all.”

“Everything within the battery is computer operated,” Peter continued. “Water, light, heat, even the food is prepared in a computer controlled kitchen. Beds are made up by robots. Cleaning is robotic, too.”

“Cool,” Garrick remarked.

“No servants AT ALL?” Josah commented in something like horror, but nobody really cared about his opinion on that subject. Peter and Garrick were excited as the hydrofoil approached the battery. They could hardly wait for The Doctor to make it secure at the bottom of the companion ladder. As soon as it was safe to do so they mounted the ladder and scrambled up. Josah watched them uncertainly.

“What’s wrong now?” The Doctor asked him.

“I… don’t know how to climb,” he admitted. “I have never… even seen such a thing. How do I….”

The Doctor realised that he wasn’t refusing to climb as something beneath his royal dignity. He simply didn’t know how to do what the other two boys took for granted.

“Come here,” The Doctor said, lifting him onto his back. “Hold tight. You don’t want to fall halfway.”

“Isn’t there another way to land on this structure?” the boy asked as The Doctor started to climb. “A hovercopter?”

“There’s no landing pad,” The Doctor answered. “There’s a problem with crosswinds that make it difficult to land a copter safely. This is the only way in. The luxury starts at the top, so hush up and hold on.”

Peter and Garrick were waiting on the sun deck when The Doctor and Josah reached it. They looked quizzically at the way The Ninth Child had ascended the side of the battery.

“Don’t pick on him,” The Doctor said. “It’s not his fault.”

“We found the pool,” Garrick said. “There’s a hot tub and sauna, too. You can finally get the sort of bath you like, Josah. Come on, we’ll show you.”

Josah caught the enthusiasm of the other boys and followed them to the luxury, glass-covered pool and leisure suite. The Doctor placed the bags onto a utility lift which descended to the bedroom level before he went down the spiral staircase to the lounge. The pool was behind a wide glass window and he could see Garrick and Peter swimming lengths while Josah relaxed in the hot tub that was something like the luxury he was accustomed to. The Doctor watched them all for a while before he adjusted his sonic screwdriver and got on with some preparations he had in mind.

Preparations for an invasion of this little fortress in the estuary.

They didn’t take long, and the only one of the preparations that the boys were aware of was when he was above them on the glass roof of the pool room. All three looked up at him in wonder before carrying on with their leisure pursuits.

The Doctor joined them presently, dressed in an outlandishly old-fashioned bathing suit. He claimed it was the height of fashion in 1910. His son and grandson laughed at him and went back to their swimming. He turned to Josah in the hot tub.

“You must be par-boiled by now. Why don’t you come and swim with the boys?”

“I don’t swim,” Jonas answered, but his imperious tone had a doubtful edge to it.

“You mean that you can’t?” The Doctor guessed. “Why don’t you let me teach you? After all, even a monarch might find himself in difficulties one day. Would you prefer to drown waiting for some hireling to rescue you?”

Put like that, it made sense. Josah allowed The Doctor to lead him to the shallow end of the pool. He let him teach him the basics of swimming.

To his credit, the boy learnt quickly. He also learnt to enjoy himself doing so. He even played a game with The Doctor as his confidence in the water grew. He laughed like an ordinary boy.

By lunchtime he had swum a length of the pool, flanked by Peter and Garrick in case of difficulty. He was rightfully proud of his achievement.

“We’ll have you keeping up with the boys by tea time,” The Doctor told him as they feasted on smoked salmon, crisp salad and fresh fruit by the pool side. “You just need to develop a better technique, a stronger stroke.”

Josah hardly knew how to reply. Learning to swim was the most work he had done in his whole life. Being told that he still had some more work to do might have been disheartening, but he had discovered a yearning to achieve that made him long to get back into the water.

The Doctor insisted on a proper rest after lunch, and kept all three boys engrossed in a story about another of these sea forts where he had been at the mercy of creatures called Sea Devils. Peter and Garrick had been raised on such stories. Josah was new to the concept, but found himself just as engrossed.

“We’re not going to meet these creatures here?” Garrick asked.

“No. The Sea Devils and their relatives the Silurians are peacefully hibernating,” The Doctor answered. “We’re safe here.”

Peter caught his eye and an understanding passed from father to son. Yes, they were safe, from anybody who might try to disturb their peace.

In the afternoon, as predicted, Josah mastered the breast stroke, backstroke and crawl. He wasn’t as fast as his companions, of course. This was the first time many of his muscles had been put to work, but he made the effort and gained praise from The Doctor as well as from Peter and Garrick.

He found that he rather liked being praised by such people. It felt more real than the praise he had always received from his subjects – praise he was coming to realise was undeserved.

“All it took was a few hours in a swimming pool,” Peter remarked when Josah actually asked him to pass the jug of fruit juice when they stopped swimming and ate tea beside the pool. “Now he actually acts like a boy, not a despot.”

“I am not a despot,” Josah protested. “My people are happy.”

“I wonder if they are happy because of you or despite you,” The Doctor replied. “But let it be. Right now you have none of the burdens of being an absolute monarch. Just enjoy being a boy. When you’ve all finished eating I think it’s time to shower and dress and retire to the entertainment suite for a one-hundred and eighty degree cinema experience. There is a wide selection of micro-vids to choose from, even among the parental guidance category. I especially requested plenty of late twentieth and early twenty-first century films – the best decades.”

Peter and Garrick chose the films. Josah knew nothing about such things. The common people of his world had a state broadcasting service that kept them aware of how glorious their king was. The Ninth Child himself never watched such things. He saw live plays and operas written in his glory.

Garrick liked animations. His choice was a feature film about a mis-matched group of mammals on a life-affirming journey in the late Pleistocene era. Josah was startled by the idea of talking animals but slowly suspended disbelief and enjoyed a story that wasn't about himself for once.

Peter's favourite film was a musical about a sweet factory with very colourful but not very streamlined production methods and a highly dubious migrant worker programme. It was a film that required a supply of confectionery, and fortunately the entertainment suite was well stocked. Josah discovered that he liked chocolate, a substance unknown on his world.

"How can you call yourself rich without chocolate?" Peter asked him. Josah didn't answer. He had too much chocolate in his mouth and dribbling it on his chin would be unkingly.

The Doctor's choice of film was familiar to Peter and Garrick. They had seen it many times in his company.

"I like the way Captain Von Trapp rips up swastika flags," he said in explanation of his choice. "I think I would get on with that man."

By the time that film was finished it was well after suppertime and bedtime. The boys had sandwiches and cocoa in bed.

The bedroom was circular with very small windows because it was a floor of the original round fort. Three beds pointed towards the middle of the room where a huge floor-standing nightlight shaped like a geographically accurate full moon glowed gently. The Doctor kissed his son and grandson good night by its glow and bent over Josah to wish him sweet dreams.

"Where will you sleep?" The boy asked. "In case we are disturbed in the night."

"I won’t be sleeping," The Doctor replied. "I'm taking the night watch up in the drawing room. You boys don't worry. You'll be quite safe."

His son and grandson were in no doubt about that. They had slept peacefully all their lives under The Doctor’s protection. Josah had never before had reason to doubt his safety. He had always been surrounded by guards. Tonight, he followed the boys’ example and put his trust in The Doctor.

Josah was asleep first. The other two lay awake and talked telepathically about the long and eventful day.

“Nobody came for Josah,” Garrick pointed out. “Granddad was right to bring us here. We’re safe. They won’t find us.”

Peter agreed. Garrick turned over and went to sleep.

Peter got out of bed and made his way up to the living room where his father was stretched on one of the long, luxuriously soft sofas. He wasn't asleep. When Peter crept towards him he sat up warily.

"You should be asleep," he said.

“I want to look out for the bad guys with you," he answered, sitting beside his father. "The boys are asleep."

"The boys?" The Doctor smiled and ruffled Peter's hair. "And you're all grown up?"

"On Gallifrey I would have faced the Untempered Schism by now and be a Time Lord candidate."

"That's still a long way from being grown up," The Doctor told him. "But if you want to sit here with me that's ok."

Peter leaned against his father 's chest and the two of them drifted, half awake, half asleep, jolted awake once by the water filters automatically cleaning the swimming pool.

Then another noise woke them fully.

"What was that?" Peter whispered.

"It is either somebody falling down the fire stairs where I greased the hand rail or if they're really unlucky they've discovered the hidden trapdoor leading into the septic tank."

"Uggghh!" Peter responded. "What if he drowns?"

"Unlikely. There should only be a few inches of waste. We've only been here for a day."

"And what about if he fell down the stairs?"

“I put a couple of air mattresses at the bottom. It will be a soft landing - softish, anyway. Of course, the fire stairs stop ten feet from the bottom of the stairwell. There is no way back up."

Peter laughed, then jumped visibly as a much closer sound disturbed the quiet.

"That was two men climbing over the glass roof of the pool room. You'll have to wait to swim in the morning until I make sure all the glass has been cleaned out of it."

"You weakened the glass," Peter noted, going to the window and looking at the two men swimming inelegantly towards the pool side.

"I altered the crystal matrix so that it would shatter under the slightest weight. Not that those two thugs look at all slight. I can't imagine why they thought they could climb across a glass roof."

He grinned widely. Peter grinned back, a young duplicate of his father.

"You wait while I sort those two out," The Doctor told his son. Peter watched through the glass partition as his father tackled both thugs at once, using a combination of two forms of martial arts. When they were rendered unconscious he tied their hands and feet with ropes from the pool side life preservers.

He left the two intruders in the pool room and returned to the living room.

"Don't come any closer!" called out the man who held Peter around the throat. "I'll slit the Ninth Child's throat."

"Try it and you will regret it for the rest of your life," The Doctor replied. "Don't worry, Peter. This is just one of those bits of the adventure we won't be telling your mum about. "

"I'm all right, dad," Peter answered in as cheerful a tone as a ten year old with a knife at his throat could muster.

The Doctor's remarks and Peter's response, clearly indicating that he was not the Ninth Child, caused the thug a moment of doubt. His grip on Peter slackened just for that moment.

A moment was all The Doctor needed. As soon as the knife spun away from his neck Peter pulled out of his captor's grasp and ducked out of the way while his father rendered the man unconscious and then tied his hands behind his back with velvet curtain ties.

"I wasn't scared, dad," Peter said as his father hugged him tightly. "I never doubted you."

"That's my boy," The Doctor replied. "Come on, let's make sure Garrick and Josah are all right."

The part of the plan in which he confused the potential kidnappers by putting duplicate chips into Garrick and Peter's necks had worked so far, but depending on how many hired thugs had got past his defences the other two boys might still be in trouble.

His concern was justified. Two men were in the bedroom. One of them was wrestling with Garrick, who kicked and struggled against capture. The other was leaning over Josah, trying to strangle the boy as he lay in bed.

The Doctor didn't hesitate. Garrick was his grandson who he loved dearly, but he was holding his own. Josah was the one in immediate danger. In less time than it took to reason out such an emotive dilemma he had crossed the floor and grabbed the would-be royal assassin. As they fought a very brief fight Peter ran to Josah's side, confirming that he was not dangerously hurt.

The two boys watched as The Doctor overpowered the assailant and Garrick, with his attacker, disappeared from view as the TARDIS materialised around them. Moments later Garrick ran out of the police box to join his cousin and the Ninth Child as mere spectators in the last moments of drama.

What they saw was the last of the thugs backing out of the TARDIS with his hands raised as Christopher followed him out with his sonic screwdriver held like a gun.

"I'm a diplomat and a pacifist," Christopher said. "But you hurt my son, and that cancels out everything. I would happily shoot you dead right here and now and sleep well at night. "

He didn't have to. The Doctor used an old fashioned jaw punch to knock the man senseless. Christopher put his sonic screwdriver away and went to hug all three boys, especially his own son, but not forgetting Josah, who no longer seemed worried about his person being touched.

"You really shouldn't have threatened to kill a man with his hands up in surrender," The Doctor told his eldest son. "Especially not in front of the kids."

"I couldn't have shot him anyway, " Christopher answered. "The sonic was in penlight mode."

The three boys laughed at the joke. The Doctor smiled grimly.

"We Time Lords could have ruled the poker tables of the universe with our propensity to bluff so well," he said. "Let's get these two and the rest of their chums put away in a nice locked room in the TARDIS then its cocoa and biscuits after midnight for the boys and something stronger for me and you."

Rounding up the gang was no trouble. The one who had been paddling in the septic tank for a while was especially pleased to be under Time Lord custody and moreover was happy to talk about the assassination plan.

"It ties in with what I found out," Christopher explained over a single malt while Garrick sat close to him with his cocoa. "The Ninth Child has been deposed. The people decided they were happy enough on their new world without him. Most of them just wanted to leave him here, but a small group of former courtiers decided he ought to be killed in order to ensure he never tried to reclaim his throne."

"Traitors!" Josah cried out. "They should be thrown to the Glyre birds as carrion."

"Don't talk rubbish," Peter admonished him. "Don't you get it? You aren't a king any more. You are penniless, powerless and homeless. Time to learn something called humility."

Josah was silenced by that revelation. He said nothing as Christopher and The Doctor outlined their plan to dump the gang on a penal planet and send a message to their paymasters saying that the Ninth Child was dead - thus ensuring no further attempts on his life.

“Can we get the chips out of our necks, now?” Garrick asked.

“I don’t know,” Christopher responded. “I think your mum might like a way of knowing where you are at all times now you’re getting to that stage in your life where evading her attention is so important.”

He winked at his father. Their two sons looked at each other in alarm before The Doctor grinned widely and took out his sonic screwdriver. He removed all three chips painlessly.

“Now nobody can keep track of you, either, sunshine,” he told Josah. “You’re free.”

"But what will happen to me?" Josah asked quite plaintively. The prospect of freedom was a bit too daunting for one who had never thought himself as a prisoner before. "Where will I go?"

"Nowhere for the time being," The Doctor answered. "I booked a full weekend here on the battery. You kids are going to enjoy yourselves. After that you are in my care until I find a suitable home for you."

It was an uncertain future, and that uncertainty helped rub off the last vestiges of haughtiness and royal disdain. In the weeks it took to find him a new home Josah became a welcome playmate for the boys.

Then Davie Campbell presented an idea to The Doctor.

"The current Sultan of Brunei isn't as super rich as his ancestors. The country suffered from the Dalek Invasion as much as elsewhere, and The Dominator war hurt them, too. But the palace is still a glorious example of royal ostentatious living. The Sultan recently had all the electrical power in his Sultanship supplied by my solar panel system. He's also into motorsports and I've been advising him about building a race circuit in the palace grounds."

Everyone waited to hear how this related to Josah.

"The Sultan and Sultana are childless. They like the idea of adopting a boy with royal blood."

"You mean I might be king again one day?" Josah asked.

"And with some proper guidance you might even be a good one," The Doctor told him. "I'll be having a chat with the Sultan about that."

It was a perfect solution to Josah's problem except for one small issue.

"I will miss playing with you," he told Peter and Garrick.

"Not much," Peter answered. "Brunei is ten minutes away by TARDIS. We'll be round to play plenty of times. Besides if the Sultan does build a race track there will be no getting rid of our family."

"Just don't get any more snooty ideas now that you are royal again," Garrick added. "Don't forget our dads are Time Lords - princes of the universe. That's way more important than you’ll ever be."