The Italian air shimmered with the afternoon heat.  The only sound was the gentle clip-clop of the horse's hooves on the steep, rocky path.  Further down the hill, one might have heard the gentle sigh of the bellows in the blacksmith's in the village, the gruff shout of the blacksmith himself as he told the boy to pump harder and keep the fire going.  But all of these would have been drowned out by the tearing, scraping cacophony that announced the arrival of the TARDIS.

The Doctor stepped out and took a deep breath of the medieval air.  It would all change once the internal combustion engine arrived, he thought.  Still, it was good for another few hundred years.  This was 1564, according to the TARDIS and the emission data.  In a few minutes something would happen, and the Doctor would be waiting to see what it was.

The TARDIS was hidden from the track by a clump of dry, brittle bushes that thrust themselves defiantly out of the stony hillside.  The Doctor reckoned that whatever was about to happen would be in a couple of minutes, and somewhere just on the other side of the uneven path.  He settled himself down so that he too was mostly hidden by the bushes, pulling the fragile branches apart so he could see between them.

The horse and its rider came into view round the bend, heading down towards the village at the bottom of the hill.  The Doctor watched the horse's deliberate, careful progress, counting off the seconds.  Yeas, this was it.  If his suspicions were correct, then the man on the horse - a gentleman by the look of him - would be someone important, or potentially important, in historical terms.  He narrowed his eyes, trying to focus on the approaching figure.  It was no  one he recognised, he was sure of that.

The air rippled.  At first the Doctor dismissed it as a heat haze, and continued to watch the man on the horse.  But at the edge of his vision a shape was forming.  The creature he had seen before, or one very like it.  Did one of its legs seem more human now?  Was one paw moer like a hand?  Were the facial features perhaps a little distinct?  It was interesting, he thought, what the Time Winds could do even to those beings that thought they were immune to the effects of the vortex.

It was evident that neither the horse nor its rider could see the creature.  It stepped out on to the track, directly in front of the horse, and waited.  The Doctor was sure it was waiting, and he wondered what for: 'A matter of timing,' he murmured.

He did not see the cause, but he could deduce it from the effect.  It happened as the man on the horse looked away, glancing down into the valley where the village nestled at the foot of the steep hill.  The moment his attention had shifted from the road, the horse's head snapped up slightly and it blinked.  Although the Doctor could perceive no difference, it seemed that the horse could now see the creature.  Terrified, it gave a grunt of surprise and fear, followed by a loud whinny.  The animal's front legs braced, stopping it in its tracks, and the rider grasped desperately for the reins as the horse reared up, almost throwing him.

The man was able to hold on for several seconds before he fell to the ground.  For a moment he was still, and the Doctor wondered if he was dead.  Forgetting that he was here to watch, not to get involved, the Doctor ran across to the thrown rider.  The horse was stumbling, frightened, back up the track.  The man sat up as the Doctor knelt beside him.