Eugene Tacitus

Eugene Tacitus is the chief scribe to Emperor Pepin VII, and secretly the villain behind the events of the Doctor Who Big Finish audio drama The Holy Terror. Initially, Eugene appears to be little more than a doddering old man, a pen-pusher assigned to record his Emperor's thoughts and deeds in exacting detail - no matter how mundane. For a time, he even serves as a friend and ally to the Doctor and Frobisher when they arrive at the castle.

However, as the story continues, it's soon revealed that the apparently harmless scribe has far more influence over the castle than appearances suggest, and has actually been directing the course of entire royal lineages over the course of his career - and harboring secrets that even Eugene himself isn't consciously aware of.

He is voiced by Sam Kelly, who also voiced The Child in the same audio drama.

Guilt
As the story later reveals, Eugene Tacitus is not part of the castle's constructed reality, nor was he born within its boundaries, his origins lying in a relatively ordinary world far outside the pocket dimension. Little is known of his past, most of it only being subtly evidenced through the ritualized patterns later established in the castle: from the repeated motif of fathers hating their sons, it can be assumed that Eugene grew up shy and neurotic, often abused by his father for his perceived failings; in turn, when he grew to manhood and started a family of his own, Eugene found himself hating his equally fearful son as a reminder of his earlier weakness.