Doctor Who_ The Roundheads - Mark Gatiss [20]
The brisk December wind was still whistling around the weathered stonework of the Commons as Colonel Pride struggled wearily on to his horse.
Lord Grey of Groby, already mounted, was slumped in his saddle, his face a mask of weighty responsibility. They were alone now, the ranks of troopers having been finally dismissed as the winter sun sank low over the rooftops.
Pride turned his face to the drifts of snow which draped the entrance like dustsheets.
‘I shall return tomorrow,’ he said at last. ‘Our work is not yet done.’
Grey spoke without looking up. ‘What news of Cromwell?’
Pride fastened the clasp of his cloak around his neck.
‘He’s returning from the North. I dare say today’s events will not displease him.’
Grey nodded to himself. The cold was stinging his cheeks and he longed to rest his bones in his own bed, but there was a question he knew he had to ask of Pride.
‘Well, Thomas,’ he said, rising in his saddle. ‘What now?’
Pride looked up, his milky eyes full of cold purpose.
‘Now, My Lord? Now we must draw up a charge against the King so that the remains of this Parliament might vote it through.’
Grey shook his head with infinite sadness. ‘A charge?
What charge can we levy against our monarch?’
There was a sudden increase in the violence of the wind, as though a bottled tempest had been unleashed. Grey struggled to hold on to his hat and craned his neck as two horsemen appeared quite suddenly out of the wintry shadows.
The first was a young captain of perhaps twenty-five whom Grey knew to be Thomas Culpeper. The other, much older, spoke in a voice ringing with authority.
‘We must cease to regard him as our monarch, My Lord.’
The speaker’s horse clopped slowly forward, revealing its uniformed rider in the failing light of dusk. He was a stocky, powerful-looking man with a ruddy complexion and thinning, shoulder-length hair. His nose was bulbous and as warty as the rest of his skin but his brilliant-blue eyes marked him as very much out of the common.
‘General Cromwell!’ gasped Grey.
Cromwell nodded in greeting and turned in his saddle towards Pride. ‘It is done then, Colonel?’
‘Aye, General.’
Cromwell gave a small, affirmative grunt. ‘Though I was not acquainted with this plan, I’m glad of it,’ he said, unconsciously echoing Fairfax’s prediction. ‘This dissembling Parliament will not stand in the way of justice a moment longer.’
He stared into space and the freezing wind blew his hair back off his high forehead.
‘You were speaking of a charge, My Lord of Groby?’ he said finally.
Grey nodded.
Cromwell raised himself up as though about to address Parliament itself. ‘This King has waged a wicked war against his fellow countrymen. He has sought to rule as a tyrant.
Charles Stuart must stand trial for nothing less than treason.’
Grey, Pride, and Culpeper were silent but Cromwell’s florid face had taken on a fiery zeal. When he spoke again it was in a hoarse, dangerous whisper. ‘I tell you this. We will cut off this King’s head. Aye, with the crown upon it.’
They remained in silence for a long, terrible moment as though the hand of Death itself had closed around them. Then Cromwell turned his horse away and disappeared into the dusk.
The mist that covered the Thames was thickening as the Doctor and Jamie made their way towards the TARDIS. It was a little after sunset and already quite dark but the Doctor didn’t seem to mind. He had contrived to fix a wreath of holly and mistletoe around his head and, as he skipped happily along the embankment, he looked for all the world like some ancient woodland spirit come to life.
He rubbed his numbed hands together and hummed to himself a little tunelessly.
‘Oh, I did enjoy that, Jamie,’ he cried. ‘Just the tonic we needed, wouldn’t you say?’
Jamie, who was still feeling the effects of his festive drink, smiled and nodded. ‘Aye. But