Doctor Who_ The Roundheads - Mark Gatiss [25]
With a start, he suddenly realised that he had begun to consider the eccentric time machine his home. He had grown used to its Winding network of corridors and the surprises its infinite size had to offer. Polly, Ben, and the Doctor were his family now, even if they sometimes annoyed him, as families were wont to do. He glanced over at the little man, who seemed entirely unconcerned at their current predicament.
‘I dinnae believe this, Doctor,’ he complained with a wry smile. ‘We seem to get locked up everywhere we go.’
The Doctor tootled on his recorder. ‘Occupational hazard,’
he muttered between notes. ‘They’re just a bit jumpy.’
Jamie stood up and began pacing up and down the little cell. It was so small that it was hardly worth the effort. ‘But why pick on us?’
The Doctor pocketed his recorder and stared up at the ceiling. ‘I suppose we might look a bit unusual,’ he conceded.
‘And then there’s the question of your nationality.’
Jamie frowned. ‘What d’you mean?’
‘Well, you see, the Scots fought on the King’s side for much of the conflict. They’ve recently changed their minds, according to the book.’
He fished out the little volume and flicked rapidly through its pages. Jamie caught a glimpse of the yellowed pages with their faded colour plates showing horsemen, musketeers, and battling troopers.
The Doctor nodded. ‘Yes. The Scots have changed sides.’
He clapped the book shut and looked up at Jamie worriedly.
‘And nobody likes a turncoat, if you see what I mean.’
‘I’m no turncoat!’ protested Jamie.
‘I know that,’ said the Doctor, patiently ‘but our captors don’t.’
‘So the English don’t trust us?’
‘In a nutshell, yes.’
Jamie smiled. ‘Just like old times.’
Footsteps began to echo in the corridor beyond and then the door rattled as a key was slid into its massive iron lock.
Jamie and the Doctor looked up as the watchman slid his bulk through the narrow door, panting and gasping with the effort. ‘Why did I put ’em here, I ask?’ he muttered. ‘I’m a fool to meself. Can’t expect to go getting into these here cells if I care not how many gooseberry creams I have.’
His little lecture to himself over, the watchman straightened up and fixed his prisoners with a baleful glare.
Behind him came a small, hatchet-faced man with brutally cropped hair and a large, livid scar across his forehead. He slipped easily and quickly through the door like a ferret.
‘Well, my fine fellows,’ said the watchman. ‘I fear we’ve had no luck with your friend Master Scrope.’
‘Scrope, no,’ said his companion with a strange, high-pitched giggle.
‘But there’s another gentleman here who wants to ask you a few questions.’
The cropped-haired man moved forward, brandishing a long and vicious-looking knife. ‘Questions, yes,’ he hissed, grinning all over his sinister face.
The Doctor and Jamie exchanged worried glances.
In the room above the inn, Polly was beginning to feel the effects of her afternoon spent with Ben. A kind of drowsy numbness was warming the back of her skull and she wanted nothing so much as to lie back in her chair in the dark room and go to sleep.
. Her captors seemed amiable enough and, apart from their incessant questions, didn’t seem to constitute too much of a threat. She had to admit she quite enjoyed sparring with the younger one. In fact, if she’d run into him back at the Inferno Club in Chelsea, she might have considered him quite a dish.
Smiling to herself at this incongruous thought, she forced herself to concentrate and began again.
‘Look, I’ve told you. We were just talking. I don’t know anything about any plots, real or imagined.’
Copper’s eyes narrowed. ‘Do not play pell-mell with’ us mistress. Your companion was heard to say something about cutting off His Majesty’s head.’
Polly thought quickly. ‘Well... isn’t that what they’re bound to do? I mean, there were soldiers outside Parliament this morning turning people away. Everyone knows something’s going on.’
Copper seemed to consider this.
Whyte flashed her his most