Doctor Who_ The Roundheads - Mark Gatiss [3]
Nearby was an alley even narrower and more disreputable than the one where Kemp’s inn stood. The buildings that abutted it were black, wet and grimy, the upper window casements on either side so close that they almost touched, forming a dingy archway over a muddy floor strewn with slimy straw and manure.
There were many things a passer-by might expect to find in such a place. A seedy gaming house, perhaps, or a den of thieves. Beggars might cluster in its shadows and dogs find a rough meal of greasy bones in the litter-fouled snowdrifts. But there was one thing no one could rightly expect to find: the rectangular blue shape of a twentieth-century police box was nevertheless there, materialising out of thin air with a strangulated, grating whine.
The light on top of the police box stopped flashing and the unexpected arrival stood there in the diffuse morning light, snowflakes collecting in the recesses of its panelled doors. A sharp wind blew up, almost disguising the fact that this battered blue box was humming with power.
No one passed by to inquire what was amiss and so the TARDIS remained unmolested, its occupants, for the moment at least, undisturbed.
Inside, in defiance of at least the laws of terrestrial physics, was a vast, white chamber, its walls indented with translucent roundels. At its centre stood a six-sided console, the panels of which were covered in a bewildering array of buttons and switches. In the middle of this was a cylindrical glass column which was normally to be found rising and falling when the TARDIS was in flight. Now it was still, as still as the rest of the strange room, save for the constant hum of power.
Suddenly the calm was shattered by the arrival of three young people from the interior of the craft.
The first, a brawny, good-looking boy in kilt and cable-knit sweater, walked straight over to a chair and sat down, brushing his black hair out of his appealing brown eyes.
‘Would you no’ hang on a moment, Ben,’ he complained to his companion. ‘I cannae understand you.’
Ben, a skinny, blond young man with the face of a disreputable cherub, threw up his hands in frustration.
‘Blimey! You can’t understand me. Jamie. You’re the one who talks like Bill Shankly.’
Jamie frowned. ‘Who?’
The third arrival, a very pretty girl with long, straight, blonde hair and heavily made-up eyes in a sixties style, gave a little groan. Her name was Polly and, like Ben, she came from a time well in advance of their young Scots friend. He had joined the TARDIS crew after an adventure with the Jacobite rebels of 1745 and was still having some difficulty acclimatising to travelling in time.
‘Don’t confuse him any more, Ben,’ said Polly. ‘Look...’
She rested her hand on Jamie’s shoulder and took a deep breath. ‘It’s quite simple. England and Scotland signed an agreement, an Act of Union, which made them one country.’
Jamie’s face clouded. ‘Aye, I know that. I’m not daft.’
Ben grinned. ‘Well, mate, by the time me and the Duchess come from, we live in what they call the United Kingdom.
And there ain’t no Stuart on the throne.’
Jamie cast his eyes to the floor. ‘I dinnae believe it,’ he groaned. ‘And what of the Prince?’
Polly frowned. ‘Bonny Prince Charlie? Oh, I think he ended up abroad. In exile. Got fat and died. Isn’t that right, Ben?’
Ben shrugged. ‘Search me, love. History was never my strong point.’
Polly turned back to Jamie, who was tugging his hair in a nervous, slightly anxious fashion.
‘Anyway,’ she said brightly, ‘as Ben says, the Scots and the English get along perfectly well by our time.’
‘I wouldn’t pay too much attention to them, Jamie,’ cut in a new voice. ‘Your fellow countrymen get a bit restless around the end of the twentieth century, if memory serves.’
The newcomer was a small man with a humorous, slightly mocking expression. There was a deep line on either side of his smiling mouth and his hair hung in a messy black mop over eyes that sparkled blue and green as the sea.
He was dressed in a shabby