Doctor Who_ The Roundheads - Mark Gatiss [34]
What made everything worse was that she knew it had not always been like this. Her father had always been a supporter of the Crown, of course, but not with this strange, stupid, blinding passion.
He had been a wonderful father, too. Gentle and funny, quick-witted and popular with his customers and adored by his wife.
But that was before Marston Moor and the loss of his beloved Arthur.
Now William Kemp was like a man possessed by an angry ghost. He could not, would not, spare a kind word for anybody. And gradually life in the inn had changed beyond all recognition.
The wrong kind of person came there now – rough and unsavoury people who didn’t care that their landlord spoke not two words to them all evening.
Odd, thought Frances, that it should be called the World Turn’d Upside Down.
And now there was Thomas. The timing could not have been worse. With the King about to be tried, her love for a Roundhead would be like pouring salt into her father’s gaping wound.
She glanced up at the bell, which was still gently tinkling.
What was going on in that upstairs room?
The Doctor walked boldly up to Cromwell and gave a very deep bow. ‘General Cromwell,’ he said. ‘This is a pleasure.’
Cromwell nodded slightly and spun the globe again. ‘No doubt.’ He stuck out a big, thick finger and stopped the spinning. ‘You’re a doctor, I hear.’
‘The,’ said the Doctor without a trace of immodesty.
Cromwell grunted. ‘That good, eh? Well, Doctor, what do you know of boils? I’m a martyr to them, sir, a martyr.’
The Doctor shrugged. ‘Alas, General, it is not quite within my purview.’
Cromwell shrugged, disappointed, and made his way back to the chair. ‘You have some connection with this lad, then?’
The Doctor pushed Jamie forward. ‘May I present the McCrimmon of Culloden, for whom I have the honour to act as... er... spiritual sextant.’
Cromwell frowned. ‘A what?’
The Doctor waved his hands airily. ‘I guide him through the highways and byways of the other world.’
Cromwell nodded and sat down, shifting his weight and grunting as his boil connected with the cushions.
He beckoned Jamie towards, him. ‘Is it true, lad? Can you see beyond this mortal veil?’
Jamie looked at the Doctor, who nodded discreetly, Then he drew himself up boldly. ‘Yes,’ he stated simply. ‘That I can.’
Thurloe came to stand by Cromwell’s side, raising an eyebrow suspiciously and coughing lightly, as though trying to clear a small blockage from his throat.
‘The jailer tells me you know of the King’s imprisonment.’
‘Oh yes,’ said the Doctor.
Thurloe folded his arms over his tightly buttoned black tunic. ‘Information that any Royalist spy might have wrung out of a loyal Parliamentarian.’
‘Oh, no, no, no,’ cried the Doctor. ‘The McCrimmon saw it in a vision.’
Cromwell seemed to consider this. He thought again of the Cornish woman and the plague of cats. Then of the plague they all knew too well, that had ravaged the city only twenty years before. And then of his memory of the little prince with the sad eyes. There was so much he wanted to know.
‘Well, then,’ he said at last. ‘Will there be more visions?
What can you tell us of the future?’
The Doctor frowned. ‘Well –’
‘These are mad and fast times, Doctor,’ interrupted Cromwell. ‘The world is giddy about our ears. And great matters are being decided.’
‘Yes,’ said the Doctor gravely, ‘I know.’
‘Then,’ said Cromwell grandly, ‘tell us what we must do.
Tell us how we may best serve the Lord our God and heal this wounded land of ours.’
The Doctor smiled pleasantly. ‘Ask away.’
Cromwell looked at Thurloe, who coughed again into his glove, ‘What of the King?’
Jamie began to follow the usual procedure, moaning softly to himself and waving his hands about close to his ears. Then, after a great bellow of pain he announced, ‘I see a vacant throne!’
‘And a vacant hat!’ put in the Doctor, enjoying the theatricalities immensely.
Cromwell and Thurloe looked quickly at each other. ‘I should cut off his head, then?’ asked Cromwell with ponderous