Doctor Who_ The Roundheads - Mark Gatiss [4]
The whole ensemble terminated in narrow suede boots, which, like everything else the little man wore, had seen better days.
The Doctor walked to the console and fussed over a panel of switches.
‘Well, we appear to have landed,’ he said in his gently gruff voice.
Ben, however, was more interested in what the Doctor had said about the future of the United Kingdom. He tucked his brightly striped shirt into his drainpipe trousers and advanced on the little man.
‘What did you mean, Doctor?’ he asked, brow crinkling with worry.
The Doctor looked up. ‘Mm? Oh that.’ He chuckled and put his finger to his lips. ‘Don’t ask so many questions, Ben.
You don’t want me to spoil all your surprises, do you?’
Ben grunted. ‘The only thing that’d surprise me is if you ever got us home.’
The Doctor shot him a venomous look and turned back to the console, where he twisted a dial with piqued aggression.
Then, like a cloud passing away from the sun, his expression changed and he clapped his hands together happily.
‘Well, come along, everybody. We’ve been cooped up in the TARDIS for far too long. Let’s see where we are.’
So saying, he flicked a switch and the double doors opened on to the frosty alley outside. At once, a wave of cold air rushed in to greet them.
Polly shivered, walked across the room, and peered outside. She swiftly withdrew.
‘It’s freezing!’ she cried, but the Doctor ignored her, gazing over her shoulder with delighted curiosity. Outside he could see that the alley opened on to daylight. There was a suggestion of housing with smoke billowing from tall brick chimneypots. And snow. Everywhere. The Doctor loved snow.
‘It’s certainly bracing,’ he admitted. ‘I wonder where we are this time?’
The Doctor looked up at the sky, as white and featureless as an upturned china bowl.
He frowned and stuck his tongue into his cheek so that it bulged outward. ‘Shan’t be a moment,’ he said and vanished through the interior door.
Ben and Jamie stepped out together on to the cobbles and began to look around. Ben placed the flat of one hand against the cold, wet stone of the alley walls and then let out a little groan as he realised he had stepped in a pile of horse manure.
Jamie laughed and then turned to Polly, who was still standing in the TARDIS doorway.
‘Are you no’ coming out?’ he said.
The glamorous woman looked down at her short black minidress and shook her head. ‘Are you kidding? Not unless I-
’
She stopped abruptly as the Doctor reappeared, carrying four duck woollen cloaks over both his arms. He handed them to his companions and pulled the last one around his own shoulders, tying it under his chin with a rather sloppy bow.
‘Doctor,’ laughed Polly. ‘You think of everything.’
‘Yes. Don’t I?’
With a flourish of his cloak, the Doctor stepped out. Polly immediately followed, closing the TARDIS door behind her with a soft click.
The snow was falling heavily now, speckling the air in flakes the size of autumn leaves.
The troop of soldiers had drawn up under a massive stone archway, its brickwork mottled like a chessboard with two small wooden doors inset, one either side. It was one of the old city gateways and abutted a small square ringed with rather grand houses.
Stamping and whinnying with cold, the troopers’ mounts moved restlessly beneath the arch, jostling the men together so that their armour clashed. One soldier’s powder horn was crushed against the leg of his companion and the contents, black and sparkling like coal dust, sprinkled on to the snow below. He cursed and then silenced himself as his commander turned his horse about to address them.
Thomas Pride shifted in his saddle and lifted his visor from his face, revealing an honest but rather severe face with milky-grey eyes like shallow frost on a pool of water. He let his gaze range over his men and then nodded to himself.
‘Very well,’ he said at last. ‘We are almost there. Are you all clear as to