Doctor Who_ The Roundheads - Mark Gatiss [60]
‘What?’ came the growling response from within.
Ben opened the door and stepped inside into a narrow, low-ceilinged room. There was a large, mullioned window at the back and a vast old table occupying most of the space, but there was none of the elegance of Stanislaus’s cabin.
Clothes and discarded bottles littered the floor and there was a pervasive smell of rum.
Winter sat in her chair, poring over a ledger. Piles of scrolls and charts littered the rug beneath her wooden leg.
She looked up and the sun streaming through the window sparkled off the end of her silver nose.
‘Ah, Ben!’ she cackled. ‘A better voyage than last time, I’ll wager?’
Ben cracked a big smile. ‘That it is, Sal.’ He looked down at the desk. ‘What’ve you got there?’
Winter swivelled the ledger round on the table and planted a thick finger on a two-page entry.
‘There,’ she said. ‘That’s my account of our Polish friend and his deeds.’
Ben scanned the pages quickly, then turned over. And over. Finally, he looked up in amazement.
‘Makes fine reading, doesn’t it?’ said Winter with a twinkle.
Ben shook his head and whistled. ‘Looks like he’s looted half the ships in the North Sea. How come they’ve never nabbed him?’
‘They?’
Ben shrugged. ‘Well, the authorities. Surely they try and keep this kind of stuff under control?’
Winter slumped down in her chair and slammed her wooden leg on to the table, dislodging half a dozen filthy metal plates. ‘Hal The Revenue men take a cut, of course. And there’s few richer than Stanislaus. He’d pauper us all if he got the chance. But look you here.’
Winter leaned over the ledger and turned to the final page of the Stanislaus entry. ‘It was what your friend said last night that got me thinking.’
Ben was intrigued. ‘Oh yeah?’
Winter nodded and her mangy hair fell forward into her eyes. ‘These last few voyages of his I have on record. He’s been a-toing and froing to France like a top on a string.’
‘And that’s unusual, is it?’ queried Ben.
Winter thumped the table. ‘I’ll say it is. He plies the route to Holland and back and that’s an end to it. I’ve never known him go across to France, not in all my years.’
Ben sat down. ‘Well, perhaps he’s trying out new territory.
I mean, if everyone knows he does the Amsterdam route, they might steer clear of him.’
Winter held up a finger. ‘Aye. That they do. But my ledgers tell me that he’s not been attacking any ship on his way to France. I have eyes and ears everywhere, see, Ben.
Even that Pole can’t outwit me.’
Ben folded his arms and looked up at the beamed ceiling.
‘So he’s just been visiting France?’
Winter tapped the ledger again. ‘I count six times in the last two months. Now why is that?’
‘Maybe he’s got a French sweetheart?’
Winter let out a thick, rasping laugh. ‘What? That dried-up old poltroon? Nay, lad, he’s less between his legs than a maiden girl.’
She began to fiddle with the ragged ends of her hair, momentarily lost in thought. Then she snapped out of it and grinned at Ben. ‘But you may not be far wrong. There might be a lady who’s captured our man’s heart.’
‘Who?’
Winter leaned back in her chair until it creaked under her bulk. ‘The Queen,’ she murmured at last.
Before Ben could reply, the door was flung open and a young boy raced inside. His adolescent face was flushed with fear and excitement.
‘Captain!’ he gasped. ‘Captain, ma’am!’
Winter looked up. ‘What’s amiss, young Hugh?’
The boy caught his breath and looked wildly between Ben and the captain. ‘A ship, ma’am! There’s a ship approaching fast.’
‘Well?’ said Ben. ‘What of it?’
Hugh was frantically wringing his slender hands. ‘I think they’re pirates, sir!’
Sitting in a pair of comfortable chairs, the Doctor and Jamie faced Oliver Cromwell with benign smiles. They had been temporarily spared Richard’s inquisition by Thurloe’s arrival, to tell them that the general required their presence at once.
For the best part of an hour they had been fending questions with what the Doctor thought was great