Doctor Who_ The Roundheads - Mark Gatiss [79]
‘And get these two out of my sight. I have had enough of trickery for one day.’
The sound of booted feet approaching made them all look tip and the doors to the room were flung wide. A knot of soldiers marched inside, Thomas Culpeper at their head. The men carried something between them, a figure, its head covered in a cloth sack, kicking and struggling for all it was worth.
‘Tom?’ said Cromwell. ‘What’s this?’
Thomas Culpeper saluted Cromwell and then stepped aside.
The figure was flung to the floor where it made renewed efforts to free itself from the ropes that bound it.
‘Forgive me, General’ said Culpeper, ‘but this person was found in the King’s quarters at Hurst Castle. She had substituted herself for the serving girl employed there and had given drugged wine to the King’s guards.’
Cromwell shook his massive head. ‘What bloody treachery is this? She must have had accomplices. What of the other guards?’
‘All drugged,’ said Culpeper. ‘The two she bamboozled say she claimed to be the niece of the old castle retainer, Spufford. But he has flown and must be regarded as the chief suspect.’
Cromwell sighed and slammed his fist into his palm. Then he bent down and ripped the sack from the figure’s head.
The Doctor tried to push Jamie back as Polly was revealed but she saw them almost at once, blinking like a newborn lamb.
‘Oh, Doctor! Jamie! Thank goodness. I thought –’
She glanced quickly round and took in the scene in an instant.
Cromwell’s eyes flashed dangerously. ‘Well, well. Known to you, eh, Doctor?’
He shook his head disappointedly and then swung his arm over his head wildly. ‘Take them all to the Tower!’ he screeched hoarsely.
Culpeper’s men immediately grabbed the Doctor and Jamie. Polly found herself back on her feet and once more in custody.
‘You’re making a terrible mistake, General,’ said the Doctor sadly.
Cromwell didn’t reply but turned instead to Thurloe.
‘John, you will get the truth out of these people, even if you have to break them in two. Understand me?’
Thurloe nodded. Cromwell swept from the room, his cloak fluttering behind him. ‘Captain Culpeper!’ he called over his shoulder.
Nathaniel Scrope counted out the last of the coins on to the counter of the merchant’s shop and nodded.
‘How long’s it been, Jabez?’ he asked in his cracked voice.
He was standing a dark, low-ceilinged room that bristled with seafaring goods. The walls were thick with coiled rope.
Barrels of salt and tar crowded for space with ship’s biscuits and pewter pots.
The old man across the counter, who looked just as ancient and weathered as Scrope, leaned back on his stool and scratched his sunburnt head.
‘Well, now, Nat, that’s a good question. You come and did the scrapings last when our Betty was having her little ‘un.
And that must be all of three year back.’ He grinned broadly.
‘Aye. Three year come Christmas.’
Scrope chuckled. ‘Plenty for me to get my trowels into then, eh, Jabez?’
The other man let out a high-pitched laugh like a whistling kettle and slapped his knee.
‘I can’t say I’m not glad you’ve come, Nat. The smell was disturbing my sleep of a night!’
Scrope pulled a strange little spade from his belt and held it up high like a sword. ‘’Tis the Lord’s work I do!’ he announced, and he and his friend dissolved into further laughter.
The merchant led the way through the back of the shop and out into the frost-rimed yard. This dingy patch of land was so close to the Thames that it regularly flooded and there was a wide, smooth, frozen pool occupying the bottom half of the yard.
Scrope’s attention, however, was fixed on a ramshackle wooden structure which had been erected against the far wall.
Its woodwork was peeled and blistered with age and there were all kinds of unmentionable stains blemishing its surface.
‘There she is, Nat,’ said Jabez happily. ‘As proud a privy as there’s to be seen in all London!’
Scrope tapped his hat and scuttled bandily across the yard.
‘I’ll not be two