"Many in?"
Kemp swigged some water from a pewter cup and scowled. "That girl not back yet?" he said gruffly, ignoring his wife"s question.
Sarah brushed the hair from her eyes and began kneading a lump of dough which sat on a marble slab before her. "No. Not yet."
"Can"t see what could keep her," growled Kemp. "An errand"s an errand. She should be making better time now she"s grown, not worse."
Sarah Kemp bit her lip. She knew that the truth was bound to come out sooner or later. But, oh Lord, let it be later. She couldn"t bear to see her little Frances upset. And with William in this kind of mood, anything might happen. Of course, he was perpetually in this mood, nowadays, since... since...
She moved quickly as hot tears sprang into her eyes.
Kemp did not notice. "I ask you," he said, holding his big hands palms upward, "how long can it take to bring back a sack of flour?"
Sarah sank her hands into the dough and worked on.
"Expect she got to talking with someone. You know what girls are like."
"Aye," said Kemp. "I do. When there"s work to be done and not time to waste in idle gossip "
He broke off as the door opened and Frances came inside.
She looked first at her mother and smiled broadly, then, as she noticed her father, her expression changed. She took off her cloak and laid it over a chair by the fire, where it began to steam in the heat.
She smoothed back the hair from her delicate, rather otherworldly face and sat down opposite her father. He banged his fist on the table, setting the cheese rocking on its plate.
"Where"s the flour?" asked Kemp, his sour expression unchanging.
"In the outhouse, of course." said Frances quietly. "And where, might I ask, have you been all this time?"
Sarah Kemp looked across the table and caught Frances"s eye. She shook her head imperceptibly and Frances nodded her understanding.
"All this time?" she said with feigned indifference. "Why, I"ve not been more than half an hour, Father. And I needs must be careful in this weather. I"m sure you wouldn"t want your flour spilled all over the highway."
She flashed him her sweetest smile and Kemp grunted. He swigged more water and stuffed the remainder of the bread into his coat pocket, then got up, the chair legs sc.r.a.ping on the floor.
"I"ve got word that we"re to expect guests, Sarah," he said, looking his wife directly in the eyes.
"Guests?"
"Aye. So you"ll see the upstairs is made up good and proper, won"t you?" He crossed the kitchen and, without looking back, threw open the inner door and went into the tavern.
Sarah and Frances exchanged glances.
"Guests?" said Frances at last. "What kind of guests?"
In the queasy yellow light of a lamp, the man cut a n.o.ble figure. His face was long and intelligent, his complexion, like his hair and beard, so dark as to have once earned him the nickname Black Tom. But the raven hair was streaked with grey now and, though he gave the outward appearance of a man very much at peace with himself, Sir Thomas Fairfax, Commander-in-Chief of Parliament"s New Model Army, was nothing of the kind.
He was pacing up and down a modestly sized apartment, its small, mullioned windows letting in scant amounts of the feeble light of that freezing morning.
He had ordered his secretary, a young man of only twenty years, to light the lamp in order to lift some of the gloom Fairfax was feeling. But, if anything, the tallowy illumination only depressed his spirits further, throwing dense shadows over the furniture and the heavy, panelled walls.
The secretary scribbled away furiously on a large sheet of parchment, the nib of his quill scratching and squeaking over the smooth surface.
"It is an outrage," dictated Fairfax, his coal-black eyes blazing. "No, an illegal outrage. And I strongly urge that General Cromwell be remonstrated with for sanctioning this action against the lawfully elected Parliament of this nation.
Signed, Fairfax, Commander-in-Chief."
He paused, his head sinking on to his breast, and then waved a hand to dismiss the secretary.
The young man got up, clasping the still-wet parchment to his chest. "I will have this delivered with all due dispatch, My Lord."
Fairfax nodded, his attention already drifting elsewhere.
There was still so much to be done. The Army had not been properly paid for months. The King was imprisoned, awaiting trial. But what kind of trial could it be if the legally elected Parliament had not voted it through? If Cromwell had to get his way only by this outrageous purge of all those who did not see eye to eye with him?
After a while, Fairfax realised that the secretary was still there, hovering in the doorway.
"What is it?" asked Fairfax, frowning.
The secretary cleared his throat, fiddled with the border of his wide collar, and looked down at the faded embroidery of the carpet.
"I was just wondering, My Lord..."
"Well?"
The secretary cleared his throat. "I was wondering... what kind of a remonstrance Parliament might be expected to pa.s.s when two-thirds of its members are being thrown out of office."
For a moment, the secretary thought the n.o.ble Lord might explode with fury, but, gradually, the fiery light in his eyes faded and he gave a harsh laugh. "Aye, fair point, lad. I know what General Cromwell will say."
"My Lord?"
"He is still in the North, you know. But he won"t object to what has been done. It leaves the way clear for his followers to vote through the King"s trial."
The secretary inclined his head to one side. "Then this letter...?"
"Is useless. I know," concluded Fairfax mournfully. "But I will have it known that I object most strongly to this course of action. History will not say that Thomas Fairfax conspired to murder his King."
The secretary gave a neat bow and exited.
Fairfax slumped down on to a cushioned chair and stared at the flickering flame of the lamp. "Where are you, Oliver?"
he whispered to himself. "Where are you?
The TARDIS seemed warm after the freezing atmosphere of the London morning and the Doctor threw off his cloak as he walked briskly through the console room. He thought briefly of extracting the relevant data from the ship"s index files, but he had never liked computers and there was something homely and comforting about a book that the clinical printouts could never match.
He went through the interior door and marched straight past the cl.u.s.ter of rooms that made up the main TARDIS living quarters. Pausing at a junction, he stopped to get his bearings and held a finger up to his mouth.
"Library, library," he muttered to himself. "That would be this way, wouldn"t it? Yes. Past the pavilion, left, right, left again, tertiary console room dead ahead."
He smiled and rubbed his hands, pleased that his knowledge of the TARDIS"s twisted geography had not let him down, and set off, whistling happily.
In ten minutes he was hopelessly lost.
CHAPTER 2.
A fierce wind had whipped up the snow into a blinding curtain enveloping Parliament and m.u.f.fling the sounds of activity within its precincts.
Pride and Grey still stood before the ranks of troopers, eyes narrowed to slits, their shoulders thick with wet snowflakes. Three more men, three smudged black figures against the whiteness, were in the process of being turned away.
Pride sighed angrily, his breath smoking from his mouth.
"If you do not retire in peace, sirs, I shall be forced to arrest you."
The latest victim of the purge snorted in derision, his fat cheeks wobbling. "I"ve never heard anything so outrageous in all my life. Arrest me?"
"Well, if you insist," said Pride, signalling to one of the soldiers, who rapidly dismounted and marched over to his colonel.
"Sir?"
Pride nodded towards the three MPs. "These gentlemen are to be confined until further notice."
The soldier nodded and shoved the leading member in the small of the back. Still protesting, the three men were bundled away.
Grey looked down at the list, now thick with black lines where the members" names had been excised. "Almost a hundred and sixty, Colonel."
Pride nodded in satisfaction. "And the remainder will vote through the King"s trial or I"m Prince Rupert."
Grey smiled grimly, his mouth forming a thin line like a knife wound. "Then our work today is almost done."
Pride gave a low chuckle. "If you fear your blood"s turning to ice, My Lord, then off you go to your fireplace. I"ll stay as long as it takes."
Grey shook his head. "Nay, you"ll not shift me, Thomas Pride. Let"s continue."
He pulled himself up to his full height as another knot of unfortunates approached.
The Doctor slid down the roundelled corridor wall and gave a little whimper of frustration. Really, it was absolutely intolerable for him to lose his way inside his own TARDIS.
He had been walking round and round in circles, sometimes catching sight of a familiar chair or a bust of some long-dead emperor. But there was no way to tell if he was making any kind of progress. He half suspected the TARDIS was toying with him, getting a little revenge for all the hard work he made her do.
"Wretched thing," he snapped, kicking against the wall with his boot.
There was a strange, low sound, almost like a groan, and the Doctor looked up in surprise.
Then, with a soft click, a door opened in the wall where he had never noticed one before. It was a perfectly reasonable door, rectangular, soundly constructed and ordinary. But the room it opened on to was quite another thing altogether.
The Doctor scrambled to his feet and stepped gingerly forward, pushing the door back to its full extent.
"Well I never," said the Doctor, a smile creeping slowly over his face.
The room was small, cluttered, and rather airless. It was musty and cobwebbed with a smell like old books and damp clothes combined. And, in contrast to the warm luminescence of everywhere else in the TARDIS, it was completely dark.
A funnel of light from the corridor beyond showed up some things the Doctor recognised at once. Alphabet building blocks were scattered over the floor, which was itself covered by a thick Turkish rug. Clockwork cars, tin soldiers, and slightly sinister Victorian dolls, their fat cheeks and blank eyes grimy with dust, were strewn about the place. In the centre of it all, jerking back and forth, back and forth as though someone"s hand had only just set it in motion, was a rocking horse.
The Doctor walked slowly and carefully through the litter of toys and placed his palm on the cracked varnish of the rocking horse"s head. It stopped suddenly.
"What are you trying to show me, old girl?" asked the Doctor to the air.
He looked about and caught sight of a hurricane lamp which was standing, rather incongruously, on top of a box of bricks.
Picking it up, the Doctor slid open the gla.s.s front and examined the wick. The lamp stank of paraffin and he rapidly lit a match, illuminating the little room with a soft, pleasant glow.
As he did so, another door opened in the far wall, smaller this time, as though it wasn"t meant for a man to walk through at all.
He looked puzzled. "Curiouser and curiouser, said the Doctor," he mumbled.
He walked on to the door, popped his head through, and realised, with a start, that he was looking out on to the corridor that led directly to the main console room.
He let out a little laugh and patted the wall affectionately.
"Oh, bless you," he said happily.
Then, as he squeezed himself through the narrow door, his eyes alighted on something lying on the rug right beneath his feet.
The Doctor frowned, then stooped to pick it up. It was a book, solid and heavy, covered in a smooth paper dust jacket and decorated with a pleasantly idealised colour painting dating from some time in the 1920s.
He pressed it to his chest and shook his head in bewilderment. The TARDIS never ceased to surprise him.
As soon as he had stepped out into the corridor, the little door behind him seemed to vanish.
The Doctor blew out the flame in the hurricane lamp and made his way through to the console room, picking up his cloak and swinging it over his shoulders. He drummed his fingers over the book"s surface as he opened the doors and stepped back into the cold alleyway.
It wasn"t exactly what he"d been after, he had to admit, but, in its own particular way, the TARDIS had found what he was looking for and given it to him.
At least Jamie would be pleased, thought the Doctor, plunging Every Boy"s Book Of the English Civil Wars Every Boy"s Book Of the English Civil Wars deep into his pocket. deep into his pocket.