The Smallest Man

by Frances Quinn

  ‘What did she say?’ I asked.

  ‘Read it for yourself.’

  The message was the one I’d dictated to Sam. That meant he’d told her I was dead, as we’d agreed. It was just as I’d planned, and yet I realised as I stood there that until that moment, I’d been keeping alive a tiny hope that something – I had no idea what – might happen to save me.

  ‘You can’t seriously have thought she’d come?’ I said, trying to keep my voice steady. ‘She’d just as well have signed her own death warrant.’

  ‘Instead she signed yours.’ He leaned against the edge of the table, his arms folded, and looked down at me. ‘Tell me – do they really believe they can win?’

  ‘They’re certain of it.’

  He sighed and shook his head.

  ‘We can’t let that happen. We can’t go back to living under a king who treats us like children, who must do as he says because it’s he who says it.’

  I didn’t reply. I’d seen as well as anyone that the king was a good man but a poor ruler, made more so by his belief that everything he did or thought or said was right because it came from him. But that didn’t make the other side right. I remembered Bridlington and the ships looming up out of the night, intending to kill us in our beds, along with the villagers who’d done nothing to anyone. And Lady Denham, shot like a dog. Both sides were certain God was with them, but if that was true then why had so many people on both sides died? The major’s voice broke through my thoughts.

  ‘So I’m afraid the likes of you pay the price. It will be the day after tomorrow, at noon. If I were you I would use the time wisely, to make your peace with God.’

  * * *

  Of course, they wouldn’t let me see a priest, but I accepted the offer to pray with a minister. Though I’d never have said so to the queen, it always seemed to me that a loving God wouldn’t consign anyone to hell for the way they prayed, or who they did their praying with. So we prayed for my soul, and I offered up a silent prayer to God to watch over Arabella and give her a happy life. I couldn’t bring myself to ask for that life to include a husband, so I left that for God to make up his own mind about.

  After the minister left, I watched from the window as soldiers built the gallows to hang me on. I kept telling myself to turn away, but my legs wouldn’t move. Two soldiers quarrelled over the length of the timbers, one of them indicating with his hands how tall I was, the other shaking his head as if to say that that wasn’t relevant to the measurements they were taking. One shook the upright to test its solidity, and nodded, satisfied, and then they pulled up the cart and positioned it underneath the cross-timber. Only when one of them left and came back with a thick rope did I climb down from the chair and sit on the floor. Lord, let me able to bear it bravely. And please, make it quick.

  * * *

  I doubted I would sleep that night but I must have done; weak sunlight was just breaking the darkness when I woke to shouting outside and feet thundering down the stairs. Still half asleep, I stumbled to the window. The camp was alive with activity: soldiers were spilling out of the tents, some still shrugging on their tunics, horses were being saddled, weapons made ready.

  I listened at the door. At first there was just a babble of noise, men rushing about, shouts I couldn’t make out. Then Major Sarenbrant’s voice.

  ‘I want the men out in ten minutes,’ he said. ‘They think they can surprise us into a siege, but we’ll be waiting for them on the road.’

  ‘Is she with them?’ asked another man.

  ‘The lookouts said not. She’ll have done what she did up north, keep plenty back to protect her. But if we can do some damage to what she’s sent, that’ll be something.’

  ‘How many shall we leave to guard the house, sir?’

  ‘A couple will do. I want every man we can get on the road. We’re going to teach them a lesson this time.’

  That was when I realised that either Sam hadn’t delivered my message, or she hadn’t believed it. And even though we were in the middle of Parliamentarian territory, she was going to try to rescue me. For all my praying for a dignified, brave death, I can’t deny that relief and hope flooded through me. But the plan had obviously been to attack the house and its encampment, and now, just as we’d ambushed their troops in the north, they were going to do the same to ours.

  Within minutes, the house was as quiet as a stone; outside the only movement was the flapping of a tent side that had come adrift in the breeze. I paced the room, climbed onto the chair and strained my eyes for any movement on the road in the distance, climbed down, knelt and prayed, paced the room again.

  Hours passed before I glimpsed something moving, far off on the road. Was it just a trick of the light? No: there it was again, sunshine glinting on a helmet. A soldier – but from which side? There was only a short stretch of road visible beyond the trees at the bottom of the hill, and I pressed my face against the glass to see better before he disappeared, but I couldn’t tell. I held my breath and watched the drive up to the house.

  He was one of theirs. As he galloped up, the two guards who’d been left behind rushed out. Struggling to get his breath back, he slid down from his horse before he spoke, but when he looked up, his face told me what I needed to know: things had not gone their way. I sent up a quick prayer of thanks – God must have heard more from me in those few hours than he usually did in a fortnight – and watched as they argued about something. One of the soldiers turned and pointed up at my window. The rider’s eyes widened, but he shrugged, then led his horse off towards the stables, while the other two ran inside.

  The queen’s forces had won, or were winning, that much was clear. The messenger must have brought orders for us to be taken somewhere else, before we could be rescued. I’d have to do whatever I could to stop them moving us; the queen’s men couldn’t be far away, even minutes might make a difference.

  I pressed my ear to the door. The soldiers were rushing about and, after about twenty minutes, the big front door slammed. I ran to the window. They were sprinting towards the stables, and then all three rode past the front of the house and down the drive. My heart lifted: they must know the queen’s forces were on their way, and they were escaping while they could.

  Then I smelt the smoke.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  They’d set the house on fire, with me and Henry in it. The orders must have been to burn it down rather than let it fall into Royalist hands. I pressed my face to the glass and looked down; wisps of grey smoke were seeping out from under the door below. If they’d set the fire in the front hall, it wouldn’t be long before the wooden staircase and the panelling on the walls caught light. The window of the room I was in didn’t open, and even if I could smash the glass, the lead bars between the lights wouldn’t let me escape.

  Was that a voice? I put my ear to the door; there it was, louder this time:

  ‘Nat! Where are you?’

  Henry. From somewhere on the same floor, but not close.

  ‘At the front. Where are you?’

  ‘Room at the back. Furthest from the stairs. I can smell smoke.’

  ‘They’ve set the place alight. Can you break the door down?’

  ‘I could if I wasn’t tied to a chair.’

  The smell of smoke was stronger now; it was drifting up past the window. I tried to pick up the chair, thinking I could use it to smash the door, but it was heavy and I couldn’t lift it high enough. I ran at the door then, as hard as I could, but it held fast, as I’d known it would. I kicked at it, hurting my foot more than I did the door, and slumped to the floor, my head in my hands. It couldn’t end like this. The queen was trying to rescue us, I had to hold on. But smoke was seeping up through the floor now, catching in my throat. As it filled the room, I was suddenly sleepy; all I wanted to do was lie down and close my eyes. Fight it, I told myself. Fight it. But my eyes were too heavy to keep open.

  * * *

  ‘Nat! Nat!’

  The voice calling my name came fr
om far away. Someone was shaking me, but I wanted to sleep.

  ‘Wake up! Nat!’

  The face looking down at me was familiar, but I couldn’t place it. My head was foggy and it hurt to breathe. It was hot, but not hot like summer, and there was a noise, a roaring noise…

  Fire.

  Then it came back to me, the house was on fire and I was trapped, and Henry was tied to a chair but we had to get out… I sat up and my head swam. I started to cough and I couldn’t stop, and then I vomited until I thought my body would turn itself inside out. But I was vomiting onto grass.

  I’m outside.

  ‘You had me worried there, I thought you’d never wake up,’ said the voice, and I recognised it as one I never thought to hear again: Sam’s.

  I looked up. The fire had taken hold of the house. Flames poured from the windows, licking hungrily at the roof, and the air in front of it shimmered. There were a dozen or so soldiers with us, standing watching the flames.

  ‘We got you out just in time,’ said Sam.

  ‘Henry,’ I said. ‘Henry’s still in there—’

  ‘Oh, now you remember,’ said a voice beside me, and I turned too quickly; my head swam again and I puked up what was left of my stomach.

  ‘Just like old times,’ said Henry. His voice was croaky, and he had to take a rattly breath to speak again. ‘At least you missed my foot this time.’

  * * *

  ‘Had you fooled, didn’t I?’ said Sam. ‘You really thought I was going to do what you said.’

  We’d left as soon as Henry and I could stand; Major Sarenbrant’s troops had taken a battering from ours and the survivors had scattered, but we were still in Parliamentarian territory. The soldiers found a cart from somewhere and bundled us into it, and we were headed for Stratford, where the queen’s forces had made camp.

  ‘You were always the clever one, Nat, but I thought you’d lost your head entirely that day,’ Sam went on. ‘As if I’d have let you get yourself killed.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I just told the queen the truth. You said she was clever and like a soldier herself now, so I thought she’d know what to do. And she did.’

  Major Sarenbrant’s decision to meet the queen’s troops on the road rather than risk a siege of the house hadn’t helped him at all; the lie of the landscape meant her forces had seen them coming from a good way away, so they were ready to fight. And what neither I nor Major Sarenbrant had known was that the queen had negotiated to collect new forces at Newark. The rest of our troops were tired from the long march down from Bridlington, but these men were fresh and Major Sarenbrant’s soldiers couldn’t match them. Nor could they protect their commander; he’d been killed in the fight, and I sincerely hoped it hadn’t been quick.

  We learned as we rode that Sam had climbed a ladder and gone into the burning house to rescue us.

  ‘You’re a brave man, Sam,’ said Henry.

  Sam blushed and shook his head.

  ‘Not me. I was scared of our ma coming back to haunt me if I let anything happen to this one, that’s what it was.’

  ‘She’d have been proud of you,’ I said. ‘But what are you going to do now? They’ll have you down as a traitor for helping us.’

  ‘I’ll come over to your side. There’s plenty have done that already.’

  I thought of the queen, steeling herself to sell her jewels like a pedlar because she was so sure they had to win the war, that it was the only way to save the country. And Major Sarenbrant, so certain it was wrong for the country to go back to the way it was. Did they have any idea how many of the men they commanded didn’t care one way or the other? The troops the queen had picked up in Newark had been on the other side before; now they were fighting for her because their general had decided he’d backed the wrong horse. Ordinary soldiers changed allegiance of their own accord too, and in either direction, for better money, for convenience, or just because the war in their area was going against them. Even I’d chosen my side from loyalty, not because I was certain they were right.

  ‘What about Sarah?’ I asked. ‘And Lucy? They can’t stay in Oakham, can they?’

  ‘I’ll ride with you as far as the Oakham turn, then go and fetch them,’ said Sam. ‘I don’t say Sarah’ll take kindly to the idea, she loves our little cottage, but plenty of women and children follow along, she’ll soon settle in. She’ll want to be where I am, that’s the main thing.’

  * * *

  The camp celebrated that night, not just because we’d beaten the Parliamentarians and Henry and I had returned safely, but because we were close to Oxford and the long journey was almost over. Arabella was wearing the same dark-green dress I’d first seen her in, the copper lights in her hair bright against it. On the journey back, my stupid mind had kept drifting to the thoughts I’d had when I was locked in that little room, of the life we could have together, of how it would feel to know she loved me back. She liked me, didn’t she? Only as a friend so far, but couldn’t that change? Look at the way the king and queen were in the beginning: they’d hated each other, yet in time they became as devoted as any two people could be. Surely then it could happen if one person already loved the other and there was only half as much to change? I wouldn’t even mind if she didn’t love me as much as I loved her, as long as she loved me enough to want to be with me. And then we got back, and I looked at her, and knew my brain must have been addled by the smoke. She would never want me.

  I kept thinking of how she’d laugh if she knew what had been in my head, and I was afraid she might just look at me with her sharp green eyes and see. So before long I left the circle round the fire to their songs and reminiscences, and went back to my tent. I was sitting there, lost in thought, when Sam came over.

  ‘You all right?’ he said.

  I mumbled something about being tired. He came in and sat beside me.

  ‘That Arabella was asking where you’d got to.’

  ‘Was she?’ I said, doing my best to sound uninterested. But my face gave me away.

  ‘I knew it,’ said Sam, slapping his knee and laughing. ‘I saw the way you looked at her when we got here. Well, you’re a dark horse. How long has that been going on?’

  My first thought was to deny it, but suddenly all I wanted was to talk about it with the one person in the world who wouldn’t laugh at me.

  ‘It’s not going on,’ I said. ‘She’s not interested in me.’

  ‘Looked to me like she was.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid. Why would she want someone like me? Women want a man who’s tall and strong.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t just see the way you looked at her, I saw how she looked at you,’ he said. ‘She looked like you were something precious she’d lost and never thought to see again.’

  ‘This was when we arrived back at camp, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, and she—’

  ‘I was sitting next to Henry,’ I said. ‘He’s the one she was looking at.’

  ‘He wasn’t the one she was asking for just now.’

  ‘She probably just wants to tell me off for putting him in danger. Sam, there’s no way Arabella would want me.’

  ‘Yes but, see, I thought that about Sarah,’ he said. ‘Her being so pretty and quick and clever – I was sure she’d never look at a clot like me. But I liked her so much, I couldn’t get her out of my thoughts. So I thought what I’ll do is, I’ll get work on Whiteladies Farm – that’s where she was a dairymaid – and then I can see her every day, and that’ll have to be enough.’

  ‘What changed your mind? What made you get up the courage?’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t. I was that sure she wouldn’t want me, I never said more than good morning to her. No, it was Sarah – she came up to me one day and said did I want to take her to the fair or not, because if not, she’d go with Toby Averson, the cowman. It was as much as I could do to get the word out, but I said yes, and that was the beginning of it.’

  He smiled at the memory.

 
‘If I can get a wife like Sarah, I don’t see why you’re so sure Arabella wouldn’t love you. They’re funny things, women, and they don’t always do what you think they’ll do.’

  He was wrong. He might think himself lucky to have got Sarah for a wife, but if ever there was a case of love being blind, it was that one. The match was at least as lucky for her as it was for him, and nothing like the situation between me and Arabella. There was no chance for me with her, and I would just have to live with that.

  Chapter Forty

  Arriving in Oxford was like stepping back in time. The king and the two eldest princes rode to meet us, and as our procession came through the gates, bells rang out and people were hanging out of windows, cheering. In the fifteen months we’d been away, Oxford had become the new capital of England, as far as our side was concerned, and it was bursting at the seams with soldiers, courtiers, court officials and their servants.

  After all we’d experienced since we set foot back on English soil, it was the strangest of summers. Soldiers were drilled in the college courtyards, ammunition was stored in the grand halls, and the great quadrangle of Christ Church echoed with the bellowing of cows penned up to feed all the extra mouths. Every night, our troops went out to strike at the Parliamentary forces in the towns around, and every day news came of battles up and down the country. But for us, life went back to the golden days at Whitehall. There were dinners and dancing, poetry and plays; the king and queen strolled arm in arm through the cloisters, and courtiers picked up their old squabbles and flirtations as though the months in between had never happened. And me? I spent that summer trying to bring about a marriage between my best friend and the woman I loved.

  Sam had given me the idea when he told me about finding work on the same farm as Sarah. ‘Then I could see her every day,’ he’d said, ‘and that would have to be enough.’ Since I’d be foolish to hope for anything else, couldn’t that be enough for me too? And if Henry married Arabella, I’d have it: they’d both stay at court, wherever court eventually turned out to be, and I’d see her all the time. Otherwise, before long she’d be wooed by some lord and whisked off to his country house after they married, and I’d be lucky to set eyes on her once a year.