The Smallest Man

by Frances Quinn

  My hand was on the latch when their bedroom door opened. I knew it was Sukie: Jeremiah was still snoring.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ she said quietly.

  ‘It’s better if I leave,’ I said. ‘You know that.’

  ‘We’ve managed this far. We were careless, the other night. We won’t be again. But Jeremiah’s right. We couldn’t live with ourselves if anything happened to you.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I mean it. We want you to stay. Both of us.’

  ‘Are you certain?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And besides,’ she said, ‘you’ve just about got the hang of peeling a turnip. So get back up that ladder and let’s hear no more about leaving.’

  * * *

  I won’t tell you Sukie never snapped at me again – she was a snappy kind of woman – but we rubbed along better after that. Which was lucky, because there seemed to be no end in sight to my stay with them: the newsbooks barely mentioned the king now, all we read were proclamations from Parliament and the county committee, forbidding us to celebrate saints’ days, imposing fines if we didn’t fast once a month and threatening prison for anyone still using the old prayerbook.

  A week before Christmas, Jeremiah went into town.

  ‘You wouldn’t believe it,’ he said when he came back. ‘Not a sprig of holly anywhere. I was going to buy myself a nice mincemeat pie, but the baker said they’ve been forbidden to make them, can you credit that? And they’ve to open on Christmas Day, all the shops, just as though it was any other day.’

  There were rumours, he said, that the mayor was sending out soldiers to knock on doors and check that people weren’t feasting on the day. After our scare with Sir Peter, we all thought it prudent to take no chances, so on that Christmas Day in 1646, we sat down to a very ordinary dinner of mutton pie, our only act of rebellion a toast in small beer, mouthed so Michael wouldn’t hear and repeat it, to happier days and the hope of a better year to come.

  Chapter Fifty-two

  What we didn’t know then was that the king’s fortunes were about to take a turn for the worse. By the middle of January, the newsbooks were reporting that the Scots had handed him over to Parliament. Reading between the lines, it sounded like they’d got fed up with him trying his old trick of saying yes, and then no, and then maybe, as if he could bamboozle them into thinking they’d got their way when actually he’d got his. Now it was Parliament’s turn to see if they could get any sense out of him.

  On the estate though, the talk was of something else entirely. Two months after being kicked by the horse, Sir Peter’s son still couldn’t walk, despite the ministrations of the best doctors in the county. And once it was clear the local ones were getting nowhere, doctors were even being summoned down from London, Jeremiah told us.

  ‘One bled him, twice a day for a week, another one said to bind his leg to wooden splints. But it’s made no difference at all. The master’s beside himself. Him having only daughters otherwise, Robert is the apple of his eye.’

  Jeremiah was afraid that, having advised the master to buy the horse, he’d be blamed for the accident. And for once, his forebodings proved accurate. When a third doctor from London pronounced that the boy would probably never walk again, Sir Peter marched down to the stables.

  ‘Yelled out for me, in front of everyone,’ said Jeremiah, rubbing his brow with his big old hand. ‘Said I was a fool. Said I should have known the horse was dangerous. And plenty more besides, including words not fit to repeat in front of a woman.’

  ‘But it wasn’t your fault, was it?’ I said. ‘The boy shouldn’t have sneaked in there.’

  ‘No, he shouldn’t. But he’s just a boy, and boys are headstrong. I should have made sure Sir Peter understood he couldn’t be let near that horse. If he’s minded to get rid of me, I wouldn’t blame him at all, though what we’d do then, I don’t know.’

  Sukie’s hand flew to her mouth.

  ‘He didn’t say that, did he?’

  ‘Not in so many words, no. But I think to myself, what would I do if I thought someone was to blame for hurting little Michael? I wouldn’t want them in my sight, and maybe he won’t either.’

  * * *

  Despite our efforts to reassure him, Jeremiah remained in a constant state of anxiety about losing his place on the estate, terrified of making the smallest mistake in case it proved the last straw. So when, one day that spring, we saw him coming home, head down and steps heavy, in the middle of the afternoon, both of us feared the worst. Sukie flew to the door.

  ‘What’s happened?’ she asked.

  He shook his head and said, ‘Let me get inside, and I’ll tell you.’

  We both stood and watched as he pulled off his boots and then buried his head in his hands.

  ‘What is it?’ said Sukie, kneeling by his side. ‘Jeremiah, tell us.’

  He looked up, and his big face was sadder than I’d ever seen it.

  ‘I’ve to shoot the horse,’ he said. ‘The Arab stallion. Sir Peter says he’s got to go, and I’m the one has to do it.’

  For a moment, I thought Sukie was going to hit him.

  ‘Jeremiah Hobley,’ she said, ‘do you realise what you had us thinking?’

  He looked at her blankly.

  ‘We thought you’d lost your place.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Well, that’s it, you see. I told him, that horse doesn’t deserve to be shot. It’s done nothing wrong. Sell him, I said, anyone’d be pleased to take him from you. But don’t punish the horse for what wasn’t the horse’s fault.’

  ‘You said that?’ said Sukie. ‘To Sir Peter?’

  ‘It just came out of me, Sukie. That beautiful horse, it just wasn’t fair. I knew, soon as I said it, that I shouldn’t have, but it was too late. That’s when he said it had to be me. You do it, he said. Shoot the horse, or go.’

  * * *

  We tried to say that the horse was going to be killed anyway, and its best chance was in the hands of someone who’d take care to be sure it didn’t suffer. But he was inconsolable. That evening, having taken a good few mugs of beer, he said:

  ‘It’s all my fault. I should never have deserted the king and queen.’

  ‘What?’ said Sukie. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘We should have gone with them, like Nat did. She was good to me, the queen. Wasn’t she, Nat?’

  ‘Well, yes, she was good to both of us.’

  ‘And if we’d gone along, gone with Nat, none of this would have happened. I’d have been there to stop him killing the Crofts boy, and we wouldn’t have come here, and I wouldn’t have got us into this terrible mess, when we might be thrown onto the streets, with no job and nowhere to live, and nowhere to hide Nat. The young master would still be striding round in his boots and that horse…’ A fat tear slid down his cheek. ‘That beautiful horse would be somewhere else, with people who’d take care of him.’

  Sukie patted his huge hand with her little one and said, ‘It’s not your fault. And tomorrow, you’ll do your best for that poor horse and give it a quick end. There’s nothing else you can do.’

  ‘I don’t deserve you,’ he said mournfully.

  ‘Probably not,’ she said. ‘But here we are, so take yourself off to bed, or you’ll have a sore head in the morning.’

  After Jeremiah had dried his eyes and lumbered off to bed, we sat up a little while.

  ‘You notice the animal’s predicament got the tears?’ she said. ‘Not ours. That man and his horses.’

  ‘He does have a special way with them,’ I said. ‘It’s like he speaks their language.’

  ‘Oh, I know. First time I saw him with a horse, that’s when I knew he was the one for me. He was so gentle with them, big as he is, and I thought, only a kind man could be that way with an animal.’

  A rasping snore erupted from the bedroom, followed by a series of snorts and mumbles. She smiled.

  ‘I didn’t know about the snoring then.’

/>   ‘You seem very happy together,’ I said. ‘It’s nice to see.’

  I hadn’t meant to sound wistful, but it came out that way and of course, as women will, she noticed.

  ‘What about you?’ she said. ‘Did you leave a sweetheart behind in France?’

  ‘Why would you think I have a sweetheart?’ I asked.

  ‘You get a moony look on your face sometimes.’

  I looked down at the table.

  ‘Women aren’t interested in me.’

  ‘Because you’re small?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to swell your head, Nat, but I’ve come to know you pretty well these last months. You’re a good man, and they’re not easy to find.’

  ‘But women want a man who’s tall and strong. You must know that.’

  ‘Have you met every woman in the world?’

  ‘No, of course not, but—’

  ‘Then how do you know there’s not one for you?’

  ‘It’s obvious.’

  ‘Jeremiah used to think no one would love him,’ she said. ‘But someone does.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s different. You wouldn’t want him if he was like me.’

  ‘Well, that we’ll never know. But I’ll tell you this. I’d love that man if he had three heads, and he’d love me if I had four. Love loves where it loves, Nat. And I don’t believe there’s no one to love you.’

  * * *

  Once I’d got over my surprise at Sukie allowing herself to issue so many words in one conversation, I thought about what she’d said. She wasn’t one to offer false flattery – she was a bit like Arabella in that respect. If she really thought a woman could love me – and she was one, after all – was there a chance it could be true? And if it was, had there ever been a chance that person could have been Arabella? If I hadn’t pushed Henry towards her, was it possible she might she have tired of him, and thought of me? And then I would see how ridiculous that was, and tell myself to stop being so stupid.

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Jeremiah went off the next day, and did what he had to do. When he came home, he didn’t want to talk about it, and after that he was quiet in the evenings, and in the mornings, instead of striding off to the stables whistling, he walked with his head down and his shoulders hunched, as though he was headed for the last place he’d ever want to go. What had happened to the boy played on his mind constantly. Why hadn’t he made it clearer to Sir Peter that the horse was too strong for a boy to ride, he’d ask himself. Why had he even advised him to buy the horse at all?

  Both of us told him, over and over again, that it hadn’t been his fault, but it made no difference.

  ‘The boy’s taken to his bed now, I heard it from one of the maids,’ he told us one evening. ‘Won’t speak to anyone, won’t take his lessons. And Sir Peter, he looks like all the sadness in the world just came and settled on his table.’

  I’d had an idea going round in my mind, over the past few days, and that seemed as good a time as any to come out with it.

  ‘There is something you could do to help the boy,’ I said. ‘You could teach him to ride again.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He can’t use his legs, can he? Well, remember when you taught me? I couldn’t use my legs when I was riding either, not the way other people do. So if you taught me, couldn’t you teach him?’

  His face lit up.

  ‘Do you really think that could work?’

  ‘Of course it could. And you said – he loves horses. You’d be giving him a bit of his life back.’

  ‘That’s true enough. There was barely a day went by when that boy wasn’t out on a horse.’

  ‘Well, there you are then. If anything’s going to get him out of his bed, it’s that.’

  For a second, he looked thoughtful. Then he shook his head.

  ‘It’s a nice idea, but no.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I can’t be sure I could do it. And if I get their hopes up, and fail, what then? I’m on thin ice already, Nat, I can’t take that chance. Better to keep my head down, and hope this all passes over, one way or another.’

  * * *

  All in all, we had a gloomy few months, with Jeremiah miserable, and no end in sight to my time in hiding. But one day that summer he came home from a trip into Canterbury brandishing a newsbook, a great big smile spreading across his face.

  ‘Look,’ he said, showing me the page. ‘Look what it says here.’

  The army had snatched the king away from Parliament and offered him some proposals of their own. He’d have to accept that he wasn’t in charge anymore, but they’d let him keep his bishops, and the old prayerbook for those who wanted it. If he said yes, they’d guarantee his safety, and the queen’s, and their children’s – and there’d be a pardon for everyone who’d helped the Royalist side during the fighting.

  ‘You’ll be safe,’ said Jeremiah. ‘We’ll all be safe. And the queen can come home again – you’ll be back at Whitehall before you know it.’

  We celebrated that night, with a flagon of cider that made even Sukie giggly. And as I fell asleep, I thought about how it would feel to step outside and feel the sun on my face again.

  Chapter Fifty-four

  I should have known. The king had barely shown an ounce of good sense in his life; why would he start now? He turned down the army’s proposals out of hand, saying they needed him more than he needed them, which was a bit like a fish telling a fisherman it’d be choosing what time dinner was. And so nothing changed; I was still stuck and Jeremiah and Sukie were still stuck with me.

  * * *

  We were approaching our second Christmas together when Sukie came back from market saying there’d been a strange feeling in the city.

  ‘People were grumbling about having no Christmas – saying it out loud,’ she said. ‘The mayor’s said the market has to open as well as the shops, since Christmas Day’s a Saturday. The knife sharpener told me he won’t do it, and he says he’s not the only one.’

  ‘You don’t want to be getting into conversations like that,’ said Jeremiah. ‘You don’t know who might be listening.’

  ‘I keep myself to myself, as you well know,’ she said. ‘I didn’t venture an opinion. But plenty of people were doing. I heard one woman say it was about time we got the old ways back.’

  ‘And nobody spoke against her?’ asked Jeremiah.

  ‘Nobody. There were no soldiers near, mind you, I doubt they’d all have been so free with their tongues if there had been. But all the same, it felt to me like there was something afoot.’

  * * *

  Sukie was right: something was afoot. We didn’t hear until afterwards, but that Christmas Day, the people of Canterbury decided enough was enough. Those stallholders who’d opened up were made to close, and men with sticks stood outside the church, so the minister could give his flock a proper Christmas Day sermon.

  ‘This’ll end badly,’ said Jeremiah. ‘The mayor won’t put up with it. Why can’t people just keep their heads down and wait for things to sort themselves out?’

  ‘They’re not sorting themselves out though, are they?’ I said. ‘All this time, and nothing’s changed. They can’t make the king agree to anything, because they can’t agree among themselves. So no one’s got what they fought for – not us, and not them either.’

  ‘That’s true enough,’ he said. ‘But what can we do about it, the likes of us? Pray that wiser heads than ours work out a way to bring this country back to peace – that’s all sensible folk can do.’

  But the sensible folk of Canterbury had other ideas. They got up a petition, saying they wanted the king back, and the old ways of religion. We could hardly believe our eyes when we got our hands on a newsbook and read the words they’d written.

  ‘Cockatrices and vipers,’ said Jeremiah. ‘That’s what they’re calling the Members of Parliament.’

  ‘They won’t stand for that, will they?’ said Sukie. ‘So what’s goi
ng to happen now?’

  * * *

  To our astonishment, what happened was that the fighting started up again. Once news of the Canterbury petition got out, other places took heart from it. Half of Wales rose up against the army, calling for the king to take his rightful place again, and news came of riots in London and Norwich, and sundry other places I don’t recall.

  ‘They’ve gone too far, that’s what it is,’ said Jeremiah, as we pored over the latest news. ‘People thought they wanted change, but now they’ve got it, they see the old ways weren’t so bad after all.’

  * * *

  For a couple of months, we didn’t know whether to live in hope that the tide was turning our way, or fear that the fighting might drag on for years, like the first time round. But it turned out to be neither. At just about the same time we started hearing news that the uprising in Wales had been crushed, the army marched into Kent. The scratched-up bands of rebels didn’t stand a chance against Cromwell’s soldiers; hundreds died in the space of a night.

  From everywhere, the news was the same: Cromwell’s army couldn’t be beaten. Last time round, captured soldiers had been given parole, and released once they swore not to bear arms against Parliament again; that was what I hoped had happened to Sam. But anyone who’d fought this time had broken that oath, and now they were being made to pay. We heard stories of rebels beaten to death, of tongues cut out and feet hacked off; those who survived to be captured were being sent to the Barbados in their thousands and sold as slaves.

  By the end of August all the fighting was over. A month later, Jeremiah was arrested.