The Smallest Man

by Frances Quinn

  ‘I don’t say it’s been easy,’ Jeremiah went on. ‘We’ve both had our troubles, and I’ll speak the truth to you, because you understand – I’m glad Michael’s not the way I am. It’ll make life easier for him.’

  ‘But you don’t wish things had been different for you?’

  ‘No, do you?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ I said. ‘Not anymore.’

  * * *

  We parted at Southwark, where the first stage of our journeys ended. The wagon had been noisy and bumpy, so we’d talked very little on the way, but there was one thing I wanted to say to Jeremiah before I left him.

  ‘You’ve been more than a friend to me,’ I said, as we stood in the courtyard of the inn that was the wagon’s last stop. ‘You’ve been like a father. And a better one than the one I was born to.’

  ‘Well, if your father didn’t appreciate what a fine son he had, then I feel sorry for him,’ he said. ‘And if there’s anything I want for Michael, it’s that he grows up to be a good man like you.’

  I thought about my father, on the long journey to Oakham. I didn’t feel sorry for him. He’d been ashamed of me because I was small, and he’d made me ashamed of myself. But he’d set me on the path to the life I’d had, and though he’d had his own reasons, perhaps there’d also been a part of him that really did believe he’d found a good chance for me. I’d never know, now, but if I chose to believe it, well, that was up to me.

  Chapter Sixty

  I took my time walking through the town to Sam’s cottage, because I was afraid. All through the journey, I’d pictured his face when he saw me, but I didn’t know for sure that I’d ever see it again. My hope was that he’d surrendered to the other side and been given parole. Plenty had. But plenty had died too.

  I could have asked someone, but I couldn’t bring myself to. If my brother was dead, I didn’t want to hear it from someone who’d be itching to tell the neighbours who they’d just seen, and how I’d looked when they told me.

  Lucy was outside the cottage, playing with a ginger cat. She looked up and saw me. I didn’t expect her to remember me but of course I was quite difficult to forget.

  ‘Uncle Nat,’ she shouted. ‘Papa, Uncle Nat’s here.’

  From inside the house, a voice I knew said, ‘Don’t be silly, pet. You know your mother doesn’t like you telling stories.’

  I put my finger to my lips, and walked the last few yards to the open door. He was standing with his back to it, my big, tall, little brother. Lucy giggled as I knocked, and he turned round.

  ‘It’s me,’ I said. ‘I’ve come home.’

  * * *

  If Sam said ‘I can’t believe it’ once that evening, he said it a dozen times. My ribs were still sore from him throwing his arms round me when I walked through the door, and even hours later, he would look at me every so often, shake his head, and say, ‘I can’t believe it. You’re back here in Oakham, at last.’ It was so good to see him again, and no longer in the stiff tunic of a soldier, but sitting by his own fireside, with Lucy leaning against his knee.

  ‘Got my parole after we fought at Newbury,’ he told me. ‘And I was happy to have it, I can tell you. There were sights on that battlefield I never want to see again. Good men lost on both sides, and if you know what it was all for, Nat, then you can tell me, because I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, if Nat knows, he can tell you another time, because I won’t have talk of fighting when we’re eating,’ said Sarah, dishing up bowls of chicken stew, the unfortunate bird having met its end that afternoon, in my honour.

  She hadn’t looked quite so pleased as Sam to see me, but then I wasn’t sure Sarah was given to looking very pleased about anything. Nevertheless, she made a good chicken stew, and when I complimented her on it, her mouth very nearly approximated a smile. Lucy, on the other hand, was a cheerful little girl, who wanted to know everything I could tell about the queen, and what dresses she wore, and how people danced at the palace.

  ‘Ah, but you should have seen her when she was with her soldiers,’ I said, after I’d run out of dresses I could remember, which didn’t take long. ‘Sitting outside with them, eating round the fire. She was like a lady general.’

  ‘And you saved her from the people who wanted to kill her,’ said Lucy. ‘Papa told us.’

  ‘And then your papa saved me,’ I said. ‘He was very brave.’

  Lucy beamed up at Sam, and he reached down and rumpled her curls.

  ‘She’s heard that story a few times too,’ said Sarah, but there was pride in the glance she gave Sam. It pleased me to see that. She might not be someone I’d want to wake up beside, but it was plain to see she loved my brother and so he was right; he had been lucky.

  Before we went to bed, I reassured them that I wouldn’t be staying too long; I hadn’t missed Sarah’s pinched look earlier, when Sam said I had a home with them for as long as I wanted one.

  ‘As soon as the winter storms are over, I’ll be on a ship back to France,’ I said. ‘The king can’t hold out much longer. He’ll have to agree to go, and I’ll go too.’

  * * *

  The following day, Sam and I took a walk; it being a Sunday, he had no work, and I had a fancy to see the woods where we used to play. We got to talking about the Oxford days and – quite in passing – I mentioned Arabella. He stood stock still, and clapped his hand to his mouth.

  ‘What?’ I said. I remember I laughed, because he looked so daft.

  ‘I forgot, with all the excitement of you being home. What an idiot, I should have told you.’

  ‘Told me what?’

  ‘Arabella – she came here.’

  ‘Here? To Oakham?’

  ‘Year before last, it was. She came back to England to nurse her father – poor soul was wounded right at the end of it all. And one of the brothers was killed the same time.’

  All that time I’d been picturing her and Henry in France, they’d been here in England.

  ‘She’d promised the queen she’d try and find you. They’d all been worried, she said, when you didn’t write.’

  ‘What did you tell her?’

  ‘What could I tell her? I didn’t know where you were either. But you can go and find her now, can’t you? They’re living back in the village she came from, she said.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘I can’t face it.’

  ‘Face what?’

  ‘Seeing them together. Her and Henry.’

  ‘No but that’s the thing! She didn’t marry him. Said they were never really suited, and she’d broken it off not long after you went away.’

  She’s not married?

  He winked at me.

  ‘Seemed to me she was quite keen for me to know that. Seemed to me she’d want you to know it too.’

  But it’s hopeless. You know it’s hopeless.

  ‘Stop it, Sam. She wasn’t interested in me then, and she wouldn’t be interested in me now.’

  ‘You know what?’ he said. ‘I always thought you were the clever one, but when it comes to women, you’re as a stupid as a sheep.’

  ‘Oh, and you know so much about them, do you?’

  ‘No, that’s just it – I was as stupid as you are. If Sarah hadn’t asked me to the fair that day, I’d never have dared to speak a word to her, and I’d have lost her to the cowman. But seeing that I’d been so daft, I thought you’d make sure you didn’t make the same mistake.’

  ‘It’s not the same.’

  ‘Well, I think you should go and see her.’

  ‘Thank you for your advice. Now can we talk about something else?’

  I can’t remember what we did talk about on the rest of that walk; I don’t suppose I heard half of what Sam said anyway. The same thoughts kept going round and round in my head.

  It’s not too late.

  So what? She’d never want you.

  But what if she did? What if Sam’s right, and I had it all wrong?

  No. Don’t be an idiot. Forget it. Don’t le
t yourself go there again.

  * * *

  That night, as I lay curled up on the kitchen floor, after Sam and Sarah had gone to bed, I thought and thought about what I should do. For so long, I’d tried to keep Arabella out of my head, believing she was Henry’s wife. But she wasn’t, she never had been. So now, I let the thoughts come back, and remembered all the things I’d loved about her: her smile, her quick way with words, even her kindness to the queen’s smelly old dog.

  I remembered Sukie’s words too: ‘I’d love that man if he had three heads and he’d love me if I had four.’ Arabella was beautiful – but I’d have loved her if she had four heads too. Had there ever been a chance she could love me? And if there was even the smallest possibility of it, shouldn’t I find out?

  I woke, in the early hours, drenched in sweat. Over the time I’d spent in Kent, my nightmares about Crofts had gradually left me, but for the first time in many months, I’d dreamed about that morning in the forest again. Except that this time, when I stepped towards the body on the ground, it wasn’t Crofts lying there, it was Arabella. As my terror faded, I saw how stupid I’d been. I couldn’t go to her. It didn’t make any difference whether there was a chance for me or not: my foolishness in falling in love with her had caused Crofts’ death. How could I think I deserved to be with her, knowing that?

  Chapter Sixty-one

  Those first few weeks back in Oakham were cold and very wet, and with the roads impassable, no news reached us. As far as anyone knew, the king and Parliament and the Scots and the army were still arguing about who’d have the final say on taxes, and whether the bishops were to stay or go. But then, one icy morning just before Christmas, I went to the market to pick up some provisions for Sarah, and saw people standing around, in little groups, reading the newsbooks over each other’s shoulders, or listening as someone else read aloud. There was shock on their faces, all of them.

  I couldn’t see the seller; by the looks of it, he’d sold out and gone. I joined the edge of a little knot of people standing round the blacksmith, who was reading out loud, his finger tracing each line as he spoke it. For once no one looked twice at me, they were hanging on to his every word.

  ‘… broken the sacred covna… covee…’

  ‘Covenant,’ said a woman, reading over his shoulder.

  ‘… the sacred cov-en-ant with his people,’ read the blacksmith, ‘and put himself above the law.’

  ‘What’s happened?’ I asked.

  ‘They’re trying him. For treason,’ said the woman.

  ‘Trying who?’

  ‘The king.’

  * * *

  It had all happened in a matter of days. He’d made a treaty with Parliament, the newsbook said, but the army didn’t trust him: he’d already surrendered once and then gone back on it, what was to say he’d keep any promises after they’d put him back on the throne? So they’d taken matters into their own hands: declared the king an enemy of the people, for causing the war in the first place, then picked off the Members of Parliament who didn’t agree with them, and arrested them.

  ‘That can’t be true,’ said Sarah, when I ran home with the news. ‘They can’t do that, can they?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But it looks like they have.’

  * * *

  You’ll know, of course, what happened after that. The news from his trial travelled fast, even to Oakham; he’d told them, on the very first day, that they weren’t fit to sit in judgement on him, and he wasn’t going to dignify the proceedings by even answering the charges. You could see then how it was going to end. They wouldn’t stand for that, not now.

  * * *

  All the way to London, I told myself perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps they’d still let him go, pack him off to France and tell him not to come back. But at every inn, the news was the same; he was still telling them they couldn’t sit in judgement on him, even as witness after witness stood up and said it was all his fault that so many people had died. I don’t know if it would have made any difference, by then, if he’d behaved differently, but I never met anyone who was as good at making a bad situation worse as he was.

  Perhaps you think it strange that I travelled to London to see it? I know Sam thought so, but I had a stupid idea he might like to see a face he knew in the crowd. Mostly though, I went for her, because she couldn’t be there to say goodbye to him.

  When I stepped off the coach at Cheapside, it was already over. The day before, they’d found him guilty of treason and sentenced him to death. That night, for the first time in quite a while, I prayed – for the king, who’d been a fool, but who didn’t deserve this, and for the queen, whose agony I could hardly even imagine.

  * * *

  The day dawned bitterly cold, and my breath billowed out in front of me as I followed the crowds to Whitehall. My old home was a barracks now, run-down and shabby. They’d built a scaffold outside the banqueting hall, level with the first-floor windows, and hacked a rough opening in the wall. The platform was draped in black, and the block was in the middle, so low he wouldn’t even be able to kneel, but would have to lie flat. On either side were thick metal staples; a man standing near me told his daughter he’d be tied to them if he struggled. They knew, anyone who’d ever had dealings with him would know, he wouldn’t struggle. But someone had decided to put them there anyway.

  Across the road was an elm tree; half a dozen boys had climbed it and I did the same, finding myself a broad branch to sit on so I could see over the crowds. They must have been fifty deep, and people were hanging out from windows too, and even standing on the rooftops. A row of pikemen, stamping their feet against the cold, stood with their backs to the scaffold, keeping the crowds at a distance, as though even now, someone might try to rescue him. But I heard no one speak against the proceedings, and the people around me showed nothing more than curiosity: speculating about how the thing would be done, whether he might say anything, even what he would wear, as though it was a new form of entertainment that might or might not catch on, depending on how well the first performance went.

  A murmur ran through the crowd as two figures stepped onto the platform, wearing hoods that showed only their eyes, one of them carrying the axe. The rumour in the taverns was that the executioner of London had refused the task, and they’d had to promise his replacement, and his assistant, that they could conceal their identity. Like stage actors pretending to chat among themselves while the main character makes a speech, they busied themselves with checking the position of the block, placing the axe down and picking it up again, and trying the unnecessary staples for strength.

  When he appeared he was dressed in black. It shocked me to see his beard grizzled with grey. The crowd fell silent as he looked out over them. Behind him came a short man in the robes of a bishop, and two pikemen. The king began to speak, but I couldn’t catch more than the odd word, and judging by the puzzled faces in the crowd below, they couldn’t either. But he had that look he always had when he was explaining to someone why they were wrong and he was right. The poor fool didn’t see, even then, that that was what had put him where he was.

  When the executioner started testing the edge of the axe on his own hand, the king caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and lost his thread for a moment. But then he carried on, and when he got to the end of what he had to say, his gaze swept from left to right, over the crowd, as though he’d just taught them something and he was checking to see if they understood. I hoped he didn’t realise most of them hadn’t heard a word of it.

  The bishop stepped forward, and they spoke a few words together – I supposed it was a prayer – and then the king took off his hat. The executioner’s assistant put a white cap on him, pushing all his hair up inside it, but he couldn’t have made a proper job of it; the king felt the back of his neck and then gestured to the bishop, who stepped up and tucked some last bits in. My stomach turned over then; what must that feel like, to stand there and know in a few minutes someone’s goi
ng to cut your head off? And yet he stood straight, he didn’t tremble. She would have been proud of him.

  He waved the executioner over, and pointed towards the block. I think he must have been asking if it could be raised; the executioner shook his head. The king took off his cloak, removed his high-necked doublet, and put his cloak back on. Then he folded his hands together and prayed, and when he’d finished, he lay down with his head on the block. And when you see something like that, when it’s right in front of you, you can’t believe it’s really going to happen but it did. The axe swung down, blood sprayed out and the crowd let out a groan like a wounded animal. It was as though up till that point, they really had thought they were at the theatre, and it had only just dawned on them that this time the lead character wasn’t going to get up and take a bow. The king was dead.

  * * *

  I got very drunk that night. I went back to the inn where I was staying, took a flagon of wine up to my room and drank my way through it. When you’re my size, it doesn’t take much to set the room spinning, but I had to get the axe and the blood and that terrible groan out of my head. I’d never had much love for the king, I’ve made no secret of that, and I still think he was a fool. But he was an honourable man too and seeing him stand there, brave and dignified, when they’d done all they could to humiliate him in his last moments… well, I thought he acquitted himself better in death than he’d ever done in life. And of course, I thought of the queen. She wouldn’t know yet he was dead. But there was such a bond between them I wondered if she might feel it anyway. It was a fanciful notion and I’m generally not given to those, but it had been a strange day and I’d drunk a lot of wine.