The Smallest Man

by Frances Quinn

  In the weeks after that, she grew paler and thinner and quieter. Sometimes it was as though she wasn’t really there at all. I didn’t try to amuse her anymore; there was no point. All I could do was make the steps of her chair my usual sitting place, so she’d always have a friendly face nearby. I hoped it would make her feel less alone.

  Chapter Twelve

  As the months rolled on, I began to get accustomed to my new life, but I still missed my family. When we sat down to dinner, and the servants brought in plate after plate of meat, filling the hall with rich, savoury smells, I remembered the way Sam’s nose almost twitched that day when we walked to the fair, and pictured his eyes growing wide at the sight of such a feast. I wondered what my mother would think of the silks and velvets the queen and her ladies wore, and I smiled sometimes to imagine Annie’s face if she saw the monkeys playing. When I thought of my father, though, I just heard that shilling chinking into his hand.

  No matter how much I wanted to avoid them, I still came across Crofts and his gang with monotonous frequency. Some days, I’d be bowling along quite happily, not even thinking about being small, and then they’d appear, or I’d hear a shout of ‘Pie boy!’ And after each encounter, I walked away feeling smaller and more useless.

  I didn’t even need to see them to feel a tight clump of humiliation in my belly. When we walked in the orchards, the sight of the big oak tree set off Crofts’ laughter in my head, and when I danced for the queen in yet another fancy costume, it was as though he was there, grinning at me. I hated him. And yet in my heart, I still wished I could be like him.

  ‘Lad, you’ve got to stop this,’ Jeremiah said one morning, after I’d ranted about how I’d like to be big enough to give Crofts a black eye, like any other boy would. ‘You’re the way God made you, same as I am, and it’s no use wishing we were otherwise. I’ve a few more years behind me than you have, and I can tell you, trouble finds the likes of us easy enough, so you’re best not to look for it. Keep your head down, and what people throw at you will fly right over it.’

  I didn’t argue with what he said. Since the day he plucked me down from the tree, he’d become a good friend, and he meant it kindly. But I still kept remembering what my mother told me that night just before I left Oakham: that on the inside, I was as big as anyone else. You show people that and you won’t go far wrong in life. My mother was the wisest person I knew, and if she was right, then surely there had to be a way to show Crofts, and everyone else, that I wasn’t a doll, I was a boy like any other?

  I gave it a lot of thought over those months but short of a magic spell to make me bigger or Crofts smaller, so I could fight him, I couldn’t see a way. And I’d lost my faith in magic spells a long time ago. But that spring, quite out of the blue, I spotted my chance. After the French were sent home, the king decided the queen should show herself to the people more, so we went to the races in Hyde Park. There were two horses in each race, and in the last the riders were a tall man with broad shoulders and a powerful chest – not unlike my father – and a skinny youth who looked as though a strong gust of wind could knock him flat. The boy’s horse bolted away at the start, to cheers from the crowd, but the man quickly gained on them, driving his horse past and leaving them yards behind. People were starting to turn away, losing interest, when, just as it looked like the race was won, the skinny lad put his head down and used his whole body to urge the horse on. Suddenly, it summoned a burst of speed. Coming up behind the man’s horse, it drew alongside it, until they were matching each other stride for stride. The crowd roared and I found myself holding my breath as, in the last few hundred yards, the boy pulled ahead and won the race. Afterwards, the big man walked over to congratulate him. His playful smack on the back nearly sent the boy flying, and yet on horseback, they’d been equal.

  That’s how I could do it.

  High up on a horse, I’d be as close as I could get to being equal with everyone else. If I could learn to ride and beat Crofts in a race, I’d humiliate him like he humiliated me – the son of the queen’s Master of Horse, beaten by her dwarf. And I’d show everyone I wasn’t just a little doll to be dandled and petted.

  I’d never ridden – to tell the truth, I’d never even been close to a horse – but I had the ideal teacher, didn’t I? Jeremiah knew everything about horses, there was no one better. And he was always at the stables, talking to the grooms, so he’d be able to get us a horse to practise with.

  I couldn’t wait to tell him my idea, but I’d reckoned without his tendency to see doom lurking round every corner. At some length, and with many sad shakings of his head, he warned that it was highly unlikely someone of my size could learn to ride, and even trying would almost certainly result in my death.

  ‘You could easily be killed, falling from a horse. If your back doesn’t snap like a twig, you can be kicked in the head, even trampled into the ground. There’d be nothing left of you but bits of bone.’

  ‘But people fall off horses all the time. They don’t all die.’

  ‘Yes, but someone bigger, with longer legs and arms, they’ve got more chance to save themselves. You’ll tumble off like a pea from a stick.’

  In the end I persuaded him to let me try, but only by telling a lie. My mother, I knew, wouldn’t approve of that – she was very strict about lying – but I told myself she’d understand, if she knew I was doing it so I could show people I was big on the inside. So I told Jeremiah I’d forget about the race and just see if I could learn to ride well enough to go out in the park with the queen and her ladies, who rarely exceeded a speed they could achieve on their own two legs. After warning me it would take months and months, if I could even do it at all, he agreed.

  Later that day, the queen sent me on an errand to the other side of the palace. I was grinning to myself as I strolled back through the gardens. I wasn’t the least bit worried by Jeremiah’s fears for me: he routinely saw danger in anything from the odd shape of a cloud to a strangely gamey flavour in the meat served at dinner, but his fears never materialised into more than a passing thunderstorm or a bout of indigestion. And once he saw I could do it, he’d realise I could race Crofts after all, wouldn’t he?

  As I passed by the stables, Crofts and two of his gang were coming out of the yard.

  ‘Pie boy – out on your own?’ Crofts called out. ‘Did you fall out of the queen’s pocket?’

  I hadn’t planned on issuing the challenge so soon, but I was so pleased with my plan that I had a sudden rush of courage, and before I knew it, the words were out of my mouth. Crofts’ usual smirk was replaced by a puzzled frown as he looked at the other boys, then back to me.

  ‘You want to what?’

  ‘Race you. At Hyde Park.’

  ‘You, race me? Have you bumped your head or something?’

  ‘You should do it,’ said Will. ‘It’d be funny.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Crofts. ‘He can’t ride a horse.’

  ‘I reckon he can,’ said Matthew. ‘He wouldn’t be asking you otherwise, would he? But if he wins, you’re going to look really stupid.’

  ‘If he wins? Against me?’ Crofts looked down at me. ‘I’m not racing against you, you little squirt.’

  ‘Why not? If you’re so sure you’d beat me?’

  He rolled his eyes.

  ‘Because it would be ridiculous, that’s why. Now go back and play with the nice ladies in the chamber.’

  He moved to walk away, but I stood my ground.

  ‘If you’re refusing my challenge, you must be scared I’d beat you,’ I said.

  Matthew laughed; Crofts glared at him. He looked back down at me, and shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘All right, you little freak. I’ll do it. At the autumn meeting, we’ll race.’

  Their sniggers followed me as I walked away, but I didn’t care. He didn’t believe I could beat him, but I’d disconcerted him and, for the first time, I’d ended an encounter without the hard clump of humiliation in my belly. I couldn’t wa
it to get started on my lessons.

  * * *

  I’d told Jeremiah I wanted to keep the lessons secret as a surprise for the queen – though really it was to avoid an audience of Crofts and his friends – so we decided to get up at dawn and go out into the parkland while no one was around. I waited, hopping from foot to foot, too excited to keep still, until Jeremiah appeared from the stables, leading a grey horse.

  ‘This is Shadow. She’s a good steady mount, nice and calm.’

  Close to, it was bigger than I expected. I looked up at it, and it looked down at me, as though it wasn’t quite sure what I was.

  ‘Right then,’ said Jeremiah. ‘First we’ll make some adjustments to the saddle.’ He laid a battered sheepskin across the shiny leather, then pulled some thick cloths from his pocket, and rolled them up. ‘Now, I know you don’t like to be picked up, and later on we’ll find a better way, but it’ll save us trouble just now if I lift you on.’

  The saddle had a front and back that came straight up, but there was a lot of room between me and the front and back parts. Jeremiah tucked the rolls of cloth in so I was wedged between them, and shortened the straps as much as he could, but my feet only just reached the stirrups. The horse took a few frisky steps backwards, making me wobble and grab its neck. If it took it into its head to run, I’d be thrown off like a leaf in the wind.

  Jeremiah saw the fear in my face.

  ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ he said. ‘It’s dangerous, as I told you, and there’d be no shame in changing your mind.’

  I remembered how I’d walked away from Crofts the day before, with my head held high.

  Do you want to show him, or not?

  ‘I want to do it,’ I said. ‘Let’s get started.’

  Very slowly, Jeremiah walked the horse up and down. I sat rigid, my hands gripping the reins.

  Look straight ahead; don’t look down.

  ‘Well done, Nat,’ said Jeremiah, after about ten minutes that felt like as many hours. ‘You’ve got a good line there, but try to remember to breathe, that’ll help you find your seat.’

  He lengthened his stride, walking a little ahead, and it was all I could do not to flatten myself against the horse’s glossy neck and cling on with my arms round its throat. He’d talked the night before about how you had to tell the horse what to do by shifting your weight – ‘Put simply, you talk to it through your backside’ – but I was so afraid of losing what little purchase I had on the saddle, I couldn’t move at all.

  I glanced down; the ground was even further away than I’d imagined. The sight made me lose concentration for a moment, and I couldn’t hold my balance. I slid to one side, and when I tried to shift my weight back, I couldn’t drag myself up. The ground loomed up at me; hooves thundered out their threat to trample me. I couldn’t hold on. I slipped, and I must have yelled out.

  ‘I’ve got you!’ Jeremiah said, grabbing the neck of my doublet and swinging me away from the horse. ‘You’re all right, I’ve got you.’

  It all happened so quickly; even when he stood me on the ground, I was still expecting the thud of a hoof on my head. I leaned down and pretended to brush dust off my breeches, so he wouldn’t see the terror on my face.

  ‘Do you want to stop?’ he said.

  There was nothing I wanted more; the thought of getting back up on the horse made me feel sick.

  Think of Crofts, think of him laughing at you if you give up.

  ‘No. I can do it. Put me back on.’

  We stayed out for an hour. I was stiff with fear and never more than a couple of minutes passed before I lost my balance and slid off. Jeremiah caught me every time, but the same sick fear drenched me over and over again, as I imagined hooves smashing into my skull. And that was when we were going no faster than a man could walk. I remembered Crofts galloping on his stallion. How are you ever going to be able to do that?

  Chapter Thirteen

  A few months after the French courtiers left, the queen decided to have her portrait painted, to send to her family. I think it was a comfort to her, to know they’d think of her when they looked at it. I hadn’t left anything behind that would remind my family of me, and it made me wonder if they ever thought of me now. I thought of them often: a chilly night would remind me of evenings sitting by the fire while my mother told us stories, and when the court poets stood up and recited endless streams of words about the king, I’d remember the silly rhymes me and Sam used to make up about people we knew. It all seemed so far away now, but I hoped they did still think of me sometimes.

  The painter of the picture was a Mr Van Dyck, who’d come all the way from Holland. It was his idea that the queen should have me and Bruno the monkey in the painting with her.

  ‘Very curious,’ he said, stooping to peer at me so closely I could have counted the pores on his nose. ‘So little and yet well shaped. And with the monkey, it will work perfectly for the picture – a glimpse of your life here.’

  I didn’t mind; Mr Van Dyck insisted no one else be in the room while he painted, so for a few hours now and then, I escaped the endless wittering of the ladies in the chamber, which was just as irritating in English as it had been in French.

  We assembled in a room on the river side of the palace, where the light was good. The queen wore a blue satin gown; I had a new doublet and breeches in red velvet, and Bruno had a collar to match. Mr Van Dyck positioned me beside the queen, and tried to get Bruno to perch on the back of a chair. But the plan didn’t appeal to Bruno, who shinned up the curtains and sat on the pelmet, baring his teeth and shrieking heartfelt monkey curses down at Mr Van Dyck.

  ‘I paint the ape in afterwards,’ he said, waving his brush. ‘Otherwise we lose the light.’

  He worked in silence for a long time, looking at the queen and then back to the canvas. Then he stood back, and looked at me.

  ‘Come forward,’ he said. ‘There, a little in front.’

  He went back behind his easel and resumed painting, peering round it at me now and then.

  ‘So,’ he said, after a while, ‘how did you come to live here at Whitehall, little fellow?’

  ‘My father sold me to the Duke of Buckingham. My mother didn’t want him to, but he did it anyway.’

  The queen looked down at me.

  ‘You were not in service with the duke?’

  ‘No, your majesty. He bought me as a present for you.’

  ‘I did not know… But you are happy here, all the same?’

  ‘Yes, your majesty,’ I said. ‘I just miss my family sometimes.’

  ‘Look to the front,’ Mr Van Dyck said, pointing his brush at me. ‘I have to get the eyes.’

  Now I couldn’t see the queen’s face. Had I sounded ungrateful? Was she cross? Even now, I could still be sent home.

  After a few minutes, she spoke again.

  ‘When you tell those stories, about your home and your family – I thought you had left them long ago.’

  ‘No, I left them to come here.’

  I didn’t say any more, in case she could tell that thinking about that day made me sad. Mr Van Dyck was screwing his eyes up, staring at the canvas, then stepping back, muttering. When he dipped his brush into the paint, and started again, she said, almost in a whisper:

  ‘I miss my family too. Every day.’

  It must be all right to say it then, now she’d said it.

  ‘I miss my mother,’ I said. ‘And my brother.’

  ‘You have only one?’

  ‘And a sister. But she’s just a baby.’

  ‘I have three brothers and three sisters,’ she said. ‘I miss them all, but mostly Gaston. He’s only a year older than me, we played together.’

  ‘What did you play?’ I asked, looking up at her. I was curious to know if princes and princesses played the same games we did.

  Mr Van Dyck snapped his fingers.

  ‘Face the front. I have many talents, but I cannot see your face through the back of your head.’

 
‘Oh, Gaston was always making up games. Usually they were games only he could win, but I didn’t mind.’

  She told me about the palace where they lived, and the toys they had – there was a doll’s house that sounded bigger than our cottage – and how Gaston used to play tricks on the masters who gave them their lessons. She was laughing as she told a story about him putting honey in the schoolroom ink, when Mr Van Dyck clapped his hands.

  ‘Enough for today. The light is fading.’

  I walked to the window, where Bruno was still sitting up on the pelmet, chewing a tassel he’d bitten off the curtain. The queen followed, and between us we convinced him to leave his perch. As he scampered away, still clutching the tassel, she looked down at me.

  ‘So you are like me,’ she said. ‘The subject of a bargain. Bought and sold, and sent away.’

  I hadn’t thought of it that way before. I’d been sold for eleven shillings, and her father had sold her for the promise of an alliance with England and toleration for the Catholics. How pleased my father would have been to know he’d done better than the King of France; at least he’d got his price.

  ‘It was so nice to talk about home,’ she went on. ‘I can’t speak of it to anyone else, not now. Everything I say goes straight to the duke’s ear, and he tells the king it means I will never learn to love England. But I think you understand.’

  ‘I think about home a lot,’ I said, adding hastily, ‘but it doesn’t mean I want to go back.’

  ‘Nor I. I was proud to come here, and I want to be a good queen. I just didn’t know it would be so lonely.’

  She smiled down at me.

  ‘But today I felt a little bit less alone. So thank you, Nathaniel.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Every morning at dawn, I sneaked out into the parkland with Jeremiah for a riding lesson, and every day, I cursed myself for challenging Crofts before I knew what was ahead of me. I tried to follow Jeremiah’s patient instructions, but my fear made me sit stiff as a twig, and time and time again I lost my balance and slid off. Because I was so small and his hands were so big, he always caught me, so my limbs were still intact, but I hated myself for being so small and scared and useless.