The Smallest Man

by Frances Quinn

  As arms and ammunition began arriving from the Tower and the arsenal at Woolwich, and all the talk was of war, I envied the soldiers who could go into battle and fight like men. Sometimes I’d imagine how it would feel to ride onto a battlefield, with flags flying and the crash of drums filling the air, knowing all that stood between you and death was your strength and your skill. But I’d never be allowed to fight. All those years of lessons at the palace meant that by then I could ride and shoot as well as any cavalryman, but what commander would allow me into his troop, and give the other side something to mock them for? I wasn’t going to humiliate myself by suggesting it, but still, as the preparations for war went on all around me, I wished I was part of it, like any other man.

  * * *

  Now that it was clear the king and queen were going to fight, they needed money. Before we left Whitehall, back when life still seemed quite tranquil, Princess Mary, their eldest daughter, had been married off to a Dutch prince, but as she was only nine, and he twelve, once the contract was made, she stayed at home and he returned to Holland. Now the queen came up with the idea to take the princess to join her boy husband, and bring with her gold, silver and jewellery to sell to the merchants there. I was to go too, along with her priest Father Philip, her chamberlain Henry Jermyn, and two of her ladies: Susan, a cheerful, practical sort, and Elizabeth, who was quieter but prone to uncontrollable giggles if something amused her. And the dog, Bonbon, who still went everywhere with the queen.

  ‘We will appear to be nothing more than a happy little band, taking Mary to her new home,’ she said. ‘No one will suspect what else we carry with us.’

  While it wasn’t any great honour to be chosen because I didn’t look like someone you’d pick to protect the crown jewels, I was excited at the thought of travelling across the sea. I thought it would be a wonderful adventure.

  * * *

  I changed my mind about that during our first evening on the ship, as I sat with my head in a bucket, being reunited with my dinner. We’d set sail on a bright winter day, but as we lost sight of land, the sky darkened and a vicious wind blew up, churning the waves into foam and making the sails twist and crack. As fat drops of rain pelted onto the deck, we scuttled below, thinking to make ourselves cosy until the storm blew over. What we didn’t know was that it had no intention of blowing over. Not for another nine days.

  As darkness fell, the wind grew stronger. We attempted to sit and eat dinner, but every few minutes the ship tilted and we had to grab our plates to stop them sliding to the floor. Susan just managed to catch a dish of kidneys before it landed in her lap. She held it up in triumph, to cheers from the company, only to miss the plate of cutlets that followed behind, sending Elizabeth into such a fit of giggling that it turned into hiccups and Susan had to pinch her nose to stop them. But as the bucking and rolling grew wilder, the conversation died away and the faces round the table turned white and sweaty. Father Philip was the first to excuse himself from the room, but he didn’t make it far along the passageway, and the sound and smell of him retching up his venison proved the final straw for the rest of us.

  For a week and two days, the ship was tossed around like a bean in a box. At night, the crew tied us into our bunks, like so many swaddled babies; by day, all we could do was sit with buckets close at hand and try not to close our eyes, which for some reason made the churning in our bellies worse.

  I shared a cabin with Henry Jermyn, the queen’s chamberlain. He’d been at court as long as I had, but he was a few years older than me and spent most of his time flirting with the queen’s ladies, so I’d never got to know him well. But if two people spend nine days confined in a cabin together, vomiting regularly and wondering if they’ll ever stand on dry land again, they’ll either conceive a lasting hatred for each other or become the best of friends. With Henry and I, it was the latter.

  ‘It’s not for me to wonder why the queen chose you for this mission, Nat, but it wasn’t for your skilful aim,’ he said one morning, when I missed the bucket and spattered the toes of his boots with sick.

  ‘If we survive, I’ll buy you a better pair,’ I said. ‘And anyway, that’s good, coming from you. At least I haven’t puked on your head.’

  ‘Was it my fault you leaned out of your bunk just when I leaned out of mine? You’re lucky my aim’s as good as it is, from up there. Whereas you, you’re right there – that damn bucket’s nearly as tall as you are, and you still miss it.’

  Holding on to the wall as the ship rolled again, he stepped over to the bundle of rags the crew had left for wiping our faces, dipped one into the pitcher of water beside them, and wiped his boots, then dampened another and passed it to me, before climbing back up to his bunk and lying down with a groan.

  ‘What’s it like though?’ he asked, after a minute or so.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know. Being so small.’

  No one had ever asked me that. People often asked why I was so small, and offered their own theories as to the reason, usually involving my mother and witches, though on one occasion I was assured she must have had relations with a tomcat. People had mocked me for being small, and some had even celebrated me for it. But Henry was the first person who ever asked me what it felt like.

  ‘It’s hard to say. I don’t know what it’s like not to be.’

  That wasn’t really true though. I didn’t know what it was like not to be small, but I’d imagined it often enough. And though I hadn’t thought about it for years, I found myself telling Henry about that day at the fair, when I thought the faerie could make me grow.

  ‘So then you just never got any bigger?’ he said, when I’d finished the story.

  ‘No. I tried a few different things, but nothing worked.’

  ‘You do all right though, don’t you? I still remember when you beat that Crofts boy in the race. Incredible.’

  Thrilled at his praise, I leaned out of my bunk, eager to prompt him into sharing his recollections of my triumph. As I did, the ship pitched, and I tumbled head first into the sick bucket.

  ‘Nasty,’ said Henry, peering over the side of his bunk. ‘I’d stick to horses if I was you, Nat. I don’t think swimming is your sport.’

  Chapter Twenty-six

  We reached Holland two days after the storm abated, thankful to stand on ground that didn’t pitch and roll beneath our feet, and travelled to the capital, where we were to stay in the palace that would become Princess Mary’s home. The royal family were lined up to greet us, and her new father-in-law, Prince Frederik, stepped forward, his arms open.

  ‘Welcome, welcome,’ he said, in a strange accent that sounded as though he had hot stew in his mouth. ‘We are so pleased to have our new princess with us here at last.’

  He leaned down to kiss Princess Mary on both cheeks, then nudged his son towards her. Prince William had grown a little since the wedding, but he was still only thirteen, and he blushed as he stepped forward and enfolded Mary in an awkward embrace.

  ‘A perfect match,’ said his father. ‘They will be very happy together.’

  I was idly wondering how the queen must feel to be giving Princess Mary away like this, knowing how difficult the early years of her own marriage had been, when I realised Prince Frederik was talking to me.

  ‘And this must be the little prince,’ he said, smiling fondly. In the same instant that I understood his eyesight wasn’t the best, and he’d mistaken me for the queen’s three-year-old son, I realised he was about to lean down to kiss me too. Unsure whether it was better to risk insulting him by jumping back, or embarrassing both of us by letting it happen, I stood, frozen.

  ‘Your majesty!’

  Everybody jumped as Henry leaned forward and swatted at the prince’s head.

  ‘I beg your pardon, your majesty, but there was a bee,’ said Henry. ‘I thought it would enter your ear.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said the prince, looking somewhat taken aback.

  ‘Henry Jermyn, your majesty,’ said
Henry, bowing. ‘The queen’s chamberlain.’

  Before the prince could resume his advance on me, I took my cue and bowed too.

  ‘Nathaniel Davy, your majesty. The queen’s dwarf.’

  * * *

  ‘A bee?’ I said to Henry later, as we sat at dinner. ‘In February?’

  He laughed.

  ‘Shut up, you ungrateful little toad, or next time a prince wants to give you a nice big kiss, I’ll let him.’

  He turned to his neighbour, a very pretty young woman with blue eyes and white-blonde hair, who’d previously introduced herself as one of the ladies in waiting to Prince Frederik’s wife, Princess Amalia.

  ‘My friend and I were just discussing how it is that all the women in Holland are so beautiful,’ he said. ‘I told him, they put something special in the cheese.’

  It was a terrible line, but he said it with a twinkle in his eye, and she laughed.

  ‘But sir,’ she said. ‘In that case, our Dutch men must be the handsomest in Europe.’

  He looked around the table, letting his eye rest on one or two of the less well-favoured gentlemen, and smiled.

  ‘Clearly,’ he replied, ‘you ladies are keeping the cheese for yourselves.’

  She pretended to scold him, but her eyes were sparkling, and in a matter of minutes, they were talking as though there was no one else in the room. And I saw, over the next few days and nights, that that was how it always went with Henry. He was a born flirt, and quite indiscriminate in his attentions: within days, half the serving maids were twinkling at him, and even Princess Amalia, who was very serious and given to long and pompous pronouncements about art, was seen to blush and smile at something he whispered into her ear one evening after dinner.

  I didn’t disapprove; I was envious. I never said so though. Henry was tactful enough to simply ignore the fact that I would never have a woman look at me the way he did, and I didn’t want to disturb our easy friendship by drawing attention to the difference between us. All the same, I often wished I could walk in his shoes.

  * * *

  I’d assumed, when the queen formed the plan of selling her jewels, that someone would simply take them all away and arrange the business for her, but it turned out that wasn’t what she had in mind at all. Once we were settled at the palace, she sent invitations to the city’s merchants, and two days later, the first one turned up, glancing with practised eyes round the room where we’d laid out the treasure. I had no idea she’d brought so much: strings of pearls, gold collars studded with sapphires and rubies, handfuls of rings and bracelets, coronets glittering with diamonds, even a set of pearl buttons she’d given the king as a present. Surprise flickered across her face as the merchant stood there staring at her, not bowing or even removing his hat, but she smiled sweetly, and led him over to the tables.

  She showed him a necklace of fat pearls, holding it up against her throat, then put on a diamond bracelet, twisting her wrist so the stones sparkled. Jewels that she loved, and not just for their beauty; both of those were presents from the king. Yet here she was, not just accepting their loss, but hawking them herself, like the pedlars who used to knock on our door in Oakham with a basket of ribbons and trinkets. It was as unlikely as her picking up a broom and sweeping the floor, and it showed me how badly she wanted to help the king fight.

  The merchant held a pair of earrings up to the light, as though he suspected the Queen of England might be trying to sell him baubles made of glass. He said something, and her face fell. Curious, I moved closer.

  ‘But the value of the stones alone…’ she was saying. ‘Surely if—’

  ‘My final offer,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘You can take it or not.’

  ‘Let me show you some other pieces.’

  She picked up a coronet.

  ‘No.’ He pointed to the coronet, and the other big pieces, and shook his head. ‘These are not your property. Your Parliament sent notices, they belong to the Crown.’

  He was practically calling her a thief. She flushed red, and I expected her to remind him who he was talking to. But she took a deep breath and said:

  ‘I can assure you these jewels are mine.’

  He shrugged again.

  ‘I will take the earrings, at the price I offered. Do you say yes or no?’

  She bit her lip, and nodded.

  * * *

  It was the same story all week. No one would touch the bigger pieces, and the smaller ones sold at a third of their value. But she wouldn’t give up. When she’d seen every merchant in The Hague, we travelled to Amsterdam and sold there. Still at terrible prices, but money was trickling in. She met moneylenders in Amsterdam too, securing loans from them, and sat for hours with the Dutch prince’s commanders, questioning them about what she should buy, so when she met the arms merchants, she’d know what she was talking about.

  I watched her one evening, almost knocking over a wine glass as she listed on her fingers the muskets, pikes and armour she’d bought, and I remembered the girl of fifteen who’d happily while away an afternoon teaching the monkeys tricks. That girl had long since disappeared, and in her place now was a woman who was enjoying being useful, who didn’t care what she did or how she was humiliated, as long as she got the money the king needed. But her face was grey with tiredness. She and the king wrote to each other almost every day, even though the weather at sea meant messages could take anything from days to weeks to arrive. They put the letters into code in case they fell into the wrong hands, and she sat up late every night deciphering his and replying, as well as writing to anyone she could think of who might provide money, soldiers or weapons. She rubbed her tired eyes, and glanced at Bonbon, curled up asleep on a cushion in the corner. By the look on her face, she was wishing she could swap places with the dog.

  * * *

  A few nights later, I woke in the early hours and couldn’t slip back into sleep. Thinking to read a while, I opened the door to the day chamber. The queen was asleep at a table, her head lying on a mess of papers. The creak of the door woke her and she sat up, her hair all awry, and started rummaging about, picking up sheets of paper, then throwing them down.

  ‘Where is that transcript? I had it in my hand, and now it’s gone.’

  I picked up a paper from the floor.

  ‘Is this it?’

  ‘Yes…’ She read through it, then shook her head. ‘But it doesn’t make any sense. I’ve gone wrong with the code again. If my eyes weren’t so sore…’

  She rested her head in her hands, rubbing at her temples.

  ‘Your majesty, why don’t I fetch Susan so she can put you to bed?’

  ‘No, I have to read this letter, so I can send the reply. I have to make him see… but this cipher is so difficult.’

  ‘Can I help? My eyes are good, and I’m wide awake.’

  She looked at me.

  ‘It’s not many words, I think we could do it quite quickly,’ I said. ‘If you trust me…’

  * * *

  From then on it became my job to code and decode their letters, a responsibility I accepted with pride; at least now I could do something to help, though in my heart I knew it didn’t compare to what other men would have to do on the battlefield. From the letters I learned that it wasn’t just the difficulty of raising money that was clouding the queen’s face with worry. The king was dithering and backtracking with Parliament, still certain he was clever enough to talk them round, when it was obvious to a fool and the fool’s sister they were set on having their way. So I wasn’t very surprised when, about five months into our stay, a letter arrived saying that a big store of arms in Hull, which the queen had warned him to secure, had been removed to London by order of Parliament.

  As I started to decode it, she read my face.

  ‘I knew it,’ she said, taking the transcript and reading the first few lines. ‘I told him this would happen.’ She paced up and down, the letter in her hand, making the candles flicker as she passed them. ‘Here I am,’ she
said, as much to herself as to me, ‘turning myself into a pedlar, meeting every kind of ruffian, men who don’t even raise their hats to me, all to make sure we have the arms we need.’

  She turned to me.

  ‘All he had to do was keep hold of what we already had. If he’d acted quickly, it was easily done. But no, he insisted on talking to those louts as though they were reasonable people. And look what that has cost us.’

  She threw the paper down.

  ‘He’ll give in to them. They’ll tell him he can’t win when they are so much better armed, and he’ll give them everything they want, until we’re king and queen in name only. And then they will ruin England with their barbarous ideas.’

  I thought she was right, at least about the king, but I didn’t say so.

  ‘If I was with him, I could make him stand firm,’ she said. ‘But from here, it’s impossible.’

  ‘Should we go back?’

  ‘We can’t. I’d be a weapon for them – if they took me, they could make him agree to anything. We can’t go back until he defeats those scoundrels.’

  I looked at her, a thought taking shape in my head.

  ‘What?’ she said. ‘You’ve given me good advice before, Nathaniel, let me hear it.’

  ‘You said, you’d be a weapon for them. So use that weapon yourself. Tell him that if he doesn’t beat them, you can never go back to England.’

  ‘He must realise that.’

  It didn’t seem to me that he realised that or very much else. I chose my words carefully.

  ‘You said yourself, his majesty believes he can persuade them to be reasonable. It’s a worthy aim and, given time, perhaps they will be swayed on some questions. But they will never be reasonable when it comes to you. That’s what you need to tell him.’