I was a frightened little boy, who knew nothing about London but what my father had told me: that it was a different world, and the people there weren’t like us. And I’d already seen that those eleven shillings chinking into his hand meant they could do what they liked with me. So in my innocence, I honestly believed they were going to bake me in a pie for the queen to eat. I thought that must be what they meant about giving me to her as a present.
So I had to get away. Wait for a minute when no one was watching, and run as fast as I could. Which wasn’t very fast, but if I could get few minutes’ start on them, I might be able to hide somewhere and wait until they stopped looking. I didn’t know what I was going to do then: I had no money and nowhere to go.
Joseph lifted me from the coach and as he reached back in for his cloak, I took my chance and ran, darting back the way we’d come, to a courtyard with a big tree in the middle. There were four ways out; I chose the nearest, a narrow path between two buildings, just as the duke’s shout came from behind me:
‘Find him. Now.’
Running feet pounded towards me. Where could I hide? I ran towards the nearest door.
Don’t be locked, please don’t be locked.
The latch was high up. I stood on tiptoe, stretched my fingers, but I couldn’t reach it. I looked around; there was nowhere else. Crouching down, I bent my legs like a frog, then jumped up as high as I could, stretching my fingers. The latch rattled out of its slot. I pushed the door and tumbled inside as it opened.
The room was piled high with sacks of flour, stone jars and wooden casks. I put my ear to the door. The footsteps stopped; they were in the courtyard.
Go another way, don’t come this way.
‘He can’t have got far,’ said a man.
‘No,’ said Joseph. ‘But he’s a shrimpy little bugger, he’ll have hid himself somewhere. I’ll have a quick look down here, you carry on that way.’
One set of footsteps, coming closer. He was in the lane. I squeezed behind a row of barrels in the corner, just as the footsteps stopped outside. The door creaked open: Joseph. I held my breath, my eye pressed to the tiny gap between two of the barrels. As long as I didn’t move, he wouldn’t see me.
He peered around, gave the flour sacks a kick, and seemed about to leave again. As he opened the door, a shaft of sunlight fell across the floor. He glanced down, and smiled. I followed his eyes to my footprints in the dust. I ran but of course he caught me, plucking me up by the back of my jacket, and holding me in the air.
‘Let me go,’ I shouted. ‘You can’t put me in a pie!’
‘Is that so? We’ll see what his lordship has to say about that.’
The duke looked down at me with the same expression he’d had when he’d said that thing about the queen’s delicate little nose. Like something was funny, but he couldn’t quite be bothered to laugh.
‘What were you going to do?’ he said. ‘Run all the way back to Oakham?’
By now I was trembling. I kept remembering the bakery in Oakham, and the way the air in front of the ovens shimmered in the heat.
‘Please, don’t put me in a pie, sir.’
‘Why not? I paid good money for you, didn’t I?’
‘Let me go home, my father will give it back.’
I was almost sure he would.
‘And then what would I fill the pie with? Can’t let the queen go hungry, can we?’
He must have seen my terror but he just looked at me, his head on one side, a little smile twisting his lips, then turned to Joseph.
‘Do we have any beef, Joseph?’
‘I expect so, sir.’
‘Hmm. Perhaps we should make a beef pie for the queen.’ He tapped the corner of his mouth with one long finger, then shook his head. ‘No, her majesty isn’t keen on beef. And I want this pie to be a treat for her.’
‘Please, sir. Let me go home.’
‘Perhaps fish?’ he said, as if he hadn’t heard me. ‘But it’s so hard to get good fresh fish at this time of year. No, it can’t be fish.’
He looked down at me again, with that same half-smile. Then he threw his head back and laughed, and Joseph laughed too.
‘They say some bad things about me,’ the duke said, ‘but no one’s yet accused me of eating children. Take him to the bakehouse, Joseph – you can explain on the way.’
‘Be careful – drop this and the duke’ll have your guts for garters.’
I recognised the cook’s sharp tones as the pie, with me in it, was slowly lifted. The heat of the kitchens retreated as we moved towards a swirl of voices. It sounded like a lot of people – over a hundred, the cook said. She’d told me no one was going to eat me, or even put me in the oven. The duke had been laughing at me; the pie was just a pastry box, already cooked, no gravy or anything, and I had to lie in it, dressed in the fine blue clothes, until it was put in front of the queen. Then she’d open it and find me in there. They wouldn’t even eat the pastry. I’d asked the cook, and she’d sniffed and said no, they’d just throw that away, it was a terrible waste of food, but she wasn’t there to reason why, she was just the person who had to work her fingers to the bone for their whims and fancies, wasn’t she? I couldn’t believe it was true, that they’d waste all that pastry – it would have fed us at home for a week – but then I couldn’t believe anyone would consider it a nice surprise to find a boy in what they thought was their dinner either. But the cook told me they were always putting things in pies that weren’t really pies.
‘A dozen larks I had to get for the duchess’s birthday. Had a devil of a job getting them all sealed in, then she took the lid off, and they flew up to the roof timbers and shat on the company.’
As the pie was placed down, the duke spoke.
‘A gift for her majesty.’
The voice that replied was light and clear, but she pronounced the words peculiarly. I remembered Joseph saying she was French.
‘Thank you, but I have aten – eaten – enough.’
‘Ah, but this is something special. Lift the lid and see.’
The corner of the lid nearest my feet was broken away. ‘Hold your breath,’ the duke had instructed me. ‘Don’t move until my signal.’ I hoped he wouldn’t be too long about it.
‘A doll?’ She sounded cross. ‘You think I am a child, who plays with dolls?’
‘No, your majesty. Take off the rest and see.’
The remainder of the pastry lifted away in one piece and a face looked down at me. I didn’t know the queen was so young. She was just a girl, perhaps fourteen or fifteen. Her eyes and hair were dark and wound through her hair were strings of pearls. She wasn’t pretty exactly, but she had the kind of face that looked like it smiled a lot. She wasn’t smiling then though; she looked as cross as she’d sounded.
The duke coughed, and I sat up. She jumped, clapping her hands to her mouth. As the duke plucked me out and stood me on the table, a gasp went round the room and a hundred voices started talking at once.
‘A little man,’ he said. ‘Ten years old, and perfectly formed in every way.’
You’d have thought he’d put me together with his own hands.
‘Bow to her majesty.’
As I bowed, crumbs of pastry floated down onto the table. Should I pick them up? Then people started clapping, and when I looked up, the queen was smiling.
‘Un parfait petit homme,’ she said. ‘I have never seen one so little.’
‘T-t-ten?’ said a man dressed in black, sitting next to her. ‘B-but he can’t be!’
‘But he is, your majesty,’ said the duke.
The king. King Charles himself. Right there in front of me. I guessed he must be at least ten years older than her, and his long face and thin lips looked unlikely to smile much at all. As he stuttered over his words, he closed his eyes for a second, as if shutting out all the faces made it easier to speak. Beside the duke, who’d changed into a doublet spangled with beads that caught the light, he looked like a pigeon with a peacock, and I remembered what Joseph had said about the old king wishing the duke was his son.
‘A true miracle of nature,’ the duke went on. ‘The parents are of ordinary size, and I believe he has two or three siblings, also quite normal.’
The queen smiled at me.
‘How – what – are you called?’
I felt a hundred eyes on me as I opened my mouth to answer, and my voice came out wobbly.
‘Nathaniel Davy, your majesty.’
‘And from where do you come?’
‘From Oakham.’
‘A town in Rutland,’ said the duke. ‘It’s in the middle of the country.’
‘And the smallest county in England,’ said the king. ‘So small, and he’s from my smallest county.’
He looked around the room, and after a second, there was a burst of laughter. I glanced back: every face behind me was laughing, throwing their heads back as though he’d just made the funniest joke in the whole world. The duke laughed harder than anyone; he even wiped an imaginary tear from his eye. The king smiled, but then his face fell when he saw the queen wasn’t laughing. He leaned across to her and I heard him say quietly:
‘I should have thought you might be pleased that you came tonight, despite your headache. Perhaps you see now that George wishes to be your friend, and has nothing but our best interests at heart.’
‘Yours, perhaps,’ she said. ‘His own, certainly. Not mine.’
He sighed, and turned away from her.
‘Her m-majesty seems to be having her usual difficulty in finding the right English word,’ he said to the duke. ‘But I am sure she wishes to express her thanks for the g-gift.’
Both of them looked at her; she flushed red but said thank you, quite politely. As the duke bowed, irritation flickered across her face. She knew why he was being nice to her, even if the king didn’t. I thought to myself – and though I didn’t know it then, I’d often think it again – that the king wasn’t as clever as you might expect a king to be.
That night, for the first time, I slept alone, in a chamber that was just for me. Exhausted by the terrors of the day, I thought sleep would come quickly, but it was strange to lie without Sam snoring gently beside me and, despite the heavy coverlet, I was cold with fear. All I’d ever known was life in our little house, with my mother and father and Sam and Annie. Now I was all alone in a world where I didn’t know anyone, and as I lay there in the dark, I wondered what was going to become of me.