I expected to be away a few months, until the king’s forces rallied and it was safe to come home again. But as the news from across the sea became more and more bleak, it was clear we’d be living in exile for much longer. Not long after we arrived, I had a letter from Jeremiah – he’d never been much for correspondence, but I didn’t want to lose touch, so I’d written to let him know where we were. Kent, he wrote, was under Parliamentary control, and his master’s estate had been sequestered – seized because he was a Royalist, and sold to someone else, to bring in money for the Parliamentarian army.
‘The new master’s a merchant, down from London,’ Jeremiah wrote. ‘Doesn’t understand country ways, but he’s very well in with the county committee, and they’re the ones running things now. I tell you, Nat, we’re living in a nest of snakes. You’ve only to let a wrong word slip, and your own neighbours will turn you in, the better to show they’re on the right side. Luckily my Sukie saw the way the wind was blowing – right back when we moved here, she said to me, we shouldn’t say too much about where we’ve come from, and we didn’t. We keep our heads down, and pray for better times, but I’m very much afraid I don’t see them coming.’
The queen’s family made her welcome, giving us apartments in a palace beside the river in Paris, where the tall windows let sunlight flood in onto the rich tapestries and paintings that lined the walls. The beds were hung with silk and velvet and she had a household of servants waiting on her once again. But she scarcely noticed any of it. Still plagued with pain night and day, she spent all her time writing to anyone who might supply money or troops, and I was kept busy putting her daily letters to the king into code. I didn’t mind; it distracted me from thinking about Arabella and Henry. Though – to my relief – the two of them weren’t exactly turtle doves, and no date had been set for the wedding, seeing his hand touching her shoulder or resting for a second on her waist was torture to me.
So, when old faces from the Whitehall days began appearing in Paris, at first I was pleased. Over the next eighteen months, as the Parliamentarians captured swathes of Royalist territory, more and more of those who’d allied themselves with the king found England an uncomfortable place to be and headed for France. A bigger group meant I was thrown together less with Henry and Arabella, which could only be a good thing, I thought. Until someone arrived who I’d sincerely hoped never to see again.
There were four of them, in thick cloaks and riding boots; the tallest walked in front and the others fell into step behind. People turned to look as their heels clicked across the floor. Henry was standing talking to the queen, so he saw their faces. Long ago, after one too many glasses of claret, he’d prised out of me the reason why I came to race Charles Crofts, and when he realised who the taller man was, he looked round for me. But I already knew. I’d have recognised that strutting walk anywhere.
It must have been fifteen years since I last set eyes on Crofts. After he left Whitehall, he’d been back a few times to visit his father, but since neither of us was eager for the other’s company, we managed never to cross paths. Now here he was, a grown man. He’d been tall for his age back then, and now he stood a clear couple of inches over most of the men in the room. He bowed deeply to the queen and announced himself to be at her service, as did his companions, cousins of his from Northumberland.
I listened as he gave the latest news from England. The north was entirely in Parliamentarian hands now; his uncle’s family had been forced to leave their estate. Letters were coming very erratically at that time and the queen hadn’t had a message from the king in weeks, so she was eager to hear everything he had to tell. They talked for some time before she dismissed him, thanking him for the news and telling him he was very welcome at the palace.
At the door, I stepped forward and put out my hand. We were men now; Crofts was probably nothing like the boy who’d taunted me all those years ago.
‘Remember me?’ I said.
He looked down, and smirked.
‘Pie boy,’ he said. ‘Still hanging around then. And still a little runt.’