When I opened my eyes, I was lying in the damp grass. I tested my limbs; nothing broken. No bleeding either. Henry was crouching beside me, and I couldn’t read the look on his face. Had I won or not?
‘He missed me,’ I said. ‘Did I get him?’
Henry bit his lip and looked down. He started to speak, then someone shouted:
‘No, wait for the doctor. You’re wrong, he can’t be…’
Across the clearing, Crofts’ friends were standing in a circle. One moved aside and there he was, on the ground. He was lying completely still, a cloak laid over his chest, and the cloak was soaked with blood, so much dark red blood I couldn’t tell what colour it had once been. His cousin was kneeling beside him. He looked up at the man who’d shouted, and shook his head, then took the cloak and lifted it gently over Crofts’ face.
I scrambled to my feet and shook off Henry’s attempt to stop me going closer. One of Crofts’ boots must have caught in the stirrup when he fell from his horse; it was half off, hanging crookedly from his foot. I wanted to put it back on for him. He always liked to look sharp, Crofts, he wouldn’t want to lie there dishevelled. But when I moved towards him, my stomach churned and I had to walk away into the bushes, where I vomited, over and over.
I had hated him in life, but I’d never intended this. And I couldn’t even find my hatred of him anymore. Why had it seemed so important? Now all I felt was pity for his poor broken body and hot, searing guilt for what I’d done. It had been my hand holding the gun. It had been me who’d suggested the duel and then insisted on going through with it when Crofts turned it into a joke. It was my fault. My stupid pride had caused a man’s death.
Henry took charge, quietly and efficiently organising a messenger to fetch transport for Crofts’ body, and asking Crofts’ friends to stay quiet about what had happened so he could tell the queen first.
‘What will happen now?’ I asked him as we finally rode back to the palace.
‘To be honest, Nat, I don’t know. Everyone there knows you didn’t mean to kill him. They all saw it, just as you said – something startled you and you missed your aim. It could just as easily have gone the other way. But—’
‘But it didn’t. I killed him. I’ve got to pay for that.’
‘The queen will do her best for you, you know that. But I don’t know if she can get you out of this one.’
She’d already heard what happened from Henry, but she listened patiently as I stood in front of her, too ashamed to look up, and gave my account. I didn’t say why I’d challenged Crofts to the duel, only that there had been a disagreement between us.
‘I swear, your majesty, I didn’t mean to kill him,’ I finished, ‘but I know I deserve to be punished.’
‘Oh, Nathaniel, how could you be so stupid?’ I looked up. Tears glistened in her eyes; were they from sadness or anger? ‘To risk everything for a stupid quarrel. I swear, to the end of my life, I will never understand men.’
‘What will happen now?’
‘I don’t know. It’s not up to me – I have no status here but what they choose to lend me. And you know the problems duelling has caused in France.’ She sighed. ‘You’ve been a good friend to me, Nathaniel. Almost a brother. And I believe you when you say this was a horrible accident. I’ll do what I can for you. But please, don’t hold your hopes too high. There will be a price to pay.’
For the next three days and nights, I stayed in my room, ashamed to face anyone. Whenever I closed my eyes, I saw it all again: Crofts riding towards me, so stupidly sure he was invincible, then lying dead on the ground, his face white against the garnet-red blood soaking his cloak. The second night, I dreamed it had all turned out differently, that I’d woken to see Crofts lying on the ground, but then he’d leapt up, laughing: ‘Fooled you, pie boy! Did you really think you could hit me, you little runt?’ And then I woke, and the truth came seeping back in like cold water running through my veins.
Arabella came and knocked on the door, I don’t know how many times, but I told her to go away. If I hadn’t been so stupid as to fall in love with her, when she could never love me, Crofts wouldn’t be lying dead in the palace chapel. How could I let myself look at her, knowing that?
On the evening of the third day, Henry brought me the queen’s answer.
‘She’s persuaded them to let her deal with the matter, but they’ve made it plain she’s to punish you as seriously as they would.’
I’d expected that; I couldn’t blame them.
‘So she says you’re to go.’
‘Go?’
‘Leave France. She’ll give you a letter of introduction to her sister’s court in Savoy, but you’re to make it look as though you escaped. Then she can say she knew nothing about it.’
‘No. I’m not running away.’
I was sitting on my bed; he bent to one knee and looked me in the eye.
‘Nat, Crofts’ death was a terrible thing, but it was an accident. You’ve done good things in your life and this doesn’t cancel them out. You have to do what she says.’
‘I can’t. I did it, I’ll take the punishment.’
‘All right, look at it this way. You know what state the queen’s in. She’s still not well, and she’s worried to death about what’s going on at home. Would you really give her the pain of making her punish you? Or will you help her by making the problem disappear?’
He stood, and I looked up at him.
‘When do I have to go?’
‘At dawn, tomorrow.’
I took my leave of the queen later that night. I’d been so caught up with my own troubles lately, I hadn’t noticed how thin and pale she’d become; her eyes were ringed with shadows and her once-rosy cheeks were hollow. But she insisted on sitting up with me until the candles burned down.
‘In these times,’ she said, ‘I’ve learned to say my goodbyes properly. You never know when it might be for the last time.’
We talked about old times: the days when she and the king could hardly bear to be in the same room; the happy years at Whitehall, before all the troubles started; and our time on the road together.
‘You’ve changed so little these past few years,’ she said, ‘and look at me, old and worn.’ I started to deny it but she shook her head. ‘No, it’s true. The times we’ve been through have taken their toll on me. When I look in the mirror, I wonder if the king will even recognise me when we see each other again.’
She gave me the letter for her sister.
‘Stay there until I send for you. I don’t know how long it will be – perhaps a year or more – but this will be forgotten in time. And perhaps by then we’ll all be home again.’
Did she really still believe that? The king was losing the war, we all knew it. And if the other side won, it would never be safe for her to go home.
‘Let’s hope so,’ I said.
When I woke the next morning I found a letter poked under my door, with my name scrawled across the front in Arabella’s handwriting. I wanted to break the seal and hear her voice once more, even though it was only saying goodbye. But that would just make leaving harder. I tucked it inside my coat, and made up my mind that I wouldn’t read it until I was far away.
Henry came with me to the edge of the city. We rode mostly in silence, but I was glad of his company. And there was nothing we needed to say; just as we’d always been able to share a joke without saying a word, that day we didn’t talk about the sadness of parting either.
‘You never did buy me a new pair of boots,’ he said, as the city gate came into sight. ‘To replace the ones you puked on.’
‘It was barely a spatter. You were as fussy as a girl in those days.’
As we slowed to a halt, he said, ‘It’s a long ride down to Turin. Where will you break the journey?’
All through the long, sleepless night before, I’d been thinking about the queen’s letter, but it was only as I opened my mouth to answer Henry that I finally made my decision.
‘I’m not going to Turin. Everyone there will know what I did, and I’m too much of a coward to face it.’
‘My friend, if there’s one thing you’re not, it’s a coward.’
I shrugged.
‘Well, I can’t do it.’
‘Then where will you go?’
‘I don’t know. Somewhere no one knows me, somewhere I can get a position in a house and keep my head down.’
I did know, by then, where I was going. But if I told him, he’d try to persuade me out of it.
‘How long will you stay away?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Can I tell the queen? She’ll worry when she finds out you haven’t arrived in Savoy.’
‘Tell her I’ll write, as soon as I’m settled. You know she thinks the next time we see each other, it’ll be when we’re all on our way home?’
He raised an eyebrow, but didn’t answer.
‘I suppose you’ll be married by then,’ I said.
He nodded.
‘I’ve decided we should just do it quietly,’ he said. ‘The queen won’t mind, we’ve waited long enough.’
I thought of the letter, tucked inside my cloak, the last words I’d ever hear from Arabella before she became another man’s wife.
‘Well then,’ said Henry. ‘This is it, old friend.’
I nodded.
‘We’ll meet again,’ he said. ‘When all this is over.’
‘I hope so,’ I said. ‘Goodbye, Henry.’
The way to Savoy was south; I watched Henry ride out of sight, then turned north and headed for the coast. I had let the queen down so badly, just when she needed friends around her, and now there was only one thing I could do. I would go home to England, and fight for the king. No one would care, now, that I gave the other side a reason to mock; the fight was all but over anyway. Nor would I make any difference to the result, but I fully intended to die trying. It wouldn’t atone for Crofts’ death, nor the anguish I’d caused the queen, but it was all I could offer.
I boarded the first boat bound for Dover and watched France disappear. The wind buffeted the sails; we’d make good time if it continued. I felt inside my coat, pulled out the letter from Arabella, and looked at it. I wanted so badly to hear her voice again, but after the terrible thing I’d done, I didn’t deserve the comfort it would give me. I reached up, the letter between my fingers, and let the wind take it.