All I could do was wait, and hope. Confined to the cottage, alone, I couldn’t distract myself from worrying about what was going to happen. In the space of an hour, I would go from telling myself that surely Sir Peter was a man of his word, and soon Jeremiah would be free, to being certain that when I went to the house, I would be met by soldiers and taken away.
When Tuesday came, as Tom had instructed, I presented myself at the front door, squaring my shoulders, ready to play my role again. A maid showed me into the same room where I’d made my bargain with Sir Peter.
He was standing by the fireplace, reading a document, and he turned as I walked in.
‘You’ve come for your payment,’ he said.
‘I kept my part of the bargain,’ I said. ‘I trust you’ll keep yours.’
‘I’m a man of my word. But in this case, the terms have changed.’
My heart plummeted.
‘But I did what I promised. I taught your son to ride again.’
‘Do you want to know where he is now?’
Surely he hadn’t hidden himself away in his room again?
‘He’s out on his horse,’ said Sir Peter. ‘I’m making him take a groom with him, just for now, but that’s more to calm my fears than anything. He’s riding as well as he ever did.’
‘Then you’ll get Jeremiah out?’
‘Already arranged,’ he said. ‘He’ll be on his way home this morning.’
I’ve done it. Jeremiah’s safe.
He looked down at his feet, and scuffed the toe of one boot on the other.
‘And you can tell him his place here is secure,’ he said. ‘I was, perhaps, a little unfair to him, before. My son is very precious to me, and I was angry. But what happened wasn’t his fault.’
‘Thank you. I know he’ll be relieved.’
What did he mean then, about changing the terms?
Don’t let him see you’re afraid.
‘As to the other part of our bargain,’ I said, ‘you’ll honour your promise, I hope? I’ll leave the county, and you can forget you ever saw me.’
‘Well, that was what we agreed, yes.’
He’s going to hand me over to them.
‘But it turned out that I’ve been able to do better than that.’
He handed me the paper he’d been reading. I looked at the words, but at first I couldn’t take in what it said. When I did, I stood there, rooted to the spot, scanning the document over and over again, in case there was a trick that I hadn’t spotted.
‘You did more than you promised – you gave me my son back,’ he said. ‘And I pay well for good service. So I made some enquiries in London. With all the fighting this summer, money’s short. You’d be surprised who they’re willing to come to terms with, if there’s a substantial fine in it. And it was a substantial one, you being a friend of her Catholic majesty, but fortunately I’m a man of means. So your crimes are paid for. You’re a free man.’
At that moment there was only one place I wanted to go. My face turned to the wintry sun, I headed for the Canterbury road. I hadn’t gone far when I saw him in the distance, loping along on those long, spindly legs. I ran to meet him, waving my arms, forgetting that for Jeremiah, potential disaster lay round every corner. By the time I reached him, worry was written in every line on his face.
‘What is it?’ he said, when I was close enough to hear. ‘Is it Sukie? Is little Michael ill?’
‘They’re fine,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to alarm you.’
‘Then why… what are you doing out here?’
‘I’m safe,’ I said. ‘I’m free, and you’re free, and we’re all safe. At last.’
We spent a last evening together in the cottage. Jeremiah was keen to fetch Sukie and Michael home, and now that I could travel safely, I’d decided to head for Oakham, in the hope that Sam was back there. We planned to set out at dawn, and journey as far as London together.
‘There’s no need for you to leave us,’ he said, as he set down his bowl after a third helping of bean stew. Food had clearly been scarce in the gaol.
‘There is,’ I said. ‘You’ve been more than kind to me, you and Sukie, and I’ll miss you. But you don’t want a cuckoo in the nest any longer.’
‘Well, after what you did for me, Nat, there’ll be a home with us any time you want it. And Sukie would say the same.’
He smiled when I told him what I’d said to Robert to get him on a horse.
‘That’s most likely the first time anyone’s told that boy a truth he didn’t want to hear,’ he said. ‘About time too.’
‘Well, it did the trick, anyway.’
‘Do you ever think, Nat, about how things would have gone if she really had been a faerie? I mean, if there were such things, and she could have granted your wish?’
‘I stopped believing in faeries a long time ago.’
‘Because the way I look at it now, if we’d been just like other folks, what kind of lives would we have had? Not the ones we got, that’s for sure. I’d never have met my Sukie, or got myself a good friend like you.’
‘I don’t suppose I’d ever have left Oakham,’ I said. ‘I’d never have had any reason to.’
Even as the words came out of my mouth, the truth of it seemed astonishing, that I could have stayed in that little town, seeing the same faces I’d always seen, and never knowing what else there was. I’d wanted the faerie to grant my wish so badly, but what a life I would have missed if she had. And it’s hard to explain what happened in that moment, but the best I can tell you is that it was as though I’d been looking in a mirror, and then Jeremiah tilted it, showing me a different reflection – but one that had been there all the time. For as long as I could remember, I’d longed to be like everyone else, but everything good in my life had come from being just as I was. All the people I’d met, the friends I’d made, the things I’d done. And most of the bad things had come from my own stupid shame over the way God had made me. Even Crofts’ taunts and jibes had only struck home, with all the terrible consequences of that, because I believed them.
‘I don’t say it’s been easy,’ Jeremiah went on. ‘We’ve both had our troubles, and I’ll speak the truth to you, because you understand – I’m glad Michael’s not the way I am. It’ll make life easier for him.’
‘But you don’t wish things had been different for you?’
‘No, do you?’
‘No, I don’t,’ I said. ‘Not anymore.’
We parted at Southwark, where the first stage of our journeys ended. The wagon had been noisy and bumpy, so we’d talked very little on the way, but there was one thing I wanted to say to Jeremiah before I left him.
‘You’ve been more than a friend to me,’ I said, as we stood in the courtyard of the inn that was the wagon’s last stop. ‘You’ve been like a father. And a better one than the one I was born to.’
‘Well, if your father didn’t appreciate what a fine son he had, then I feel sorry for him,’ he said. ‘And if there’s anything I want for Michael, it’s that he grows up to be a good man like you.’
I thought about my father, on the long journey to Oakham. I didn’t feel sorry for him. He’d been ashamed of me because I was small, and he’d made me ashamed of myself. But he’d set me on the path to the life I’d had, and though he’d had his own reasons, perhaps there’d also been a part of him that really did believe he’d found a good chance for me. I’d never know, now, but if I chose to believe it, well, that was up to me.