My Lady Jane (28 page)

The map Archer had given them was easy to follow, and the journey was short, but G couldn't figure out if it was really short or it only seemed short because he was dreading killing a giant bear. They had packed up weapons of all sorts: broadswords, battle-axes, a mace. Jane had even made them a “tincture” she'd told Edward would burn the bear's eyes.

The map didn't lead them to an exact location, just a valley near Rhyl in which the bear had most frequently been seen. Of course, that information was based on rumors and reports. As they got closer, G began hoping the reports were wrong, but soon realized they weren't, because the ground was dotted with bear droppings. G knew they were bear droppings, because the only other animal capable of such sizable droppings in this part of the world was a horse, and G knew the droppings weren't of a horse, because he was sort of an expert.

“We're getting close,” he said to the king.

“You remember our plan?” Edward said.

G nodded.

The two wound their way through trees and brush until Edward came to a jolting halt. And then G did, too. And then Edward said to G, “I think we're going to need a bigger sword.”

The beast was huge. This was one of those times when the English language was inadequate to fully describe the bear's girth. The thing was eating fruit from a tree, and to get the fruit, he didn't even have to stand on his hind legs. And he didn't just eat the fruit, he ate the leaves and the branch as well, because his mouth was huge and he could.

The ground trembled as he walked to the next tree.

G turned toward Edward and bowed. “It's been a pleasure, Sire, but this is where I leave you.” He was jesting only in part.

“What about your talk of courage?”

“Fiction, Your Majesty.”

Edward sighed. “Stop playing. We stick to the plan.”

“What about giving him a chance to surrender?”

“Shut up.” Edward let out a war cry. The bear turned, roared so loudly G thought his eardrums would burst, and charged after the king, who turned and ran back into the forest.

G was alone. He let out a breath and climbed a tree. Because that was the plan. Minutes later, or maybe seconds, or hours, Edward came running back to him, shouting, “Gifford! Be ready!”

G lit the torch he'd been holding.

The bear had been chasing Edward, but now he followed the light and placed his front paws on the tree, which gave G the perfect angle to pour Jane's tincture into his eyes.

The bear let out a terrible growl and a cry, and then with a whimper, he let his front paws scrape down the bark.

Now was the time Edward was going to go in for the kill, except the bear began to run around in circles, frantic, roaring. And then, with the force of a battering ram, he collided with the trunk of a tree.

G's tree.

He fell through the air.

The brunt of the impact was softened by landing on the bear's back, a fact that G would have celebrated, had it not been the case that he had just fallen onto the world's most giant bear.

Thankfully the collision with the tree had stunned the bear, and G was able to gather his brain and climb off the beast. Where was Edward with his sword? But of course, it was pitch-dark now, because G's torch had gone out on the way down from the tree, and Edward couldn't very well stab the bear without risking stabbing G at the same time.

“Gifford?” Edward called.

The sound seemed to rouse the beast. G thought quickly. He didn't have a weapon with him (because he was supposed to watch from the tree as Edward killed the bear) and he couldn't very well kill a bear with his own hands, so he did the only thing he could.

He played dead. And acted like he wasn't food.

“I'm dead, Sire,” G said. He didn't know why he didn't say, “I'm playing dead,” except on the off chance the bear understood English. He wouldn't have said anything at all, but he wanted Edward to know that G would be on the ground, and so aim his sword anywhere but at the ground.

There was no reply.

Gifford tried to think of what his lady told him to do in this situation, but then he was thinking of his lady, and that flash of flesh, and the possibility that she might love him, and then the possibility that he might never see her again, which got him thinking about the bear again.

G closed his eyes and tried to still his labored breathing. The bear growled and whined and sniffed and pawed at the ground—and then pawed at G.

It was all he could do not to move. Or scream. Where was Edward? Had he left G here to die?

The bear sniffed G's leg. G tried to make his leg look less like food. The bear pushed G's shoulder, and pushed again as though trying to turn him over. G wasn't sure whether complying would make him seem more dead or less dead. But then again, if he were actually dead, he wouldn't fight being turned over.

When the bear pushed again, G turned over onto his stomach.

The bear pawed at G's back again, and then did something that made G's blood run cold. He sniffed the back of G's head, and licked.

Licking means eating,
G thought.
Licking means eating!

Jane had told him to play dead, unless the bear was about to eat him, but she didn't say how he was supposed to get out of such a vulnerable position. The bear licked the back of G's neck, and G was just about to try to spring to his feet and run for it, when suddenly the bear reared his head, let out a roar, and collapsed against G.

And just as suddenly, G realized he would most likely not die of a bear bite, but of being smothered by a bear. When his lady received the news, he hoped the king would tell her he died of a bear bite. Not because the bear essentially sat on him. He felt a hand grasp his own, and Edward was pulling him out from under the dead bear, who'd not once acted un-bearlike. The Great White Bear of Rhyl was definitely not an E∂ian. Which comforted G.

“I used the broadsword and stabbed the base of the bear's neck. That did the trick.”

“Wonderful,” G said. “But never forget, I weakened him in the first place by falling on him.”

“You're right,” Edward said good-naturedly.

They both stood there panting for a while. “You know, Sire, with you being king, and also now a legendary bear killer, I'd say you will be able to woo any woman you desire.”

“And your wife might fall in love with you all over again.”

“If she ever forgives me for putting her in a cage.”

Edward didn't respond. Then something seemed to occur to him. “Oh, bollocks,” he said. “Now there's nothing left on our to-do list but go talk to the King of France.”

“I've never been to France,” G said, “but I enjoy cheese.”

“I like cheese, too,” agreed Edward, as if they had just found yet another thing they had in common.

The sun rose during their trip back, and G arrived at the Shaggy Dog as a horse. Gracie, Bess, and Jane were standing in the doorway of the tavern waiting for them, although Jane's expression quickly turned from relief to anger. She glared at him. Said no words. Spoke only with her narrowed eyes.

Suddenly, G wanted to go back to the bear.

She took a deep breath and turned to Edward, her expression softening as she touched a scratch on his face. “Darling cousin, you're hurt.”

Edward smiled. “It's just a flesh wound.”

“Come inside. I will tend to it myself.”

G snorted and threw his head back. Jane raised her eyebrows. “And you.”

He sheepishly nudged her shoulder with his nose. She seemed unmoved.

“I would sooner face a thousand Carpathian bulls than banish you from the tavern.” She scowled. “Except in this instance.” She pointed to the forest. “Go to your room.”

It was going to be an awkward trip to France.

TWENTY-FIVE

Edward

It took them four days to get to Paris. And now Gracie was wearing a dress.

“What are you staring at?” she asked when Edward could not stop ogling her.

“You,” he replied. “You're a girl. I mean, a woman. I'm amazed at the transformation.”

“I clean up nicely when the situation calls for it.” She tugged at the bodice of her gown to cover more of her cleavage. “But it doesn't suit me, I find.”

The gown was gray velvet, and it cinched her in at the waist and exposed the upper swell of her chest, a side of her that Edward had never seen before, and it made his eyes wander to places they shouldn't. She was beautiful, but she was right; the finery didn't suit
her. The gown diminished her somehow, pushed and squeezed and swallowed her in yards of fabric.

“Thank you for doing this,” he murmured.

“You're welcome.” Her hand rose self-consciously to touch the back of her pinned-up hair. “But I don't really know how I'll be any help to you with the King of France.”

“Not with the king,” Edward said. “With Mary Queen of Scots. Who lives with the King of France.”

He couldn't help the shudder that passed through him.

Gracie's eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Why, because we're both Scottish?”

“Because she hates me, and I need her to like me. I think that if anyone can get her to like me, Gracie, it's you. Because you're Scottish, yes. And because you're you.”

Her cheeks colored slightly. She nodded. “So she hates you. Why?”

“Because she was supposed to be my wife.”

“What?” Gracie exclaimed. “When was this?”

“When I was three.”

Yes, Edward had been a lad of three tender years when his father betrothed him to Mary, who'd been a baby at the time but a queen already, since her father had died when she was six days old. Such a match would have unified England and Scotland for good, in the Lion King's way of thinking. Henry had even wanted Mary to live with them at the palace, so he would oversee her upbringing and teach her to think like a proper Englishwoman.

Mary's legal guardians had other ideas. They'd signed a treaty approving the engagement, but they didn't honor it. So later, when King Henry received word that Mary's regents had accepted another offer of marriage, this one from the King of France, pairing her with the French dauphin, Francis, King Henry had eaten the messenger immediately and remained a roaring lion for days.

Then he'd invaded Scotland.

For years Henry's soldiers had chased the fledgling queen from place to place all around the Scottish countryside, but they never managed to capture her. It was believed to be E∂ian magic that enabled her to escape them. She had a habit of vanishing like smoke from the tightest of spaces. And so Henry, who was usually more tolerant of E∂ians, since he himself had proved to be one, had punished the Scottish E∂ians for harboring her. This was most likely why, Edward knew, the cottage belonging to Gracie's family had been burned. Because his father had been angry with a toddler.

The people called it the Rough Wooing. Emphasis on
rough
.

Edward had been a child through all of this, but he remembered being told that he was going to marry a queen, and he remembered staring up at a portrait of Mary Queen of Scots that hung in one of the palace hallways. The girl couldn't have been older than four years old when the portrait had been commissioned, yet she still held herself like a queen. She accused Edward with her dark eyes.
I loathe you,
the painting almost seemed to sneer at him.
I will always hate you. You'd better hope that we don't get married. I will make your life a living nightmare.

That was the one bit of relief Edward had experienced after his father died. He no longer needed to pursue Mary Queen of Scots. She slipped away to the custody of the French king and his family at the Louvre Palace, where she'd been residing ever since.

They'd met once, he and Mary, a few years back. He'd been traveling to Paris to craft a peace treaty with the French king. Mary had been eight. She'd been presented to him as the intended of Francis, the
dauphin
(which Edward kept thinking sounded like the word
dolphin
, which seemed an odd term for a prince). Mary had curtsied. Edward had bowed. She'd glared at him, every bit as vengeful as her portrait. He'd tried to ease the tension by complimenting her shoes.

She'd responded by stamping on his foot.

Hard.

She'd been sent straightaway to her chambers, because young ladies should not assault kings, but Edward hadn't truly minded. He'd been overjoyed, in fact, by the idea that he wouldn't be expected to talk to her, and that he wasn't likely ever to see her again. Ever.

But now here he was, back in the Louvre Palace, here to plead his case before the king, and of course it would be wise for him to draw Scotland to his cause as well. At least that's what Bess said, and Edward always believed what Bess said.

None of this he felt like explaining to Gracie, of course. “Just talk to her, if you get the opportunity,” he said. “You don't have to sing my praises. Just tell her what you know of my situation. See if
she'll be amenable to helping us, in whatever she has the power to do, which may not be much, really, not from here, and she's only a young girl, but—”

“All right,” Gracie said, holding up her hand. “I'll talk to her.”

“Thank you.” She owed him that much, he felt, after the lengths he'd gone to ensuring that she could keep her pretty knife.

There was a tap on the door, and Jane and Bess entered, both appearing fatigued after the week's activities with the Pack and the bear and their most recent stealthy boat ride across the English Channel. Jane, especially, looked peaked, like she hadn't slept.

“Edward,” she greeted him. “You're like a proper king again.”

Yes, he was once again wearing tights, gold-embroidered pumpkin pants, a silk undershirt, a gold-and-cream brocaded doublet with puffy sleeves, and a fur-trimmed velvet robe to top it off. He had forgotten how heavy all these layers of clothing were, when he'd been dressing like a peasant for weeks. He could feel the weight like the physical manifestation of all that he was responsible for, pulling him downward.

“You ladies are quite splendid, as well,” he said, looking from Gracie to Jane to Bess and back to Gracie.

Jane stood in front of him and smoothed down the fur at the edge of his robe. “This isn't ferret, I hope.”

“White-spotted ermine,” he answered. “Although I believe I shall give up fur, when all of this is done. I would hate to be wearing some unfortunate E∂ian by mistake.”

“I feel the same,” she said.

“How's Gifford?” Edward asked, because suddenly he felt the young lord's absence keenly. If Jane was like a sister to him, then perhaps Gifford would be his brother now. His friend. Nothing says friendship like staring down into the jaws of angry death together, he reasoned. “Is he still in the doghouse for locking you up?”

“He's in the stables,” Jane said stiffly.

“Don't punish him too long, Janey,” Edward entreated on Gifford's behalf. “He only did it to keep you from harm.”

“But that's the problem.” She settled with a sigh onto one of the parlor chairs. “I just don't know how to talk him about it. Every time I try, I feel like I say something shrewish and high-pitched and stupid. Which is unlike me.”

He stifled a smile. “Anyway, I'm glad to have you along,” he said. “I'd rather face a giant mythical bear, I think, than have this meeting.”

Gracie seemed surprised at this. “This will be nothing, won't it, after all the other trouble you've had? All you have to do is talk to the man.”

“I have to be the King of England,” he said, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I will have to speak to Henry as one king to another.” A task that frightened him, in some ways, much more than facing any beast.

“You are the king,” said Bess quietly. “It's as simple as that, Edward. Be yourself.”

“So the King of France is named Henry. That won't be
confusing, will it?” said Gracie, fidgeting again with the neckline of her dress.

“It's easy to remember this king,” Edward mused. “He is King Henry, and his wife is Queen Catherine. Like my father without all his extra wives.”

The door to the parlor opened, and an opulently dressed steward entered and bowed low to Edward. “His Majesty will see you now, Your Majesty.”

“No, not confusing at all,” muttered Gracie. She turned to address the steward. “Can you find me an audience with the young Queen Mary? I'm a Scot, you see, and I have some news for her from home. Nothing important, of course, but something that she'll find entertaining.”

The steward looked slightly put out by the informal nature of her request. “I'll see if the queen is receiving visitors,” he said. “Wait here.”

Jane stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Good luck, cousin.”

Gracie was frowning, he noticed. He delighted in the thought that she might be jealous of Jane kissing him. And he also knew a perfect opportunity when he saw it. He turned to Gracie. “Don't I get a good luck kiss from you as well? I'm going to need as much luck as I can get.”

Her green eyes narrowed as she looked at him. “I'm not sure I'm terribly lucky.”

“You're lucky for me.”

“Oh, all right.” Her lips were a quick, warm brush against his
cheek. “Good luck, Sire.”

“Your Majesty?” the steward prompted.

It was time.

He tried not to think too hard about how this one meeting would make or break them. They needed soldiers. And ships. And steel. Without the French king's help, they could not hope to overcome Mary. Everything was riding on this single encounter. On his words.

His knees were trembling, he realized, ever so slightly. Even a kiss from Gracie was not enough to overcome his nerves.

“Remember what we talked about,” Bess told him as they moved forward through the door.

He nodded.

“Stay with that and you'll be fine,” she said. “Stick to the plan. Play to the king's weaknesses and your strengths.”

“I'll do my best,” Edward said. That was all that he could do.

The King of France was nothing like Edward's father had been. This particular Henry was a cool, collected sort of man with a well-trimmed beard who liked to wear white fur and heels that elevated his height. He was fond of dogs, but he was not an E∂ian or a supporter of their cause. He was quite vocal, instead, about how distasteful he found those people who became animals, like such a thing was a matter of rude behavior. This made Edward's position a bit precarious, under the circumstances.

Still, King Henry was proving to be sympathetic to Edward's
plight. He wanted to hear all about how Edward had lost his throne, like it was the best kind of royal gossip.

“So this Mary herself took part in the plot to poison you?” the king asked in horror when Edward reached that part of his story.

“She put the fork to my lips,” Edward answered. “But I wouldn't take it.”

“Such brazenness,” King Henry exclaimed. “This woman attempting to murder a king, her own brother, no less. Such audacity. And however did you escape?”

Edward took a deep breath.
Be yourself,
Bess had told him, but what she really meant was,
Be yourself unless you sometimes find yourself turning into a bird, in which case, don't be that—don't admit that, ever. Be a respectable Verity, for heaven's sake.

“One of my servants smuggled me out,” he lied smoothly. “In the back of a hay cart. It was quite the terrible ordeal.”

“Ha!” The king was greatly amused by this. “A hay cart. Imagine.”

He laughed, and the members of the court laughed with him.

“So you see,” Edward continued delicately when the merriment died down. “If my sister is allowed to sit unchallenged on my throne, it will send a dangerous message to rest of the world: that any grasping, covetous woman of royal blood can reach for the crown and succeed in taking it, even from a rightful, ruling king. Then queens will start popping up all over Europe like rabbits in a garden. It will be chaos.”

He tried to sound supremely confident. Bess had coached him
to say all of this about the awful precedent Mary would set and the terrifying anarchy of women, but for some reason he felt unsettled when he spoke the words, especially with Jane and Bess standing behind him, these two women who he now held in the highest possible regard.

King Henry leaned forward on his throne. “Well, that makes sense. Yes, they're always reaching, aren't they?” He cast a quick accusatory glance at Queen Catherine beside him. She was a notorious schemer, Edward knew from Bess, and the French king often worried that his own wife would be the end of him someday, so his son would end up on the throne and she could rule as regent.

“Yes, they reach far above their station,” Edward agreed. “And you and I both know that it is a man's place, not a woman's, to rule a country. Women are ill designed for such a task.”

“But you yourself put a woman on the throne, did you not?” King Henry asked, gesturing to Jane.

The court fell silent.

Edward glanced at his cousin. Her eyes were closed. Her lips moved like she was counting backward from ten.

Edward turned quickly back to the king.

“My desire was for my crown to pass to my cousin's male heirs,” Edward explained. “Naturally. Of course I couldn't have considered Jane a queen on her own merits.”

Oh, she was going to stab him in his sleep. At least she was being mercifully silent. For now. Edward cleared his throat. “But unfortunately, I became ill so quickly that there simply wasn't time
for Jane to produce a male heir. And in the absence of a boy to inherit the throne, Dudley persuaded me to amend the line of succession to name Jane as the ruler, to be followed by her sons, of course. A decision I regret, but there wasn't much of a choice at that point.”