My Lady Jane(114)

The guards drew their swords and faced the king.

“Gentlemen,” Edward said. “Sheathe your weapons. I am King Edward the Sixth, by the grace of God, ruler of England, France, and Ireland. In earth, the supreme head. I am your rightful sovereign.”

“King Edward is dead,” one of the men responded. “And besides, doesn’t France have its own, separate king?”

“I am not dead,” argued Edward. “There are nefarious villains who would have you believe I died. But any accounts of my demise have been grossly exaggerated, I assure you, for here I am, very much alive.”

The guards exchanged looks.

“He speaks the truth,” G called from his position beyond the gate. “He is our true king. I have traveled with him to France to gather troops. I have fought alongside him as he killed the Great White Bear of Rhyl. Long live King Edward!”

The guard on the right began to lower his sword, until the guard on the left said, “Hold on. There’s no such thing as the GWBR. He obviously lies.”

The first guard scratched his head. “But what if he speaks the truth?”

“If he’s not speaking the truth, and we let him go, we’ll be hanged for treason. But if he is speaking the truth, we could kill him here, and no one would ever be the wiser.”

“No!” G said. “Bad decision!”

The guard on the right re-raised his sword and took a deep breath as if to speak, but he didn’t get a sound out before a loud bong rang out and he dropped like a stone. Jane stood behind the guard, her frying pan raised to where the man’s head had been.

“Wonderful, Jane!” G grinned. Frying pans. Who knew?

Edward, with his excellent mastery of fencing and his years of training and his newfound strength, swiftly dispatched the other guard with two flicks of his fire poker.

“Well done, Sire,” G said. For a moment, he wondered if it was indeed the best choice to skip those fencing lessons in favor of writing poetry. But that worry would have to wait until later. After the sword fight.

Edward sprinted to the gate, and soon Jane was there, too, and they used their combined weight to activate the pulley-and-counterweight system that raised the portcullis.

It didn’t lift fast enough for G. His gaze held Jane’s through the bars. The sound of paws against gravel announced Pet’s sudden arrival, and the dog scrambled under the portcullis and ran to Edward. As soon as G could, he crawled underneath and took his wife in his arms. “Jane.”

“Gifford.”

“I . . . we . . . There are so many things I should’ve told you—”

“We should get going,” Edward said.

(Now, we, as narrators, feel the need to inform you, dear reader, that we do not know how Edward always managed to thwart kisses. All we do know is that it was a gift he demonstrated throughout his life, most notably when his third cousin the Lady Dalrymple of Cheshire was about to kiss her new husband over their wedding altar, just after the priest pronounced them man and wife, and Edward stepped forward from his place of honor by the priest and said, “I hate to interrupt, but I thought now would be an excellent time to remind the wedding party not to throw rice, on account of the fact that birds, even kestrels, can choke on it.”)

Back to the scene at hand. Edward said to G and Jane, “Now we must get to the White Tower. And Mary.”

They all turned toward the huge stone structure that stood in the exact center of the Tower of London. The White Tower—the most ancient and well fortified of the castle buildings. Where Mary would be sitting on Edward’s throne.

“Did you bring the swords?” Edward asked G.

G ran back to the other side of the gate and tried to act like he hadn’t just left the swords sitting there. Jane kept her frying pan, but G and Edward each took a sword.

They were coming into the Tower of London as thieves in the night, and G was struck by the difference from the last time, when Jane was to be crowned queen, with royal guards escorting them in ceremony and deference. But before they could even start toward the White Tower, three more figures blocked the way. The first was a man G didn’t know. The second was G’s brother, Stan. The third was the owner of one giant eagle nose.

Edward raised his sword immediately. “Bash,” he said.

“I’m sorry, what?” G was confused.

Edward tilted his head to indicate the first man with the sword. “That’s Bash, the weapons master. He taught me everything I know about swordplay.”

“Oh, excellent,” G said faintly. “Bash. Is that short for something?”

The man called Bash just glowered at them and dropped into a fighting stance. G moved in front of Jane and held his arm across her, feeling the urge to protect her, although he knew when it came down to it, there’d be no stopping her.

Dudley sneered at them. “How quaint. A sickly boy, a useless man-horse, and a girl. This should be easy.”

G had to admit his father had a point. Perhaps Edward could compete with Bash, but there was no way G could take on both Stan and his father.

“John Dudley,” spat out Edward. “You treacherous snake. You are a traitor to your country and your king. I will see your head on a pike.”

Bash made an offensive move—“Watch out!” Jane cried—and Edward reacted quickly. He lunged toward Bash as if he’d been waiting his whole life to duel the fencing master. The two of them almost danced to and fro, their swords flashing in the moonlight. Edward looked brilliant in G’s opinion—strong and quick on his feet. He fought like the king he was.