My Lady Jane(37)

I’m sure you must be wondering what it is I came to see you about this morning, mere hours after my wedding. My dear cousin, the wedding is precisely the topic I wanted to discuss with you. Or rather, my newly acquired husband.

Gifford is a horse.

I’m certain you knew this, what with your referrals to “his condition” and assumptions that I would find it intriguing. What I cannot fathom is why you chose not to tell me. We’ve always told each other everything, have we not? I consider you to be my most trusted confidant, my dearest and most beloved friend. Why, then, did you neglect this rather critical detail? It doesn’t make sense.

But perhaps in this, too, I wonder now, you felt you had a good reason.

I hope that we will be able to speak more on this subject when I return from my honeymoon in the country.

All my love,

Jane

Edward sighed. He carefully folded the letter and laid it on the bedside table. Over the past three days he had read Jane’s letter no fewer than a hundred times, and each time he felt as though she were sitting beside him, chastising him of course, but there all the same.

He closed his eyes and mentally composed a letter back to Jane. It went something like this:

Dearest Jane,

Sorry I made you marry a horse. Your father-in-law is trying to kill me. Send help.

But Edward knew that he could expect no help from Jane. Any message he might write to inform her of his predicament or warn her of Lord Dudley’s insidious intentions for both Jane and the kingdom would surely be intercepted by the duke. Even if the message did somehow manage to make it out of the palace, it would likely fall into Gifford’s hands, and Edward could only assume Jane’s husband was in league with his father.

So. The king was in trouble, or, as they would have phrased it at the time, up ye olde creek sans ye olde paddle.

He sighed again. The night Pet had turned out to be a girl, Edward and Peter Bannister (and Pet, too, but she wasn’t much help with strategy, bless her heart) had come up with a plan to get Edward out of the castle. It was a good plan. First, Edward should stop ingesting poison. Then, when the poison he had already unwittingly taken had worn off, when he had regained some of his strength, when he could at least walk again without falling, he would request to be taken out to the gardens for fresh air. (Because it’s a well-known fact that fresh air has magical healing properties.) Then, on one of these walks through the gardens, Peter Bannister would happen by with a horse and help Edward onto said horse. And then Edward would flee.

But things weren’t going according to plan.

For the past three days Edward hadn’t eaten anything that didn’t pass a sniff inspection from Pet. Which was tough, because in order to obtain a sniff inspection from Pet, one had to wait until someone wasn’t hovering over him (which these days was proving to be difficult) and then quickly lower his plate to the floor beside his bed (because he wasn’t allowing Pet to sleep in the bed anymore, because, well, that would be inappropriate) and then wait for her to wag her tail. Code for: no wicked smells here; feel free to chow down.

At first the poison had only been offered up once a day, in his berries and berry-related pastries, but then Mistress Penne had noticed that the king seemed to have lost his passion for blackberries, and the wicked smell began to infiltrate the rest of his food. And then his wine.

So now he was down to water and hunks of bread and cheese that Peter Bannister sometimes slipped him. At this rate he was looking at dying of poisoning or dying of starvation.

The word famished had taken on a whole new meaning for Edward. He found that most of his dreams were now centered around a vision of himself sitting at a table laden with minced meat pies and roast legs of lamb and bowls and bowls of sweet, ripe blackberries.

Oh, how he missed blackberries.

But in spite of the fact that not a drop of poison had crossed his lips in over three days, Edward was not getting better. He could barely stand on his own, let alone walk, and had to be helped to the chamber pot. The coughing had not subsided; if anything, it was getting worse. His handkerchief was more pink than white now. His thoughts were still so cloudy most of the time.

And Dudley was becoming suspicious. “You must eat, Sire,” the duke was admonishing him at this very moment, as Mistress Penne offered him a bowl of chicken broth and Edward pushed it away. At least chicken broth didn’t appeal to him that much, but even the oily brown substance was making his mouth water. Edward was trying very hard not to smell it, lest he be overcome by his hunger and grab the bowl and drain it, poison or not.

“You must at least try, Your Majesty,” Dudley said.

Edward’s teeth clenched for a few seconds before he reined in his temper. “Why must I try?” he replied. “Will this bowl of broth keep me from dying?”

Dudley’s lips thinned. “No, Sire.”

“Then why bother?” Edward raised himself up slightly. “You’ve got your precious document signed now, don’t you? You don’t need me anymore. So if I’m going to die, I’m going to do it on my own terms.”

If this was a political game then he was showing his hand, he realized. He should be more cautious, but he didn’t care. He was tired of feeling helpless.

The duke stared at Edward with narrowed eyes, studying his face. Then in a cold voice he said, “As you wish, Sire,” and slunk away, closing the door behind him.