My Lady Jane(58)
If anything, tonight he would prove he could handle his own goblet. He would be king of his cup.
They served themselves from the dishes before them, and then G steered their conversation to safe topics. They discussed her day of navigating her queenly duties, and his day of navigating the northeastern hills. Her day of picking out the color of her ladies’ brocades, and his day of picking hay out of his teeth with his tongue.
She said his father was at her side all day long and she was quite annoyed with his ever-presence, and she would be glad he was to be gone from the castle the following day.
“My father is going somewhere?” G said. Great. They were back on the subject of his father.
“Yes. I thought you knew. Oh, no, of course you wouldn’t, because he received the message while you were in your . . . four-legged state. He was called away urgently to the countryside. He wouldn’t say why, so I assumed it was a personal matter.” She brought a hand to her lips. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I should’ve been concerned that the matter might be of import to you as well, since you are Dudley’s son.”
She said it as if blood ties to the man directly spoke to his own character. G fought the urge to engage in the territory they’d already covered and raised a hand. “My lady, I am sure everything is fine with my father.” And the truth was, G wasn’t worried about any sort of family emergency. He could only think that the urgent business calling his father away had more to do with the same business that had occupied the entirety of his father’s mind for the past several years: the business of controlling the throne.
G guessed this latest message had to do with the hunt for Mary. And if his father was personally answering the call, it meant things were not going well.
“Gifford? Are you all right?” Jane asked.
“To be sure,” G answered, shaking away the thought. Several times, he’d considered telling Jane about what he’d overheard the night of her coronation, but he thought better about it. She had been so distressed about becoming queen in the first place, and if she were to know Mary didn’t accept her as sovereign . . .
No, he would hold back the rampant speculation and wait until his father returned with actual news. Although if she found out he’d withheld information, she would have a real reason to not trust him.
“I am merely concerned with our . . . I mean . . . your first decree as sovereign ruler.”
“Oh. Right. I’ve been contemplating that today, while I was reading in the book Drafting Decrees, the Ancient Language of Binding Arbitration.” She reached under the table and pulled up a messy stack of parchments, many covered with her handwriting, phrases scrawled, words crossed out. “I’ve been practicing how I could phrase it, so that I don’t mention E?ians directly, or Verities for that matter, but so that it covers them and also covers other people who might be unfairly. . .” Her voice trailed off as she looked at G.
She had used the word I, not we. (He’d wanted the Jane and Gifford We, not the Royal We, which she still refused to use.) This was definitely the Queen of England, and not his lady, sitting at the head of the table. G leaned back and poured himself another cup of wine.
“Am I boring you?” Jane said.
“No,” G responded, “but that’s only because I stopped listening ages ago.”
“Ah,” Jane said.
She looked down at her plate, her cheeks tinged with pink, and G wondered if he had been too straightforward. But really, did she even need him here for this conversation? She obviously didn’t need him by her side, ruling the kingdom. Why did she want him around for the drafting of decrees?
They ate the rest of their dinner in silence, being that there appeared to be no safe topics left to discuss, and then they went to their separate adjoining residences, the door between them never opened.
They didn’t see much of each other for the next few days. G’s daylight hours were spent wandering farther and farther from the castle, to the point where on the eighth night of the reign of Queen Jane, he had gone so far from the castle that when the sun set, he was still miles away. He made it to a cluster of trees outside one of the villages surrounding London just as the transformation took place, and he hid himself in a patch of bushes. Why hadn’t he figured out to control this blasted curse yet?
He guessed because he hadn’t really tried.
What he wouldn’t give to be at Dudley Castle right now, with its remote location and the roads he knew in the dark of night.
Yes, he’d run into this problem a few times when he’d gotten carried away at his home, and he’d discovered that the best course of action was to find a tavern attached to a brothel. There it was easy to grab clothes strewn about, the owners of which would be too sloshed to care. And these kinds of taverns were easy to find. Just follow the noise.
G wrangled up a few of the leafier vines, positioned them in all the right places, and ventured out of the trees and into the village, keeping to the shadows and following the noise to the nearest tavern, which was called The Three Ladies. Judging by the “ladies” standing outside, G had found his place.
There are two rules to finding clothes when you need them and are currently without: the first, act like you know what you’re doing; the second, do it all in one continuous motion. G took note of the nearest darkened window, inhaled deeply, and dropped the back cluster of leaves. (He would need an empty hand.)