My Lady Jane(68)

“And were you surprised?” Mary’s tone was honey sweet.

“Certainly.”

“And do you reject his vile magic? Do you renounce your ties to him?” Mary leaned forward. “It’s simple. Name yourself a Verity and your life will be spared. Or deny me, and I’ll have your head.”

Jane closed her eyes. Her shoulders ached. Her wrists stung, and liquid heat dripped down her hands—blood. Never before had she been so mistreated, and a desperate part of her wanted to say yes, she denounced him and she’d go live in a monastery, exiled for the rest of her days.

But Gifford would die.

He hadn’t abandoned her. A former womanizer and drunk and (current) horse he might be, but he’d just proven himself to be the most loyal person in her life. In spite of the way she’d treated him, her accusations and her hurled pillows and her scorn, he’d tried to warn her. He hadn’t fled when the army arrived. He hadn’t switched sides.

Could she abandon him now?

Gifford-the-horse had kept his head down throughout this entire interrogation, his nose almost brushing the floor, the very picture of docility. But now he lifted his head. His eyes, at once both human and horse, met hers. Do it, his eyes urged. Renounce me. Save yourself.

Memories of their time in the country floated back to her: their banter, reading beneath the tree, helping those in need, and most of all, that almost kiss as the sky was deep with twilight and candles burned around them. There was no denying the truth: Gifford Dudley was a good man, E?ian or not. And he was her husband. For better or worse.

The answer must have shown on her face.

“Little Jane, be reasonable.” Mary pressed her hands together. “What purpose will your death serve?”

“It will serve to prove that you do not control this kingdom. It will serve to prove that not everyone will bow down to you. You think to rule us with fear, but you cannot. I will never renounce my beliefs, or my husband.”

Mary’s face darkened with anger. “Take her away! And do something about this . . . animal!”

Soldiers grabbed at Jane. She couldn’t resist, not with her bleeding wrists cuffed behind her back, but she continued speaking.

“E?ians are people, too. You only hate them because you fear them!”

Mary’s guards dragged her away, and no one lifted a finger to help her.

Jane had read about despair.

The hopelessness of Socrates, who’d felt no recourse but to poison himself rather than facing a life in a cave prison. The terror of Anne Boleyn, Bess’s mother, who’d been beheaded just years before, after being tried for adultery. The resignation of Cleopatra, who’d taken her own life with the bite of an asp after she and her husband lost the Battle of Actium.

The despair in books was a distant, safe thing. She’d thought she understood the depth of the emotion as she read through the pages of her beloved books, her life touching those of men and women long dead. She’d felt for them, cried for them, tried to breathe for them when they no longer breathed. And then, she’d been able to close the book and place it on its shelf, the words trapped between the leather covers.

Oh, sometimes it had taken her hours or days to recover from a particularly emotional book, but there’d always been another to take her mind off the anguish.

There were no books here.

Nothing could distract her from the forced march up the stairs of the Queen’s House (built at the bidding of Anne Boleyn, and then ironically the place of her captivity before she was executed), into a bare room where Jane was to live out the remaining hours of her life. Nothing could distract from the four brick walls surrounding her, the cold and the darkness, or the searing pain in her wrists and shoulders even after the shackles had been removed.

Too sore and tired to pace, Jane slumped in the middle of the floor. There was no furniture; it had been removed so she couldn’t spend her last night in a bed. Such decency, she inferred, was above her, an E?ian-loving heretic.

“I am sixteen years old,” she told the empty room. “And tomorrow I will die.”

That’s what the guards had told her. Tomorrow she’d be beheaded.

Who would go first? Her, or Gifford? Would they be able to see each other? Perhaps Jane would be made to watch as her husband burned alive, and then her head would come off before she could even shed a tear. Or the other way around, maybe. Gifford might see the axe swing and a flash of red hair flying, and then they’d light the pyre beneath him.

Jane hugged her knees and shuddered. Her imagination was too vivid.

Night fell. She knew only because the faint light from the windows faded, not because her body gave her any useful signals. Her head was light with thirst and hunger. When she ran her tongue along her lips, they were dry and cracked. Her stomach felt hollow. If she could have escaped into sleep, she would have, but shocks of terror and dread jabbed at her mind every other minute, reminding her that these hours were the last she had left.

If she slept, she’d waste them.

For another hour—or some amount of time she had no way to judge—she thought about Gifford and what he must be doing now. Likely he wasn’t still in the stables, but moved somewhere more secure, now that it was night. She thought about his laugh and his jokes, the charming way he found humor in everything. Would he find humor in this situation? Tomorrow morning?

If only she could see him now. She’d apologize for the last week and a half. She’d name him king. She’d kiss him and say she trusted him. She’d— She’d—