My Lady Jane(71)

She wouldn’t betray him.

Foolish, loyal, beautiful girl. At least her death would come much quicker than his.

He looked out the window. From this vantage point, he could almost see the place where Jane would suffer her fate, inside the courtyard of the Tower. For G, though, he knew he would be executed on Tower Hill, where the rest of the common criminals and heretics took their last breaths. That’s where he’d be burned.

It was a sad day when he yearned for a nice, tidy beheading. Instead of trying to compose morbid poetry (to be, or not to be, that was the question . . . ), he decided to carve a name into the stone wall. Jane’s name, of course.





J


Jane. He wondered if she was thinking of him, too. If he would ever see her again.





A


He’d never see a lot of people again. He’d never kiss his mother on the cheek, or make fun of Stan (who wasn’t so bad, was he? Not really. It’d been unfair for him to resent Stan all this time, G thought). He’d never give Billingsly another ridiculous order, or make Tempie laugh, or try to irritate his father just to see the aggravation on the old man’s face.





N


His father. G chipped harder at the stone. His father. Who had orchestrated this entire mess. Who would undoubtedly be fine, so long as he could switch to the winning side.





E


Who’d let his own son burn if it would save his life.

G decided that he couldn’t think about it anymore. He put the finishing touches on the e of Jane’s name, and then paced around the room, looking for something, anything, to get his mind off burning flesh. He found a few books, skimmed through the first few pages of each, and then tossed them one by one to the side. Maybe this had been meant to be Jane’s room. She was probably locked somewhere with a barrel of apples.

A soft flutter at the door made him stop his pacing. Someone had slipped a piece of parchment underneath.

He hurried over and unfolded it and saw Jane’s familiar handwriting. His heart pounded. He’d never received a love letter before, and although he knew his letter would most likely also be a good-bye letter, he felt some wild hope that she would confess some depth of feeling for him.

Dearest Edward,

I hoped to visit you this morning, but when I arrived at the palace I was informed that you are not receiving visitors. I must confess my surprise and disappointment that you would not see even me, but I know there must be a good reason, and I suspect that this self-imposed isolation means that your illness is taking its toll. For this I am so very sorry, cousin, and I wish there was something I could do to make you well again.

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

G refolded the letter, resisting the urge to crumple it up and toss it in the corner. He wasn’t offended by her surprise at his condition, but did she need to sign it “all my love”? All her love seemed a little excessive.

It was abundantly clear to G that Jane loved Edward; he’d never forget the look on her face when she’d been told that the king was dead. But had she loved him loved him? Was she thinking about her cousin right now, preparing herself to join her beloved in death?

Not that it really mattered. G tried to shake his insecurity away and instead be grateful to whoever had given this to him. His wife’s hand had written this letter. He could picture her face as she wrote it, her mouth pursing and brow furrowing the way it did when she concentrated. He was about to place the paper in his own coat pocket when he noticed something written in different handwriting near the corner of one of the folded edges.

It was one word.

Skunk

Well, that was a surprising word. No beauty in a word like skunk.

He didn’t recognize the handwriting. But no matter who wrote it, it was his only connection to Jane. G placed it in his breast pocket and for a moment pressed it against his chest.

Some time later he heard a scratching coming from the door. G shook his head, chalking the noise up to random castle creaks and groans, but then he heard it again. A distinct scratching sound.

He raised the candle, which only had an inch of light left, and walked cautiously to the door, just in time to see two beady little eyes peeking in from underneath. He barely had time to register the eyes when an entire furry body snaked its way inside his chamber, flat against the ground.

G yelped and stepped back. (He definitely did not scream like a little girl.)

Once it passed the doorframe, the creature seemed to puff itself back into shape, just as G grabbed the nearest thing he could chuck at it. A pillow. He took aim and threw it, but the little rodent dodged.