My Lady Jane(72)

It was too long to be a mouse, or a rat, but too short to be . . . what other kind of rodent was there? It looked like a cat and a snake had a baby together.

G stalked over to the thing and stomped his foot near it.

“Go away, you scruffy squirrel!”

The creature shied away from his foot, and he stomped again, in the direction of the door. “Shoo! There’s nothing to see here! Go on out the way you came in.”

But the rodent made no move toward the door. Instead, it scurried over to the bed, and scampered up the hanging tassels to the bedcovers and then to the head of the bed, where it nestled itself down on top of one of the pillows.

“Get off, you nasty rat!” G grabbed one of the books he had discarded and raised it above his head.

At this, the rodent sprang to attention, on all fours, long tail fluffed out. G waved the book as a threatening move, and the rodent did the strangest thing. It moved its head in a side-to-side motion, mirroring the motion of the book, its beady eyes wide and fixated on the tome.

G jerked the book forward about an inch, and the rodent flinched.

“All right, let’s come to an agreement.” G gently lowered the book to the bed, and that’s when the rodent did something even stranger. It scurried over to the book and nestled on top of it, like a mama bird would nestle over her eggs.

“Wait. Jane?” G said.

The rodent made a nodding motion.

“Jane?” he said again.

The rodent nodded again, this time in a more exaggerated way.

“Jane. You’re a . . . a . . . rat.”

Jane froze, and then darted frantically around the bed, then around the room, then scaled the bedpost and darted in and out of the tassels. G was worried she would do something crazy like hurl herself off the bed to her death.

“Wait! Wait. You’re not a rat. I only said rat because . . . well, I wasn’t thinking. But you’re not a rat.”

She froze on top of the bedposts, waiting expectantly.

She wanted him to tell her what she was.

“You’re a . . . a . . . well, it’s actually something I’ve not seen maybe ever. But you have fur—beautiful fur,” he added when she started shaking. “And two lovely eyes, four strong, if tiny, legs—but not too tiny,” he added again. “Can you please come down from there before I continue?”

She stamped her foot before climbing down the poster. He could almost hear her huffing. Lord, it was so obvious she was Jane. How had he not known the second her beady eyes appeared under the door?

She settled herself on the bed and he sat down next to her. He was tempted to pet her as he would a dog, but he resisted. She might find that demeaning.

He faced her.

“Okay, so you are a . . . a . . . an E?ian,” he said, opting for the safest reference to her appearance. “I don’t suppose you’re a typical E?ian who can change back and forth at will; otherwise, you would’ve changed back to tell me who you were yourself.” He paused. “I know that sounded very roundabout, but my meaning is, you can’t control the change, can you?”

She nodded.

“Yes, you can’t control the change? Or yes, you can?” He realized how stupid the questions were. “Never mind. I’ll phrase it this way. Can you control the change?”

She shook her head.

“All right. We are getting somewhere. Although, very slowly, and I worry about how quickly the sun will soon be rising. So what are we going to do?” He sighed. “If only we had a horse.”

If hedgehogs or badgers could look exasperated, Jane did. She jumped off the bed and scurried to the door and went under it and out, then under it and back in.

G smacked his head. “Right! We have something better than a horse. We have a . . . weasel?”

Jane rolled over and played dead.

“Not a weasel, my lady, but whatever you are, I am catching your meaning. You can sneak in and out and around the tower. And possibly steal a key?”

She nodded.

“And bring the key here, and we’ll unlock the door, descend the stairs, take the guard at the bottom by surprise, knock him out, steal his sword to dispatch any other guards we may come across, go to the stables, steal a horse, and head for the hills.”

She nodded again, and this time did a scurry about the bed that sort of resembled a happy dance.

“Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place? The way you explain it, I must say, it sounds very convoluted.”

Jane didn’t stick around to argue. She scampered out the door (which involved flattening herself in a move that defied physics) and left G pacing and waiting. And waiting and pacing. And then pacing and waiting some more. All the while, looking out the window for signs of dawn. If Jane didn’t return in time, escape would be impossible. He wouldn’t be able to fit out the door.

Maybe his captors didn’t know about the daylight curse, and if Jane’s plan didn’t work, the sheer bulkiness of his physique would delay the whole burning-at-the-stake thing. Or maybe they did know, and they would come to fetch him sooner than the sunrise.

“Hurry, my lady,” he whispered as he paced and waited. “Please hurry.”

Eventually, he heard the soft clinging of metal far away, and it got closer and closer and G imagined a badger carrying a set of keys up a flight of stone stairs. He went and stood by the door, and soon enough, Jane appeared underneath.