My Lady Jane(83)

Before G could ask her to explain, she flashed back into a dog. She seemed more comfortable that way, as if she could better manage her despair in that form.

G felt his little ferret shaking on his shoulder, and knew that Jane must be fearing the worst for Edward.

“He’s okay,” G whispered, then faced the dog. “Pet, we’ll follow the second scent. If it doesn’t lead us to Edward, it will certainly lead us to answers.” His wife trembled again. “But I’m sure it will lead us to Edward.”

Jane gave a ferrety nod and flattened herself, ready for him to start running once more.

G wasn’t nearly as excited to be reunited with Poor, Dear Edward as Jane was, though.

He wondered if that made him a bad person.

Several hours later, and after a too-brief nap, G became a horse, and Jane became a girl.

He wondered what they were going to do with no saddle (which they’d left in their rush from the barn), but Jane didn’t hesitate to climb up on his back.

(At this particular era in time, it was scandalous for a woman to ride with no saddle. It would be considered reprehensible—and possibly justification for a prison sentence—for a woman to ride with no saddle on a horse who is really a man. Even if that man were her husband.)

No one had ever ridden G before. It was a strange, but not entirely unpleasant sensation to feel Jane’s weight on his back, her legs gripping him around the middle.

“Do you mind if I hold on to your mane?” she asked, in as proper a voice as she would’ve used at a dinner party when asking, “Would you mind passing the butter?”

G held his head back toward her in response.

She took a handful, but she didn’t hold too tightly.

“Let’s go find Edward, Pet,” she said to the waiting dog. “This scent must lead us to Helmsley.”

Yes, G thought a bit glumly. Let’s find Edward.

They walked for hours, until he felt Jane slump against his neck and then slip dangerously to the side. G lurched the opposite way to counterbalance, and she was able to right herself.

“I’m sorry,” Jane said. “I’ll hold on tighter.”

They needed food, G thought. Neither of them had eaten more than a few bites of dried meat for almost two days. Everything from the saddlebag was gone now, and the bag itself left behind because even that small weight would slow them.

“We need food,” Jane said, as if she’d read his mind.

But in order to get food, they would have to forage (none of them had experience), or they would have to hunt (none of them had ever killed an animal), or they would have to head closer to civilization (where there might be soldiers who wanted to kill them). And he couldn’t do any of these things in his current state. All he could do as a horse was try to walk evenly.

“I’ll find something,” she announced. G stopped, and she slid from his back. He waited as she wandered off, returning a few minutes later with a small handful of dark purple berries. “I gathered all I could find. They’re Dorset berries. They’re safe. I read about them in Poisonous and Nonpoisonous Berries of the Wild: the Joys of Surviving England on a Budget. At least, I think they’re the safe ones. The pictures in the book weren’t very clear.”

With that shining endorsement, she laid the berries out on a piece of cloth, divided them up into three even groups, placed one pile in front of Pet and another in the palm of her hand. She lifted it to G’s mouth, and he ate them, trying desperately not to chomp off one of her fingers in his excitement over food.

Jane looked at her hands, now covered with horse slobber. “Gross.” She wiped her palms down G’s flank. “You can have that back.”

Then she ate the other pile.

“We’ll need to go to a village,” she said, her lips stained purple.

Again, exactly what G had been thinking.

Soon enough they hit a road, and it was only a little while after that they came upon a small town, centered around a giant tavern with a wooden sign above its door that bore the silhouette of a mangy-looking dog. It was nearly dusk and the three weary travelers had no money and nothing to trade with, so they stayed at the edge of the forest to come up with a plan.

Jane loved coming up with plans.

She climbed down from G and put the cloak over his back, anticipating the change. Then, she crept up behind a tree and peeked around the edge of the trunk to survey the village.

The sun touched the horizon. In a flash, G was a man. He held the cloak around him and jogged over to Jane.

There was a brightness in her eyes and a smile on her face that made his heart lift.

“There’s a storehouse in the back of the tavern,” she said excitedly. “I saw a man loading dead rabbits and cured beef inside.”

“Oh. I’m sure they lock it up. We’d have better luck if I broke into a house.”

“We’re not going to steal it!” She shook her head, as though she couldn’t believe he would suggest such a thing. “I just meant they have food. And we can get some. By we, I mean you. You’ll have to go in there and do something in trade.”

G imagined standing in the corner, reading poetry for a different group of strangers, a ferret riding on his shoulder. He imagined the ferret biting him if she didn’t like the poem. Not that he’d had a chance to prepare anything. Or bring a page with anything. The first time he’d read for a crowd, he’d meant to recite the poem from memory—he’d gotten to “all the world’s a blah” before his mind went blank—and he’d mumbled a few words that vaguely rhymed and then fled.