My Lady Jane(99)

“We’re getting close,” he said to the king.

“You remember our plan?” Edward said.

G nodded.

The two wound their way through trees and brush until Edward came to a jolting halt. And then G did, too. And then Edward said to G, “I think we’re going to need a bigger sword.”

The beast was huge. This was one of those times when the English language was inadequate to fully describe the bear’s girth. The thing was eating fruit from a tree, and to get the fruit, he didn’t even have to stand on his hind legs. And he didn’t just eat the fruit, he ate the leaves and the branch as well, because his mouth was huge and he could.

The ground trembled as he walked to the next tree.

G turned toward Edward and bowed. “It’s been a pleasure, Sire, but this is where I leave you.” He was jesting only in part.

“What about your talk of courage?”

“Fiction, Your Majesty.”

Edward sighed. “Stop playing. We stick to the plan.”

“What about giving him a chance to surrender?”

“Shut up.” Edward let out a war cry. The bear turned, roared so loudly G thought his eardrums would burst, and charged after the king, who turned and ran back into the forest.

G was alone. He let out a breath and climbed a tree. Because that was the plan. Minutes later, or maybe seconds, or hours, Edward came running back to him, shouting, “Gifford! Be ready!”

G lit the torch he’d been holding.

The bear had been chasing Edward, but now he followed the light and placed his front paws on the tree, which gave G the perfect angle to pour Jane’s tincture into his eyes.

The bear let out a terrible growl and a cry, and then with a whimper, he let his front paws scrape down the bark.

Now was the time Edward was going to go in for the kill, except the bear began to run around in circles, frantic, roaring. And then, with the force of a battering ram, he collided with the trunk of a tree.

G’s tree.

He fell through the air.

The brunt of the impact was softened by landing on the bear’s back, a fact that G would have celebrated, had it not been the case that he had just fallen onto the world’s most giant bear.

Thankfully the collision with the tree had stunned the bear, and G was able to gather his brain and climb off the beast. Where was Edward with his sword? But of course, it was pitch-dark now, because G’s torch had gone out on the way down from the tree, and Edward couldn’t very well stab the bear without risking stabbing G at the same time.

“Gifford?” Edward called.

The sound seemed to rouse the beast. G thought quickly. He didn’t have a weapon with him (because he was supposed to watch from the tree as Edward killed the bear) and he couldn’t very well kill a bear with his own hands, so he did the only thing he could.

He played dead. And acted like he wasn’t food.

“I’m dead, Sire,” G said. He didn’t know why he didn’t say, “I’m playing dead,” except on the off chance the bear understood English. He wouldn’t have said anything at all, but he wanted Edward to know that G would be on the ground, and so aim his sword anywhere but at the ground.

There was no reply.

Gifford tried to think of what his lady told him to do in this situation, but then he was thinking of his lady, and that flash of flesh, and the possibility that she might love him, and then the possibility that he might never see her again, which got him thinking about the bear again.

G closed his eyes and tried to still his labored breathing. The bear growled and whined and sniffed and pawed at the ground—and then pawed at G.

It was all he could do not to move. Or scream. Where was Edward? Had he left G here to die?

The bear sniffed G’s leg. G tried to make his leg look less like food. The bear pushed G’s shoulder, and pushed again as though trying to turn him over. G wasn’t sure whether complying would make him seem more dead or less dead. But then again, if he were actually dead, he wouldn’t fight being turned over.

When the bear pushed again, G turned over onto his stomach.

The bear pawed at G’s back again, and then did something that made G’s blood run cold. He sniffed the back of G’s head, and licked.

Licking means eating, G thought. Licking means eating!

Jane had told him to play dead, unless the bear was about to eat him, but she didn’t say how he was supposed to get out of such a vulnerable position. The bear licked the back of G’s neck, and G was just about to try to spring to his feet and run for it, when suddenly the bear reared his head, let out a roar, and collapsed against G.

And just as suddenly, G realized he would most likely not die of a bear bite, but of being smothered by a bear. When his lady received the news, he hoped the king would tell her he died of a bear bite. Not because the bear essentially sat on him. He felt a hand grasp his own, and Edward was pulling him out from under the dead bear, who’d not once acted un-bearlike. The Great White Bear of Rhyl was definitely not an E?ian. Which comforted G.

“I used the broadsword and stabbed the base of the bear’s neck. That did the trick.”

“Wonderful,” G said. “But never forget, I weakened him in the first place by falling on him.”

“You’re right,” Edward said good-naturedly.

They both stood there panting for a while. “You know, Sire, with you being king, and also now a legendary bear killer, I’d say you will be able to woo any woman you desire.”