by Cynthia Hand
Jane’s hands flew to her mouth—or rather, would have, but she was still shackled. The metal bit deeply into her wrists as she strained against it. “No,” she breathed. “Don’t hurt him. He can’t help what he is.”
Mary tilted her head. “So you knew that he is an abomination?”
Jane’s eyes cut to Dudley.
The duke said, “Of course I hadn’t the faintest idea, Your Majesty. If Gifford was in and out of the house at all hours and refused to go to court, I assumed my son was merely acting out like any normal boy. Why would I assume he had something darker to hide?”
“That’s a lie,” Jane said, but no one cared.
“This is about you, dear. Did you know your husband was a beast?” Mary pressed.
“I found out on our wedding night. Everyone who knew”—she glared at Dudley—“neglected to tell me.”
“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—
Maybe Gifford wasn’t safe to think about right now.
Jane shifted her thoughts to Edward, wondering if he’d felt this deep unease in the face of his own death. Anxiety. Trepidation. Horror.
She tried to conjure up more synonyms, but a dim, orange light flickered beneath the door. Footfalls echoed on the steps, and a moment later the door creaked open.
Firelight shone in, blinding her. She squeaked and buried her face in the hollow of her arms and knees. Then, squinting, she looked up.
“Jane?” Lady Frances rushed in, holding a torch, which she quickly set into a holder on the wall. “The guards let me in. We have a few minutes at best. I came to ask you to reconsider Mary’s offer.” She knelt in front of Jane, her expression almost maternal in its concern. “I wanted you to know I’m sorry I wasn’t more . . . supportive back there. Please forgive me.”
Jane stared at her mother. She’d never heard an apology from Lady Frances’s lips before, and she wasn’t sure what to do with it.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said at last. “The throne changed hands very quickly, didn’t it? No one resisted.”
Lady Frances bowed her head. “The Privy Council turned on you. Dudley betrayed us as well. The moment Mary arrived, he declared his allegiance to her—even though it means he’s not the Lord President anymore—and his loathing of E∂ians. He declared himself a Verity. He made it sound like all along he was actually clearing a path for Mary to take power. But forget about Dudley for now. This is about you. Take Mary’s offer. It’s not too late. A life in exile is better than this.”
“No.”
>
“Jane, this is no time to display your stubbornness.”
“It’s not stubbornness. It’s a matter of honor. I will not denounce Gifford or E∂ians—you included, Mother.” Jane coughed at the dryness in her throat.
Lady Frances’ eyes flickered toward the door, like she was afraid someone would overhear. “Ungrateful girl. You have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m no E∂ian.”
“I know you are. I heard you and Father discussing it years ago.”
Her mother shook her head like she might deny it, but then she sighed. “And I hate it,” she whispered. “I never change, not if I can help it. I push that part of me down until it’s buried. It’s unnatural.”
“And yet it’s part of you,” Jane implored her. “In one of my books about E∂ians, the author said that long ago, in ancient times, all people were able to change into an animal form. Everyone was E∂ian. It was considered their true nature. It was considered divine.”
“Nonsense.” Her mother’s expression grew cold. “All those books fill your head with such drivel. I should have burned them all, and then maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
Jane closed her eyes for a moment. Then she pushed her stiff muscles until she was able to stand up. “Do not ask me to forsake E∂ians again, Mother. You will not change my mind.”
There were voices in the hall. Lady Frances glanced over her shoulder toward the door.
“Our time is almost up,” Jane said. “I suppose we should say good-bye now.”
“Please, Jane.” Her mother grabbed her arm. “You don’t have to die. It will bring ruin on the family. On me. I’ll lose Bradgate. I’ll lose everything.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t help that,” Jane replied, and she meant it. She, too, loved Bradgate, but it wasn’t worth her honor. “Do you know where Gifford is being held?”
“They took him to Beauchamp Tower after night fell. That’s all I know.”
“I want to see him. Can you ask for me?”
Lady Grey shook her head. “The only way to see him will be to denounce him, and then you would only see him burn.”
The guards arrived. They escorted Lady Frances from the room, without another word between them, and Jane was alone again.
Her prison seemed to shrink around her. The despair she’d known earlier became a drop to an ocean. One star to the entire universe. Her mother had abandoned her, no matter what she claimed. There was only one person left in the world to think about, and that was Gifford, locked away in Beauchamp Tower, so close to the Queen’s House, but it might as well have been the other side of the world.
Jane sank to the floor again, drowning in grief and misery and wretchedness and despondency and . . .
A brilliant white light flared about her, making her blink back stars.
When she could see again, everything was different. The room was bigger, for one, and she felt . . . funny. Shorter, which was saying something, but oddly long. Her spine felt strange and hunchy, and she was on all fours. And her sense of smell! There was something sour—unbathed human, probably—and musky.
The sound of voices below, the feel of the stone floor under her paws—it was incredible.
She’d changed into . . . something.
She was an E∂ian.
She was an E∂ian!
Jane hopped around the room in a crazy little dance, thrashing her head from side to side so hard she bashed into a wall. Unfazed, she made a soft clucky sound and danced again, an overpowering sense of joy filling her. She was an E∂ian, just as she’d always hoped. What was she? It didn’t matter. She was small and furry (she could easily twist herself around to see her body, but it was hard to get an idea of a whole based on just a few too-close views) and she had the best sense of smell and the best sense of hearing and the best dancing skills she’d ever possessed in her life, even if dancing sometimes meant she ran into walls. Wouldn’t Gifford be so amused when he saw her?
Gifford.
The sense of elation faded as she remembered her predicament and now that she was . . . a something . . . she would likely be burned at the stake as well.
But her animal self was small, she knew that, and maybe she could do something useful now.
She hopped over to the door. There was a large crack beneath it, not quite big enough for a human fist to fit underneath. But maybe she could fit?
Jane shoved her face into the crack beneath the door. Her head went right under, followed by her shoulders, but the rest of her body stuck a little.
That was embarrassing.
She squeezed and scrambled and pushed until she popped out of the other side.
There was more light in the corridor. Twilight to her human self, but she could see quite easily now, at least within a few feet. Everything beyond that seemed fuzzy and oddly flat. Everything was shades of gray, too, except a faint red cast to some things, like the light of a lantern on the wall.
So her vision wasn’t that great, but she was small and close to the floor, so what did she need with fantastic distance vision, anyway? She had other senses. Better senses.
Jane scurried to the edge of the first stair and paused, looking down. What was nothing particularly difficult in her human form suddenly appeared quite challenging. She couldn’t just step down.
She pressed her belly to the stone floor and pushed her front paws ahead of her, sliding down the first stair until her paws touched the next. The rest of her body followed with an awkward flop. She repeated this process a few more times until she found a better way to control her rogue hindquarters and moved down the stairs at a quicker pace.
At the first landing, she found the guards. She was the size of their boots. She resisted the urge to smell all their interesting, earthy aromas, and instead streaked past them so quickly they didn’t notice her.
Other voices below grew louder as she descended the stairs, too distant for the guards on the landing to hear, but her ears were fantastic. Amazing. Probably very cute.
One of the speakers was Dudley, she was sure of it, though in this form, the sound was overwhelming and held qualities she’d never heard as a human.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I’ve obtained a body,” another man said. His voice was familiar, too. The royal physician? She couldn’t remember his name.
“Very good.” Dudley sneezed and sniffed. “Drape a shroud over it and no one will know it isn’t Edward.”
Jane stopped moving. It felt like all the fur on her body was standing up.
They didn’t have Edward’s body?
“They haven’t found him yet?” asked the doctor. “The poison would have killed him by now. There’s no way he could survive without an antidote.”
Dudley sighed. “He was sick. Wounded. Starved. He had to have left some kind of trail.”
Their voices were fading now, as though they’d been walking by the stairs.
Jane slinked down the rest of the steps, her tiny heart racing. Edward had been poisoned? Dudley had poisoned Edward? And then Edward had . . . what? Escaped?
Her heart lifted at the idea. How easily, she thought, despair could turn to hope.
At the foot of the staircase, Jane looked around the corner. The hall was enormous, but empty for now. If she kept to the shadows, she wouldn’t be spotted. Hopefully. And then she could escape the Tower. Find Edward.
But first she had to rescue her horse.
EIGHTEEN
Gifford
Burned at the stake. A most unpleasant way to go, G thought. When he was just a boy of five, he’d witnessed a man being burned at the stake. It was 1538 and John Lambert had been outed as an E∂ian when, after hearing Frederic Clarence had written a pamphlet denouncing E∂ian magic, he turned into a dog and ate the papers, prompting Clarence to cry out, “That dog ate my scriptwork!”
Lambert was sentenced to be burned at the stake, and Lord Dudley had insisted that his children attend the execution. He later told G that nobody trusted those with the a
ncient magic, and the country would be safer if every E∂ian suffered the same fate as Lambert. Which, at the time, G’s father had seemed to truly believe.
All G remembered of that day was the scream that seemed to go on for an eternity. That and the smell.
He glanced at the lone candle his captors allowed in his locked tower room, and then looked closer at the small flame on the wick. Never had something so innocuous seemed so ominous.
He held his hand over the flame.
“God’s teeth!” he exclaimed, pulling his hand back after a mere instant. He hadn’t felt so much pain in his entire life, which, in the next instant, he decided was a sad statement because what nineteen-year-old man has only ever felt the pain of a candle on his skin?
One who spends most of his nights attending plays and poetry readings.
He sighed. Usually he composed stanzas in his head to calm his anxiety, but at the moment G had no desire to find a phrase that rhymed with “charred flesh.”
He examined the palm of his right hand, expecting to see burned skin, but of course there was nothing. Not even a little red.
Now that the pain had subsided (not that there’d been very much of it to begin with) he turned his thoughts toward Jane, specifically the way she’d refused to denounce him as a heretic. He closed his eyes and remembered her confident posture as she stood by him, so sure in her decision, even though she could’ve easily sacrificed him to buy her own escape.
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.