Gifford
As soon as the sun touched the horizon, G flashed into a human, and Jane hurried him inside and started talking. Fast.
“You heard me tell you we’re going to kill the GWBR?” He nodded, and she embraced him quickly, for their time was short. “Good. Now, I’ve saved all my bear knowledge for when you’re human so you’ll remember easier. Firstly, bears are always hungry. So when you encounter the bear, don’t act like food.”
“Huh?”
“I read it in a book last summer, called—”
G held up a hand. “Don’t tell me the name! No time.”
“Right. As I was saying, bears are always hungry. Try not to act like food.”
“How does one act like food?”
“I’m simply telling you what I know.” Anticipating her change, she adjusted her skirt underneath her cloak, and in her haste, she flashed G the briefest of glimpses of the milky white skin of her leg.
G stopped breathing.
“The next thing you should do is try to make yourself appear bigger than you are.”
G didn’t say anything; he still wasn’t breathing. Because, soft skin.
“Maybe hold your cloak above your head. Or puff out your chest. G, are you listening?”
G squeezed his eyes shut and scratched his forehead and tried to focus on bears and not skin. “Yes. Don’t act like food, make myself look bigger. Anything else to add?”
“Yes. Use anything at your disposal to defend yourself. Rocks, sticks, anything. Only don’t bend down to pick it up, because then you’ll appear smaller and more vulnerable.”
G sighed. “So, grab any weapons that happen to be at shoulder level.”
There was a knock at the door and Edward stuck his head in, Gracie and Bess standing just behind him. G waved them in.
Jane kept talking. “And if worse comes to worst, play dead. But if the bear starts licking your wounds, that means he’s planning on eating you, and you should do something else.”
“So, play dead unless he starts eating me.”
She shrugged helplessly. “I’ll do whatever I can, of course. I’ll distract him and then run up a tree to safety.”
G shot a look toward Edward, surprised that the king had let her believe she would be accompanying them. Edward smiled in a she’s-not-my-wife-I-shouldn’t-have-to-tell-her-no kind of way.
Should G inform her that she wasn’t coming? The last time he’d told her that, she’d come anyway, and she’d gotten hurt.
He wasn’t about to let that happen again.
Jane didn’t notice the exchange of glances. “I have the perfect way to distract the bear,” she said. “I read in a book once that bears can’t turn their heads very far in either direction, so I was thinking I could climb up onto his back and pull his fur, and he’ll spin about trying to get me, and that’s when you and Edward can go in for the kill.”
It was almost dark. They had only seconds before Jane would change. G had to tell her. “You won’t be there.”
“How will I not be there?” She narrowed her eyes at him.
“How? Because you’re not coming.”
“Oh, I’m going with you. I won’t have it any other way. Tell him, Edward.”
Edward scratched the back of his neck, but he didn’t answer. When she realized she would be getting no help from her cousin, she turned back to G. “You are my husband, not my master.”
“Yes, my lady,” he said. “You will always get your way. Except for right in this instance. And any others which may endanger your life.”
“Gifford Dudley, you do not get to decide when my life may or may not be in danger.”
G bowed his head. “Of course, Jane. And in the future, I will most definitely keep that in mind. But not tonight.”
Jane pressed her lips together in a thin line. “You can’t stop me.”
His eyes happened upon an empty birdcage in the corner of the room. “And I would never dream of it. Except tonight, when I will do whatever it takes to stop you, even if it means locking you up.”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
“Not even if a hundred Carpathian bulls threatened to trample me. Except tonight, of course, I’m going to have to lock you up unless you promise not to come with us.”
She gasped in outrage. “You can’t treat me like this! You can’t catch me!” she said with enough force that the air around her trembled. With a flash, she was a ferret, but G was ready to pounce. Before she could shake off the disorienting haze of the transformation, he had her by the scruff.
“I would never treat you like this,” he whispered in her ear. “Except tonight.”
Then he placed the squirming ferret inside the cage and latched it.
“Are you sure you want to do that?” Gracie remarked. She and Bess had been silent up to then, but they looked tense.
“I’m sure,” G said, and he was. “I want you to promise me that you won’t let her out. That you’ll protect her.”
The princess nodded and settled into a chair beside Jane’s cage. “I suppose this time we’re actually staying behind to guard Jane. I’d object, but I don’t know how I’d be useful in a bear hunt.”
“I won’t let her out,” Gracie agreed. “But she is going to murder you later, I think.”
She sat down at the edge of the bed.
“Wait, Bess and Gracie are both going to stay behind?” Edward looked startled. “Why shouldn’t Gracie come? She’d be useful.”
“I don’t trust the Pack,” said Gracie. “Especially Archer. I should stick around here in case he’s up to something while you’re gone. Keep an eye on him. And Bess can stay with Jane to make sure she doesn’t ferret her way out of that cage.”
“Can you use ferret as a verb?” G asked.
She shrugged. “You can now.”
Edward’s eyebrows were furrowed.
“Sire?” G said. “Are you troubled?”
“No. Everything is fine. With Gracie. Staying behind. With the Pack. And . . . Archer. That’s fine.”
“Right,” G said slowly. He picked up his sword. “We are off, then?”
“Without hesitation,” Edward said.
And for a few moments, they hesitated. Then they were off.
It was just G and the king, then, alone on this quest, and as the dirt path passed beneath them, G could not help the niggling memory that had been pricking at the back of his brain ever since they’d arrived at Helmsley. It was the image of his half-conscious wife pushing him out of the way so she could get to Edward. Yes, she had believed her cousin was dead, and it must have come as a happy shock to see him alive.
And yet, the niggling thought . . . well . . . niggled.
G remembered how close he’d been to losing her. How weak she’d been. How much blood she’d lost. It wasn’t until her eyes had fluttered open that G realized the hold she had on his heart.
But then she had stopped just short of shoving him out of the way because she’d seen Edward. It turned out that the most important person to her, the one she wanted to embrace upon defying death, was Edward. Her dearest and most beloved friend—wasn’t that how she’d phrased it in the letter?
Maybe hunting a legendary bear would be a welcome distraction from his thoughts, which he was sure were irrational. After all, Jane had never come right out and said that she was in love with Edward, and she was the type to tell him how things stood. And Gifford knew she was fond of him—he did. She smiled at him. She always hugged him after the change. She tried to translate his horse-thoughts to the others.
But she’d signed that letter to Edward with “all my love.”
Yes. Hunting bears. Right. Here they were.
But that niggling thought still niggled.
And of course he was happy that her dear cousin was alive, but it was also a bit troubling. After all, G knew from Edward’s pre-wedding talk, the one that went something like, “Hurt my cousin and I’ll kill you, even if I’m dead,” that Edward loved Jane, and maybe in more than a cousin kind of way. Perhaps he’d only betrothed Jane to G because he was dying, and now that he wasn’t dying, perhaps he regretted the arranged marriage, and perhaps Jane was thinking the same thing.
Oh Lord. Too many perhapses. Perhaps he should focus on how to kill a giant bear.
But then G wanted to ask Edward about his feelings toward Jane, and, more specifically, what the two of them did while he was a horse and they were alone and human.
G did not like to entertain the thought of all the hours they’d had to spend together while he was a horse. But he was the one who was actually married to Jane, he reminded himself. Not only that, but kestrels were hunting birds, and would no sooner hesitate to eat a ferret than they would a squirrel. There. G was her husband, and Edward might eat her. Those were two very good reasons why Jane should stay with G. And hair! G couldn’t believe he’d forgotten about his full and rich locks that outshone the sad ponytails of most other men in the kingdom. Even the king’s.
So, he was her husband, Edward might eat her, and no one’s hair could rival his.
G sighed. None of that could really compete with the King of England.
So instead of asking Edward those questions, he said, “Did Jane tell you all she knows about bears?”
“Yes,” the king replied. “Don’t act like food, inexplicably double your height and weight, and play dead unless it doesn’t work.”
“She didn’t, perhaps, mention how we might kill the beast?”
“No,” Edward said. “Her information was more the useless type.”
They traveled onward in silence for a while, until—
“Sire, you love Jane.” G hadn’t meant to blurt it out, but there it was.
“Of course I do. She’s family.”
“But you, Your Majesty, I think, love her love her.”
Edward didn’t protest, although he looked a little confused, possibly due to the phrasing.
G let the rest spill out. “And I know you arranged for our marriage at a time when you thought you would die, and now you’re not going to die, and if you want her for yourself, I will step aside. I will do the honorable thing.” His voice cracked in an embarrassing way at the end.
“Gifford,” the king said.
“Call me G,” G said.
The king ignored him. “Your wife loves you.”
G looked at the king and raised an eyebrow.
“She does. She leaves your favorite apples in the stables, even though she has to walk over a mile to get them. She brushes your mane, and is meticulous about picking the burrs out of your coat.”
“That’s all just logical horse maintenance.” G lowered his eyes. “She didn’t want me to be her king. She didn’t want me ruling by her side.”
“That was when she didn’t know who to trust. Believe me, Gifford, Jane loves you.”
G was silent for a moment, hoping it was true.
“At least, she loved you before you threw her in a cage.”
And there was that.
Edward was quiet for a moment and then sighed. G thought he might be about to confess something. Like how even though yes, Jane loved G (or so Edward claimed), that was just too bad because the king was in love with Jane, too, and now it was going to be G’s duty as a citizen of England to give her up to the king. For the sake of the country.
“What did you think of Gracie?” Edward said, while at the same time G blurted out, “You can’t have her!”
“Sorry, who?” G said.
“Gracie.”
“Oh. I like her.”
Edward pressed his lips together and nodded. “And that whole thing with Thomas Archer . . . You don’t suppose that there’s anything between them?”
“Jane said Gracie wouldn’t give up the knife.”
“No, I mean romantically.”
“Ah. Romantically. Well, Jane mentioned Archer was Gracie’s ex, so I suppose there used to be something romantic between them.”
Edward’s shoulders slumped.
G added, “As for whether it’s still there, I don’t know. But then, I wasn’t actually inside the tavern when they were in the same room.”
Edward sighed again. “I wish I knew what to say to her. Every time I try to tell her how I feel, I end up looking stupid.”
G literally sighed in relief. Praise the heavens above—Edward fancied Gracie! Of course he did! Gracie was very fetching, if you liked that kind of beauty. G preferred redheads, of course. Warm brown eyes. Soft skin. Bookish. Opinionated. But Gracie was lovely; yes, he could concede that.
G wanted to sing, he was so happy. And he knew just what Edward meant about looking stupid. “Yes, well, love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind,” he said.
“What?” Edward gazed at him blankly.
“I mean to say, the course of true love never did run smooth,” G clarified. That was good, he thought. He’d have to write that down later.
“Is that from a play?” Edward asked.
“No, it’s . . . um . . . just a thought I had.”
“Hmm. You’re a bit of a poet, aren’t you?” the king said.
G felt heat rise in his face. “I dabble.”
“I like poetry,” said the king. “And plays. I used to put on little theatricals at the palace. If we survive this, and if I get my crown back, and if there’s time, I’d like to open a theater someday.”
“If we survive this, you totally should,” G agreed.
They both tightened their grips on their swords and coughed in a manly way that meant that they weren’t scared of a silly old bear. “Do you know any poems about courage?” Edward asked after a moment.
G didn’t. He endeavored to make something up. “Um . . . cowards die many times before their deaths,” he said. “The valiant never taste of death but once. Screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we’ll not fail.”
“The sticking-place?”
G shrugged. “It’s the best I could do on such short notice.”
“That’s good,” commented Edward. “You should write that down.”
The map Archer had given them was easy to follow, and the journey was short, but G couldn’t figure out if it was really short or it only seemed short because he was dreading killing a giant bear. They had packed up weapons of all sorts: broadswords, battle-axes, a mace. Jane had even made them a “tincture” she’d told Edward would burn the bear’s eyes.
The map didn’t lead them to an exact location, just a valley near Rhyl in which the bear had most frequently been seen. Of course, that information was based on rumors and reports. As they got closer, G began hoping the reports were wrong, but soon realized they weren’t, because the ground was dotted with bear droppings. G knew they were bear droppings, because the only other animal capable of such sizable droppings in this part of the world was a horse, and G knew the droppings weren’t of a horse, because he was sort of an expert.
“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.”
“And your wife might fall in love with you all over again.”
“If she ever forgives me for putting her in a cage.”
Edward didn’t respond. Then something seemed to occur to him. “Oh, bollocks,” he said. “Now there’s nothing left on our to-do list but go talk to the King of France.”
“I’ve never been to France,” G said, “but I enjoy cheese.”
“I like cheese, too,” agreed Edward, as if they had just found yet another thing they had in common.
The sun rose during their trip back, and G arrived at the Shaggy Dog as a horse. Gracie, Bess, and Jane were standing in the doorway of the tavern waiting for them, although Jane’s expression quickly turned from relief to anger. She glared at him. Said no words. Spoke only with her narrowed eyes.
Suddenly, G wanted to go back to the bear.
She took a deep breath and turned to Edward, her expression softening as she touched a scratch on his face. “Darling cousin, you’re hurt.”
Edward smiled. “It’s just a flesh wound.”
“Come inside. I will tend to it myself.”
G snorted and threw his head back. Jane raised her eyebrows. “And you.”
He sheepishly nudged her shoulder with his nose. She seemed unmoved.
“I would sooner face a thousand Carpathian bulls than banish you from the tavern.” She scowled. “Except in this instance.” She pointed to the forest. “Go to your room.”
It was going to be an awkward trip to France.