Jane
So. Her husband was a horse.
And no one had told her.
Not her mother, not Edward, and certainly not Gifford. She’d had to find out as it happened and get the details from a servant. Outrageous.
Jane paced the hallway outside Gifford’s bedchambers, listening to the horse clomp around inside. She squeezed the broken stems of her poor, mauled bouquet. It wasn’t that she was opposed to marrying an E∂ian. On the contrary, she found that rather exciting. But there was the small matter of Gifford seeming to despise her, and the larger matter of no one telling her.
Well, she couldn’t be sure her mother had known about the equestrian aspects of her husband, and Gifford was a drunken debaucher so of course he couldn’t be expected to tell her the truth. But Edward! Edward had known. He’d said he thought she would find Gifford’s condition intriguing, but where she’d assumed he meant Gifford’s nighttime women habits, now she knew he’d actually meant Gifford’s history of daily horsehood.
From others, that omission would have been forgivable, because others sought only to use her in their schemes and politics. But Edward was her best friend. She had never kept any secrets from her cousin, and his silence on this matter was unpardonable.
And he deserved to know that.
Inside Gifford’s bedchamber, the clomping paused and something decidedly wet sounding plopped on the floor. A rank odor came from the room.
Unacceptable.
Jane hurled her bouquet stems at the door, marched out of Durham House, and ordered a carriage to take her to the palace.
The whole ride there, Jane practiced what she would say to Edward. She would lay out the points for him: the breach in trust, the disappointment, the hurt, and the reminder that she had married this horse boy because he had asked.
Only as she stomped up the palace steps, receiving raised eyebrows from members of the esteemed noble class, did she realize she was still wearing The Gown and all her wedding attire. The Gown rested askew on her chest and hips, and the headdress listed to one side. The plaits in her hair had come undone in her sleep.
Well, it had been very late at night by the time the wedding was over, and there’d been no spare clothes for her in that wretched room, not even a nightgown. Certainly she wasn’t going to sleep naked in the presence of that—that—horse boy.
“My lady.” A nose appeared, Lord Dudley following close behind. “I’m surprised to see you.”
She smoothed back her hair as the duke approached her. “As I’m sure you’ve guessed, my new husband is indisposed right now.”
Lord Dudley grimaced. “Ah, yes. Of course you know about my son’s . . . condition.” Embarrassment flashed across his face, and Jane had the sense he wasn’t used to discussing the equestrian affliction with anyone, and therefore wasn’t used to disguising his feelings on the subject.
She smiled and threw back her shoulders, anxious to take out her frustrations on someone. “Of course I do. He’s quite a magnificent creature, don’t you think? Very strong. Regal. I can see you only purchase the finest quality hay for him. What sort of diet does one feed a beast like that? Horses are herbivores, if I’m not mistaken. But human men can be quite carnivorous. I assume you considered the logistics of a meat diet on a horse stomach years ago, though. I’d be interested to see your research, my lord.”
Her husband’s father turned pale.
“You know, I’ve been meaning to acquire a horse of my own. I thought I might get outside more and enjoy some exercise. Imagine the benefits of riding a horse that truly can understand your every command, and spot potential danger not just on an instinctual level, but a human level as well. No more shying at wheelbarrows or cows or other harmless things.”
The duke’s frown was turning into a glower. “Gifford is my son, not an animal.”
“Given his E∂ian existence and his rather promiscuous nocturnal activities, I would think you’d have realized long ago that being your son does not preclude him from also being an animal. The two states are not mutually exclusive.”
Alarmingly, Lord Dudley gave her an oily smile when he should have shriveled further. “Promiscuous perhaps, my lady, but you appear to have thoroughly enjoyed the benefits of his experience.”
Jane immediately turned red.
“Can we expect happy news soon? I have been looking forward to the idea of more grandchildren.”
Her face felt like it was on fire, but as the duke turned away, a superior set in his expression, she called out, “I’m surprised you don’t have a hundred already!”
Then she realized that was not quite the stinging quip she had intended, and actually dug her deeper into the losing side of their verbal battle. As the duke vanished around a corner, she crossed her arms and shifted her course to a small powder room where she could begin to make herself presentable—not that Edward ever cared how she appeared, but she didn’t want everyone in the palace to assume she’d had a rambunctious night with her new husband.
She spent several minutes adjusting The Gown as best she could, and then she went to work on her hair, first carefully removing the headdress. Untangling the mess took a bit more work, followed by some finger combing, and then she pulled her hair into a low bun and pinned it into place.
After she inspected herself in the framed silver mirror, she proceeded to the turret room where Edward spent all his time lately.
A pair of guards stood watch at the base of the stairs.
“I’m here to see the king,” she announced.
The two men glanced at each other, and the one with a big, bushy unibrow said, “His Majesty is asleep. If you’d like to wait in the library, someone will be along to tell you when he’s ready to receive you.”
Jane frowned. Edward had never been a late sleeper before. Then again, he’d never had “the Affliction” before. He’d looked so pale and worn last night that it was a wonder he’d even been sitting straight by the end of the feast.
Well, there were worse places to wait than the library.
“Inform me as soon as the king awakens. I want to know the instant he’s available.”
“Of course, my lady.” The guard stood at attention once more and resumed looking through her.
Jane headed for the library, a familiar place filled with memories of time spent with Edward. Often, they would choose a topic and whoever produced the most facts about it by the end of an hour would win. (Jane had won a lot, a fact she loved to remind Edward about. Those few times she’d lost still haunted her nightmares.) It was here she’d first learned about E∂ians, how they’d been persecuted for centuries, and that the gift typically ran in families, though neither she nor Edward had been blessed with an animal form. Edward, and everyone else, might have been frightened of his father’s second form, but Jane had always been jealous of her mother’s (very secret) magic.
Did Lady Frances know about Gifford? She was outspoken in her dislike of E∂ians (in spite of being one herself), so maybe no one had told her, assuming she wouldn’t approve the match otherwise. (Few people realized just how desperate Lady Frances was to marry off her daughter. She’d have married Jane to a tree stump if it had been allowed.)
Jane sighed and wandered toward the selection of books on horses: feeding, caring for, history, anatomy, potential illnesses, and how to braid a tail.
She spent a few hours lost in old texts describing the process of driving the nail through the shoe and hoof, the importance of equine companionship, and the necessity of grooming not just the fur, mane, and tail, but picking rocks out of the hooves as well. Furthermore, what to do if the hoof was split.
Fortunately Billingsly was probably responsible for all that, and maybe Gifford didn’t need shoes, as he likely didn’t want iron nailed into his bare feet when he transformed every evening. She’d have to ask.
By noon, Edward had not emerged from his chambers and Jane was getting hungry. She put away the books and returned to the stairwell. The same two guards were on duty. “Has the king awakened?” she asked.
“I’m afraid His Majesty is not taking visitors today.” Unibrow Guard didn’t break his stance.
Jane scowled. “He will see me. Tell him that Lady Jane—” She stopped. Her name was Lady Jane Dudley now. Jane Dudley. Terrible. She swallowed hard. “Tell him that his cousin Jane wishes to speak with him.”
“The orders are that he sees no one today.”
“Go up and ask if he will see me. Because he will.” Jane crossed her arms and leaned her weight on one hip. “I’ll wait right here.”
“No one is allowed to see the king today, my lady. If he wants to see you, he’ll send for you.”
Jane bristled. “This is ridiculous. You must allow me to see him immediately. There won’t be any problem, you’ll see.”
“My lady, if you continue to insist, we will call for someone to escort you out of the palace.”
Her face was hot with anger. How dare they block her from seeing her cousin?
Unless . . .
Unless Edward was getting worse and had ordered himself into isolation, but why would he isolate himself from her?
As she left the palace—without an escort—she decided to write a letter to him.
She stopped just before entering her carriage and glanced up at the turret.
A silhouette filled the top-floor window for a moment. Edward? Before her return to Bradgate Park, she’d have recognized the shape of her cousin anywhere, but now he’d grown so thin she couldn’t tell if the shadow had been him or not.
She stepped into her carriage and drove away.
Jane spent the afternoon in Chelsea, avoiding her mother’s questions as Adella and a handful of maids packed for the honeymoon. She’d written a few notes, had the letter to Edward sent out, and then took an hour to decide which fifty books she would bring to the country. They’d be there for weeks, and she wanted to be prepared for a lot of quality alone time. Apparently Gifford would be spending his days as a horse, and thus useless for company.
Maybe that was all right.
A little before dusk, she took a carriage back to Durham House and returned to Gifford’s bedchambers. He was still in horse form, sleeping, as far as she could tell. The bed had been moved to one side, and in the corner sat a cold pile of, well, the expected result of a large animal being trapped inside a room all day. She pressed a handkerchief to her nose and opened the window to air out the stink, then went to the wardrobe, where she found a shirt and trousers.
She lit a few candles, and then sat on the bed to wait while the sun fell toward the horizon.
Last time, the change had been sudden, just a burst of light she hadn’t expected, and when she’d finished blinking away the sparks, her husband had been a horse.
Now that horse stood there sleeping, his sleek coat shining in the last rays of sunlight. It seemed incredible that those slender legs could carry the entire body, and not just carry, but run and jump and prance. She hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d told Lord Dudley that his son was a magnificent beast. If only he could control it. Well, it was fortunate he’d married her, as she knew quite a lot about E∂ians. If anyone could help him learn to govern his gift, it was Jane. And her books.
Then it happened. Light flared and the sleeping horse became a sleeping man, lying naked on the floor.
His eyelids fluttered and his nose wrinkled at the stench of his own manure. Jane leaned over the side of the bed and lowered his trousers in front of his face.
“Thank you, Billingsly.” His voice was groggy.
“You’re welcome.”
Gifford’s eyes went wide as he snatched the trousers and shoved the wad of fabric over his nether region. Jane sat back on the bed while her husband scrambled to his feet.
“My lady, please! I am indecent.”
“You are,” Jane agreed. “Not to mention the fact that you are also unclothed.” She slipped off the opposite side of the bed, away from him and his nudity, but also away from the pile of unfortunate smells. “Is there a reason, Gifford, that you didn’t tell me about your condition?”
“Please call me G.” He adjusted his grip on the trousers, letting the legs hang in front of him as though he were wearing them. Almost. “Everyone calls me G.”
“I’ve never heard anyone call you G. Besides Billingsly, but he is a servant. He would call you Josephina if you ordered. Anyway, you haven’t given me an answer as to why I spent my wedding night attending an ale-stinking sot, and the morning after sharing a bedchamber with a horse.”
“Well, when you put it that way . . .”
“I’m sorry, but how would you put it?” She refused to grin, even though his discomfort was delicious. After the utter mortification of earlier, both with Lord Dudley and the guards, she reveled in this feeling of power over him. It was about time something went her way.
“I would say you spent our wedding night with a charmingly tipsy gentleman who was hesitant to pressure an obviously virtuous lady to rush into . . .”
Oh. That.
Jane blushed and glanced out the window toward the busy street. She chose a passing cart full of apples to find fascinating, but it was quickly gone.
“And as for the equestrian awakening, I fail to see a downside.”
“You mean the thing no one warned me about? It seems like a subject that might come up. For example, ‘Oh by the way, your future husband changes into a horse as soon as the sun rises every morning.’”
He shrugged.
“Do you even try to control it?”
“It’s a curse, my lady. Controlling it would defeat the purpose.”
“And what is the purpose?” Perhaps if she knew the nature of it, she could better help him solve this pesky problem.
“I don’t know.”
“Gifford, you never get to see the light of day.” Yet he failed to see a downside. “I fail to see an upside, except for the possibility that I will one day need a quick escape, in which case it will be useful to have a fast horse.”
Gifford grunted. “There will be no riding the horse! In fact, I believe this is an opportune time to set some ground rules for this marriage.”
“Like what? Hay preferences?”
“Number one.” He went to tick off the number on his forefinger and subsequently dropped the trousers. She took a moment to admire the ceiling. Then Gifford retrieved his trousers and continued without the visual aid. “Number one: there will be no riding the horse. Number two: there will be no bridling the horse. Number three: there will be no saddling the horse.”
“Well, then what is the point of owning a horse?”
“You do not own me!” He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. “My lady, would you mind exiting the bedchamber while I dress?”
She tilted her head. “No, I don’t think I will, because I have a few rules of my own.”
He slumped a little. “All right.”
“Number one: no touching my books. Number two: no chewing on my books.”
He snorted indignantly. “I would never chew on your books.”
“You ate my bridal bouquet.”
He looked surprised, as though he’d forgotten. Then he nodded. “So I did. Continue.”
“Number three: I will never find hay in my books.”
“Do all of your rules pertain to books? I suppose I understand why, since your social shortcomings mean books are your closest friends.” He momentarily seemed taken aback at his own rudeness.
Jane narrowed her eyes. “Are you sure your true E∂ian form isn’t a jackass?”
“Very funny, my lady. And that reminds me”—he pointed a finger at her—“no horse jokes.”
He was making it too easy. “Ah, my lord, why the long face?”
“That’s it!” After a frantic look around the room, he grabbed a book from the nightstand. The trousers hung dangerously to one side as he let the book flop open. “I don’t recall you mentioning anything about bending the spine of a book.”
Alarm filled her. “Put down the book.” She wanted to look away, as he seemed distracted from holding the trousers in place, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the book. What if he hurt it? What if he followed through with his threat?
“No horse jokes,” he said.
“My lord, I apologize for the horse joke. If you put down the book—unharmed!—I will give you a carrot.”
He brandished the book at her. “Was that a horse joke?”
“Neigh.”
“Was that a horse joke?”
Before she could respond, a maid barged into the room to turn down the bedcovers, only to find Gifford with his trousers pressed against his waist, Jane with her face flushed, and a pile of shredded clothes (from this morning’s transformation) on the floor. The maid gasped and held her hands to her mouth, then fled the room with an embarrassed cry.
A slow smile pulled at Gifford’s mouth. “She thinks we consummated.”
Jane’s face burned as she snatched the book to the safety of her arms. “My lord, I will leave you to properly attire yourself. A carriage is waiting to take us to our honeymoon.” (The word honeymoon was quite new at this point in history, and actually involved a month’s supply of mead for the newlyweds rather than a romantic getaway, but for the sake of delicate sensibilities, we’ll pretend honeymoon meant then what it does now.)
Gifford held the trousers over his hips once more. “I anticipate your books are waiting for us as well.”
“Don’t worry. I left space for you.” She took her book and fled.
Jane wasn’t sure when Gifford had packed, or if Billingsly had done it for him, but her new husband’s trunks were in the stowage area on top of the carriage. There hadn’t been room for her books up there, so she’d been forced to construct a small wall of religious, scientific, and philosophical texts between herself and Gifford.
“Is all this really necessary?” he asked when he arrived and spotted her fortress of books.
“Considering that this country house they’re sending us to belongs to the Dudleys, and I’ve seen the way your family treats books, I couldn’t be sure there would be enough to keep myself occupied during the day.” She stroked the spine of the nearest book: An Analysis of E∂ians’ Paintings and Their Impact on Society: Volume Three.
“How many of these will you finish by the time we arrive?” He eyed them warily, as though the books were some sort of army of knowledge. Some of the corners were rather sharp, she supposed.
“None.” She sniffed and indicated the lantern, which cast only a dim glow over her side of the carriage. “It’s not bright enough to read by and I don’t care to ruin my vision. Instead I’m going to knit until I’m too tired to care that I’m trapped in a carriage. I didn’t have the luxury of sleeping all day. If you were truly a charmingly tipsy gentleman, you’d have insisted we rest tonight and make the journey in the morning.”
“But I’d be a horse.”
“And infinitely more useful for pulling the carriage.”
“That would violate rule number two: no bridling the horse.”
“Carriage horses use halters.”
“Did you learn that from a book?”
The carriage jolted and they were carried down the long drive. “I learned it,” she said, “from being observant.” That wasn’t half as cutting as she’d have preferred, but he wasn’t paying attention anyway. (Thus making her point.) He’d tied his hair into a tail and had his head leaned back on the high seat. As they drove past a street lantern, his profile was silhouetted: it was the perfect blend of soft around his mouth and sharp over his (curse-free) nose. The fan of his unfairly long eyelashes flashed as he opened his eyes and glanced at her.
She lowered her gaze to the knitting on her lap, hiding her flush behind a veil of hair. He was attractive. She was married to him. She could look. She should look.
As long as he didn’t know about it. The last thing she needed was for his ego to get any bigger.
They rode in silence while she knitted, but when at last she held up her work, the scarf was far from scarf-like. The tragedy of wool was short, and skinny in the wrong places. It almost resembled some sort of fat rodent.
“What is it, may I ask?” Gifford asked, squinting at her handiwork.
“None of your business.” She lowered her work and began unknitting an entire row of stitches one at a time, erasing their tangled existence with much more finesse than she’d created them. (She had a lot of practice unknitting things. She could unknit entire wardrobes. You’d imagine that lots of practice unknitting would mean lots of practice—and improvement—knitting, but your imagination forgot to account for Jane.)
Jane tried again, this time making sure to count the knits and purls, and pull every ply through the stitch. By the end of the row, the scarf had grown fat and twelve stray plies stuck out in little loops. “I think you’re getting better.” Gifford leaned one elbow on her books. “I’m still not sure what it’s supposed to be, but it looks more like something than it did a few minutes ago.”
She scowled and jabbed his elbow with the point of her free needle. “No touching my books, remember?”
Gifford withdrew, and Jane put aside her knitting.
“So there is something you aren’t good at,” Gifford mused. “You don’t seem like the kind of person to continue something she’s not immediately perfect at, so why knitting?”
“Practice makes perfect,” she answered primly. “And I wanted to make something for Edward. He gets cold sometimes now. . . .”
Gifford was frowning. “I take it you and the king are close,” he said quietly.
“Yes. Quite.”
“But how close are we talking, here? Old-childhood-chums close, or former-paramours close, or still-can’t-live-without-each-other . . .”
Jane had no idea what he was going on about. Fortunately, the sound of screaming ahead saved her from having to figure it out.
“What is that?” Jane thudded the heel of her palm on the side of the carriage. “Driver, halt!”
“Screams mean danger, my lady.” Gifford reached for her, but the book wall prevented him from getting very far, and then the carriage had stopped moving and Jane was out the door, into the night.
She picked up the hem of her dress and ran toward the sound, stumbling over the rutted dirt road, which ran on a hill above a long stretch of farmland.
“My lady!” called the driver, echoed shortly by Gifford.
But Jane didn’t stop running until she was well ahead of the carriage, and standing on a prominence overlooking a wide field where, on the far side, a single cow lowed in bovine terror.
The moon was high and full enough to illuminate the events unfolding on the outskirts of the field below: a handful of people brandished sticks and pitchforks and various other farming tools, attempting to block the path of a pack of wolves.
“Jane, what are you doing?” Gifford caught up with her, and he saw what she saw. “God’s teeth.”
“Gifford, you must do something.”
“Do what?” His face was drawn and pale in the moonlight. His eyes hadn’t shifted from the wolves below.
“Save those people. The wolves are trying to attack their cow!” Most of the people below were adults, both men and women, but a few couldn’t be older than eleven or twelve. “The wolves will go through the people to get to the cow.”
“And how do you propose I make this daring rescue? Shall I hurl books at the wolves? Throw myself in front of the cow to save it?” He looked at her askance as one of the children screamed and began to flee from the wolves. The pack leader yipped, and two of its pack mates leapt toward the child, who crumpled into a ball to protect his head and neck as the wolves nipped at his arms. A man broke the blockade and ran to help the child, and the wolves took advantage of the chaos. A couple of wolves lunged toward the whole group, forcing them to defend themselves while the rest of the pack moved around and began a steady lope toward the mooing cow.
“If you won’t help them, I will!” Jane scrambled back toward the road and scanned for a place with a shallow enough incline to descend, but there was nothing easy, aside from a series of protruding rocks she could climb down.
Gifford was running after her, and the driver looked uncertain whether to leave behind the carriage.
Jane reached the outcroppings of rocks and stretched to find footing on the first one. Below, the wolves had reached the cow on the far side of the field. The cow’s scream rang across the night. A man shouted, “This is what you get, if you mess with the likes of us!” Jane realized then that this man was not one of the farmers, but a better-dressed fellow who was running alongside the wolves. And there were three more men with him, armed with swords and bows.
Why were there people with the wolves? It made no sense.
Tears blurred Jane’s vision as her foot finally touched the first rock, and she crab-crawled downward. But before she made it very far, two strong hands plucked her up by her underarms, and lifted her away from her mission.
The villagers were still screaming, though the wolves had abandoned the child and the other farmers. The cow was dead. The four men with the wolves were dragging it away.
“It’s over, Jane.” Gifford didn’t release her; his hands were hot on her ribs.
She stared beyond him, where the peasants were regrouping, consoling one another. Their voices drifted up from the field. “Third cow this week,” someone said.
“The Pack will take everything unless we hunt them down,” a man replied. “The children will starve.”
A small meep came from Jane. The poor children.
“Is he going to be all right?” someone called, looking toward the people surrounding the child who’d been attacked. Jane held her breath. Even Gifford turned to listen.
“The bites aren’t deep. As long as they don’t fester . . .” Their conversation grew too quiet for Jane to hear.
Gifford stepped back, releasing his grip on her. “This way, my lady. Let’s go back to the carriage.”
“But we have to help them—”
“It’s over now. What would you do for them? They’ll take care of one another.” He gestured toward the carriage, where the driver shifted from foot to foot. “Don’t you have an ugly scarf to finish?”
How could he joke at a time like this? Clearly Gifford Dudley had no sense of responsibility or honor.
Jane hugged herself and gazed toward the farmers once more. Some were taking the injured child away, while others stayed to discuss ways to make the fields more secure. Gifford’s question had been fair: what would she do for them? The attack had happened. The wolves and strange men were slinking out of view, the cow carcass loaded onto a cart.
“Very well.”
“Thank you.” Gifford offered his arm as though he actually thought he was a gentleman. Jane jerked away and walked on her own, though her whole body trembled with adrenaline and panic at how close that child had come to dying, and how the peasants might go hungry now.
When she sat in the warm carriage, surrounded by her books and her pathetic knitting, the only thing she felt was cold.
Those people were in trouble. In need of help. And Gifford had done nothing.