Trust me, she’d said.
The day his father died, he and Bess had been sitting together when they’d received the news. Edward was a boy of nine and Elizabeth thirteen, but both of them were keenly aware in that instant that everything had changed. “The king is dead. Long live the king,” his uncle Seymour had announced, which meant that Edward was king. He’d been overwhelmed by sorrow and terror, and started to cry.
“I don’t want it,” he’d said, trembling all over. “I don’t want to be king, Bess. I’m not like Father. Don’t make me be king.”
Elizabeth had turned to him and kissed his hand.
“It’s going to be all right,” she’d whispered. “Trust me.”
Trust me.
Edward ate the apricots and drank the water without a second thought. If Bess was also poisoning him, then he supposed he would happily die. When he was finished he felt more refreshed than he had in weeks, good enough to sit up and examine the rest of Bess’s box, where he found a small scrap of parchment with Bess’s flowery writing on it. You’re in danger. I’ll return tonight.
And in spite of all the trouble he was in, he felt better. Because there was still someone he could trust.
He woke in the middle of the night to Pet snarling. Before he was even fully awake, rough hands were upon him, forcing his arms up painfully. Hooded men loomed all around his bed. Someone lashed one of his wrists to the bedpost. He kicked and struggled, but to no avail—he had no force behind his blows, no strength.
He did, however, have Pet. She lunged over him with her teeth snapping. He heard a muffled curse, followed by a thump and a yelp as one of the men tossed the dog aside. Then came the noise of a sword leaving its sheath.
They were going to kill Pet.
Edward stopped struggling. “Wait!” he called out. “I relent.” He coughed for a minute. He couldn’t get air in his wretched lungs. “I relent,” he gasped again. “Don’t hurt my dog.”
Pet whined. One of the men grabbed Pet by the scruff and tied a rope around her neck. Suddenly she surged forward and buried her face in Edward’s shoulder.
He put his free arm about her and whispered against her long silky ear. “Don’t worry about me, Pet. Find Jane. Tell Jane what’s happened.”
She whined again, and the man yanked on the end of the rope, dragging her across the floor and then out of the room.
Edward’s heart thundered in his ears. He coughed again, into the air because his free hand was now being tied to the other bedpost. A man with a candle stepped toward the bed. Boubou. Edward glanced around at the other figures surrounding him.
“Honestly,” he managed to rasp. “You need three armed men to subdue me? I’m already dying.”
The man who was tying up his wrist grunted and jerked the rope tight.
“Oh,” Edward said, with sudden clarity. “Because you think I might transform into a lion and devour the lot of you?”
If only he could.
When he was secured, the men melted into the shadows, leaving him alone with Boubou. The old doctor looked tired and gruff, like he was unaccustomed to being awake at this hour, and it irritated him. He set the lantern down and slung a dark satchel from his back, from which he unrolled a set of rather sharp-looking knives.
Edward hardly felt the pain when the doctor cut his arms and drained the blood into a large pewter bowl. He was nearly senseless, hovering just outside some balmy unconsciousness, when the door creaked and through his half-open eyelids Edward thought he saw Lord Dudley’s nose. Which in his semi-delirious state struck him as hilarious.
“Excellent,” he slurred. “So glad you could join us, John.”
“Always so petulant,” the duke replied. “Foolish boy.”
Now Boubou was holding a goblet to his mouth. Unlike the tonic they’d given him last time, before he’d revised his will, this one tasted so sweet it made his teeth ache.
Wicked, he thought.
He tried not to swallow, but Boubou held his head back and kept pouring the poison down his throat, unrelenting until he was forced to swallow. The doctor wiped Edward’s lips with a napkin.
“So this is it,” Edward hardly had the strength to say. “Bravo, Boubou. You’ve successfully committed regicide.”
Boubou’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “It was a pleasure serving you, Your Majesty.”
Edward laughed. He was floating out of himself. Boubou was untying his hands but he couldn’t feel them. He drifted between light and dark. The last thing he remembered before he spun away entirely was the sound of the door closing, and a key turning in the lock.
There was a scratching sound. Once, and then again. Edward sucked in a lungful of air. He was alive. How was he alive?
The scratching came again, more insistently.
“Pet?” he called hoarsely.