Dearest Edward,
I hoped to visit you this morning, but when I arrived at the palace I was informed that you are not receiving visitors. I must confess my surprise and disappointment that you would not see even me, but I know there must be a good reason, and I suspect that this self-imposed isolation means that your illness is taking its toll. For this I am so very sorry, cousin, and I wish there was something I could do to make you well again.
I’m sure you must be wondering what it is I came to see you about this morning, mere hours after my wedding. My dear cousin, the wedding is precisely the topic I wanted to discuss with you. Or rather, my newly acquired husband.
Gifford is a horse.
I’m certain you knew this, what with your referrals to “his condition” and assumptions that I would find it intriguing. What I cannot fathom is why you chose not to tell me. We’ve always told each other everything, have we not? I consider you to be my most trusted confidant, my dearest and most beloved friend. Why then, did you neglect this rather critical detail? It doesn’t make sense.
But perhaps in this, too, I wonder now, you felt you had a good reason.
I hope that we will be able to speak more on this subject when I return from my honeymoon in the country.
All my love,
Jane
G refolded the letter, resisting the urge to crumple it up and toss it in the corner. He wasn’t offended by her surprise at his condition, but did she need to sign it “all my love”? All her love seemed a little excessive.
It was abundantly clear to G that Jane loved Edward; he’d never forget the look on her face when she’d been told that the king was dead. But had she loved him loved him? Was she thinking about her cousin right now, preparing herself to join her beloved in death?
Not that it really mattered. G tried to shake his insecurity away and instead be grateful to whoever had given this to him. His wife’s hand had written this letter. He could picture her face as she wrote it, her mouth pursing and brow furrowing the way it did when she concentrated. He was about to place the paper in his own coat pocket when he noticed something written in different handwriting near the corner of one of the folded edges.
It was one word.
Skunk
Well, that was a surprising word. No beauty in a word like skunk.
He didn’t recognize the handwriting. But no matter who wrote it, it was his only connection to Jane. G placed it in his breast pocket and for a moment pressed it against his chest.
Some time later he heard a scratching coming from the door. G shook his head, chalking the noise up to random castle creaks and groans, but then he heard it again. A distinct scratching sound.
He raised the candle, which only had an inch of light left, and walked cautiously to the door, just in time to see two beady little eyes peeking in from underneath. He barely had time to register the eyes when an entire furry body snaked its way inside his chamber, flat against the ground.
G yelped and stepped back. (He definitely did not scream like a little girl.)
Once it passed the doorframe, the creature seemed to puff itself back into shape, just as G grabbed the nearest thing he could chuck at it. A pillow. He took aim and threw it, but the little rodent dodged.
It was too long to be a mouse, or a rat, but too short to be . . . what other kind of rodent was there? It looked like a cat and a snake had a baby together.
G stalked over to the thing and stomped his foot near it.
“Go away, you scruffy squirrel!”
The creature shied away from his foot, and he stomped again, in the direction of the door. “Shoo! There’s nothing to see here! Go on out the way you came in.”
But the rodent made no move toward the door. Instead, it scurried over to the bed, and scampered up the hanging tassels to the bedcovers and then to the head of the bed, where it nestled itself down on top of one of the pillows.
“Get off, you nasty rat!” G grabbed one of the books he had discarded and raised it above his head.
At this, the rodent sprang to attention, on all fours, long tail fluffed out. G waved the book as a threatening move, and the rodent did the strangest thing. It moved its head in a side-to-side motion, mirroring the motion of the book, its beady eyes wide and fixated on the tome.
G jerked the book forward about an inch, and the rodent flinched.
“All right, let’s come to an agreement.” G gently lowered the book to the bed, and that’s when the rodent did something even stranger. It scurried over to the book and nestled on top of it, like a mama bird would nestle over her eggs.
“Wait. Jane?” G said.
The rodent made a nodding motion.
“Jane?” he said again.
The rodent nodded again, this time in a more exaggerated way.
“Jane. You’re a . . . a . . . rat.”