PART ONE
(In Which We Revise a Bit of History)
Prologue
You may think you know the story. It goes like this: once upon a time, there was a sixteen-year-old girl named Jane Grey, who was forced to marry a complete stranger (Lord Guildford or Gilford or Gifford-something-or-other), and shortly thereafter found herself ruler of a country. She was queen for nine days. Then she quite literally lost her head.
Yes, it’s a tragedy, if you consider the disengagement of one’s head from one’s body tragic. (We are merely narrators, and would hate to make assumptions as to what the reader would find tragic.)
We have a different tale to tell.
Pay attention. We’ve tweaked minor details. We’ve completely rearranged major details. Some names have been changed to protect the innocent (or not-so-innocent, or simply because we thought a name was terrible and we liked another name better). And we’ve added a touch of magic to keep things interesting. So really anything could happen.
This is how we think Jane’s story should have gone.
It begins in England (or an alternate version of England, since we’re dealing with the manipulation of history), in the middle of the sixteenth century. It was an uneasy time, especially if you were an E∂ian (pronounced eth-ee-uhn for those of you unfamiliar with the term). The E∂ians were blessed (or cursed, depending on your point of view) with the ability to switch between a human form and an animal one. For instance, certain members of the general public could turn themselves into cats, which greatly increased the country’s tuna-fish consumption, but also cut down on England’s rat population. (Then again, other individuals could turn into rats, so nobody really noticed.)
There were those who thought that this animal magic was terrific, but others who saw it as an abomination that needed to be eradicated immediately. That second group (known as Verities) believed that human beings had no business being anything other than human beings. And because Verities were largely in charge of everything, E∂ians were persecuted and hunted until most of them died out or went deep into hiding.
Which brings us to one fateful afternoon in the royal court of England, when King Henry VIII, during a fit of rage, transformed into a great lion and devoured the court jester, much to the audience’s delight. They clapped enthusiastically, for no one really liked the jester. (Later, the courtiers discovered the incident was not a rehearsed act of artful deception, but indeed an actual lion masticating the jester. When the audience found out the truth they no longer clapped, but they did remark, “That clown had it coming.”)
That very night, King Henry, once he’d returned to his human form, decreed that E∂ians weren’t so bad after all, and henceforth should enjoy the same rights and privileges as Verities. The decision to sanction the ancient magic made waves across Europe. The head of the Verity Church was not pleased with King Henry’s decision, but every time Rome sent a missive denouncing the decree, the Lion King ate the messenger.
Hence the phrase, Don’t eat the messenger.
When Henry died, his only son, Edward, inherited the throne. Our story begins in the middle of tense times, with an increasing animosity brewing between E∂ians and Verities, a teenage king with a tenuous grasp on the throne of England, and a young lord and lady who have no idea their destinies are about to collide.
Totally against their will.
ONE
Edward
The king, it turned out, was dying.
“When?” he asked Master Boubou, the royal physician. “How long do I have?”
Boubou wiped his sweaty brow. He disliked giving bad news to royalty. In his line of business, sometimes it led to the stockades. Or worse.
“Six months, perhaps a year,” he croaked. “At best.”
Bollocks, thought Edward. Yes, he’d been sick for several months now, but he was sixteen years old. He couldn’t be dying. He had a cold, was all, a cough that had been hanging on longer than it should, perhaps, a tightness in his chest, a recurrent fever, some headaches, sure, frequent dizzy spells, a funny taste in his mouth sometimes, but dying?
“You’re certain?” he asked.
Boubou nodded. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty. It’s ‘the Affliction.’”
Oh. That.
Edward suppressed a cough. He instantly felt worse than he had only moments before, like his lungs had overheard the bad news and were shutting down already. He’d known of others with “the Affliction,” always hacking into nasty blood-spotted handkerchiefs, acting all faint and trembly, then eventually excusing themselves from court to die a horrible, wheezy death out of view of the ladies.
“You’re . . . certain?” he asked again.
Boubou fidgeted with his collar. “I can give you tonics for pain, and make sure you remain comfortable until the end, but yes. I am certain.”
The end. That sounded ominous.
“But . . .” There was so much he wanted to do with his life. First off, he wanted to kiss a girl, a pretty girl, the right girl, possibly with tongue. He wanted to throw grand, lavish balls to show off his dancing skills to the nobles. He wanted to finally best the weapons master at swords, because Bash was the only person he knew who forgot to let him win. He wanted to explore his kingdom and travel the world. He wanted to hunt a great beast of some sort and mount its head on his wall. He wanted to climb to the top of Scafell Pike, get as high up as a person could possibly go in England, and look over the lands stretching below him and know that he was king of all he surveyed.
But apparently none of that was going to happen.
Untimely was the word people would use, he thought. Premature. Tragic. He could practically hear the ballads the minstrels would sing about him, the great king who had died too soon.
Poor King Edward, now under the ground.
Hacked his lungs out. They’ve yet to be found.
“I want a second opinion. A better one,” Edward said, his hand curling into a fist where it rested on the arm of the throne. He shivered, suddenly chilled. He pulled his fur-lined robes more tightly around him.
“Of course,” said Boubou, backing away.
Edward saw the fear in the doctor’s eyes and felt the urge to have him thrown into the dungeon for good measure, because he was the king, and the king always got what he wanted, and the king didn’t want to be dying. He fingered the golden dagger at his belt, and Boubou took another step back.
“I’m truly sorry, Your Highness,” the old man mumbled again toward the floor. “Please don’t eat the messenger.”
Edward sighed. He was not his father, who indeed might have assumed his lion form and devoured the man for bearing this dreadful news. Edward didn’t have a secret animal inside of him, so far as he knew. Which had always secretly disappointed him.
“You may go, Boubou,” he said.
The doctor breathed out a sigh of relief and darted for the door, leaving Edward alone to face his impending mortality.
“Bollocks,” he muttered to himself again. “The Affliction” seemed like a terribly inconvenient way for a king to die.
Later, after the news of his upcoming royal demise had spread around the palace, his sisters came to find him. He was sitting in his favorite spot: the window ledge in one of the south turrets of Greenwich Palace, his legs dangling over the edge as he watched the comings and goings of the people in the courtyard below and listened to the steady flow of the River Thames. He thought he finally understood the Meaning of Life now, the Great Secret, which he’d boiled down to this: