“And bring the key here, and we’ll unlock the door, descend the stairs, take the guard at the bottom by surprise, knock him out, steal his sword to dispatch any other guards we may come across, go to the stables, steal a horse, and head for the hills.”
She nodded again, and this time did a scurry about the bed that sort of resembled a happy dance.
“Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place? The way you explain it, I must say, it sounds very convoluted.”
Jane didn’t stick around to argue. She scampered out the door (which involved flattening herself in a move that defied physics) and left G pacing and waiting. And waiting and pacing. And then pacing and waiting some more. All the while, looking out the window for signs of dawn. If Jane didn’t return in time, escape would be impossible. He wouldn’t be able to fit out the door.
Maybe his captors didn’t know about the daylight curse, and if Jane’s plan didn’t work, the sheer bulkiness of his physique would delay the whole burning-at-the-stake thing. Or maybe they did know, and they would come to fetch him sooner than the sunrise.
“Hurry, my lady,” he whispered as he paced and waited. “Please hurry.”
Eventually, he heard the soft clinging of metal far away, and it got closer and closer and G imagined a badger carrying a set of keys up a flight of stone stairs. He went and stood by the door, and soon enough, Jane appeared underneath.
She dropped a set of keys at his feet and nudged them as if she were in a hurry.
He snatched them up and wondered if her getaway wasn’t exactly clean.
It wasn’t. He heard footsteps charging up the stairwell.
Only, there were at least ten keys on the ring.
“Which one?” he muttered. He shoved the first one in the lock and jangled it about. No luck.
As he tried the second, Jane climbed up his pants and shirt and traversed across his arm as if to add urgency to the situation.
“I’m going as fast as I can!”
Third key. The lock didn’t budge.
The footsteps got closer and closer.
Fourth key. Nothing.
Jane dug her tiny claws into his wrist.
“You’re not helping,” G pointed out.
The guard was just outside the door. “Where are you, ye little rat!”
Jane dug her claws in again.
“Don’t worry, my sweet. He didn’t mean it.”
The fifth key did the trick. The lock clicked. All three of them heard it. Just as the guard charged the heavy wooden door, G pulled it wide open. The guard fell in and G struck him on the head with the bedpost. The guard crumpled to the floor, unmoving, but breathing.
“Quick!” G whisked Jane up to his shoulder and grabbed the guard’s sword.
As he crept down the stairs, it occurred to him that as a weasel, she could’ve saved herself and left him to die. Again.
But when the time came, she didn’t. Again.
This was the perfect time of night to escape the Tower of London, mostly because it was the time with the fewest number of guards, and the ones on duty were either exhausted or sneaking sips from a hidden flask.
Nevertheless, G and Jane ran into three guards. After all, they were royal prisoners. They couldn’t expect to make it to the stables completely unhindered.
The first guard G dispatched quickly in a move that Jane would probably describe as elegant swordsmanship, but he knew was really the result of the sword slipping from his sweaty hand. As he lunged to retrieve it before it hit the ground, he plunged the sword through the heart of a guard who was just rounding the corner.
The second encounter was not so graceful. The guard raised his sword and his other hand in a fighting stance, and G did the same, hoping it wasn’t obvious he’d skipped out on half of his childhood fencing lessons in favor of playing his favorite rhyming game with one of his nannies.
The two stood there for a long time, staring, preparing for what? G wondered. Attack/counterattack? Someone to give the go-ahead?
Jane, impatient with the stare down, scampered off G’s shoulder, across the floor to the guard, up his leg, and inside his shirt.
The guard did some strange jerky motions, not unlike a young child learning the famed estampie dance from Spain. G used the distraction to dispatch the man, making sure to aim his sword away from any bulky parts where Jane might be.
The third guard came along, saw the bleeding second