Paul Doherty - The White Rose murders

He seemed to have forgotten why he was there but saw our conversation only as a game of wits which he was about to lose.

'You forget one thing,' he snapped, 'the White Rose, the conspiracy of Les Blancs Sangliers?’

'Nonsense!' Benjamin retorted. 'When Ruthven and Selkirk died it would have been easy for you or Melford to drop a white rose in their chamber. Who would notice it amidst all the confusion? You may even have placed them there before your victim died.' Benjamin stared at his would-be killer. 'Oh, I concede,' he continued, 'there are secret Yorkist covens, deluded men and women who pine for past glories, but you used their cause to mask your own evil intentions. Don't you remember our journey to Leicester?' Catesby glared at him.

'Well, Sir Robert,' Benjamin mocked, 'you really should have read your history.' He turned to me. 'Shouldn't he, Roger?'

I studied my master's face and felt the first stirrings of despair. Despite his bantering tone, I saw the fear in Benjamin's eyes and the beads of sweat rolling down the now marble-white face. I understood his glance. He was begging for more time, though God knew for what reason.

'Yes, yes, Sir Robert,' I spoke up. 'If you had read Fabyan's Chronicles you would know that after the Battle of Bosworth, Richard III's body was tossed into the horse trough outside the Blue Boar in Leicester and left there for public viewing and taunts. Later it was buried in the Lady Chapel at Greyfriars Church. Now a true Yorkist, any member of Les Blancs Sangliers, would have treated both places as shrines yet all members of the Queen's household allowed their horses to drink from that trough. Moreover, during our short stay in Leicester not one member of Queen Margaret's retinue visited Richard's tomb in Greyfriars Church. So,' I concluded, 'we began to suspect that the White Rose murders were only pawns to cover a more subtle, evil design.'

Catesby's mood changed: he stamped his spurred boot on the floor until it jingled and clapped his hands as if we had staged some enjoyable masque or a recitation of a favourite poem. He wiped his eyes on the back of his hand.

'Dear Benjamin, dear Roger,' he leaned forward, 'I thought you such fools – my only mistake. I will not make it again.'

'But we have not finished,' Benjamin spoke up. 'We have told you how these men died but not why.'

Catesby's face stiffened. 'What do you mean?'

' "Three less than twelve should it be," ' I chanted. 'Don't you want to know, Sir Robert? Surely the Queen, your mistress, will demand a report.'

'Her Grace has nothing to do with this!' Catesby retorted.

Benjamin smiled and shook his head. 'In these murders, Master Catesby, there were the victims, and these we have now described. There was the murderer, and we are now looking at the man responsible.'

'And what else?' Catesby snapped.

'There were those who cooperated with the murderer or provided the very reason the murders took place.'

Catesby sprang up and, bringing back his hand, slapped Benjamin across the face. My master gazed back at him.

'If I have told a lie,' Benjamin retorted, 'then prove it is a lie. But if I have spoken the truth, why did you hit me?'

'You insult the Queen!' Catesby mumbled. As he went back to his seat, the two Highlanders relaxed, their hands going away from the long stabbing knives stuck in their belts. I watched Catesby's face and knew the truth: Queen Margaret was as guilty as he. Benjamin, the left side of his face smarting red from Catesby's blow, leaned forward. I gazed around that darkened church. I felt stiff and the freezing night air was beginning to penetrate my clothes with a chill damp which made me shiver. I wondered how long this travesty could continue.

'Surely, Sir Robert,' I spoke up, 'you want to know the truth?'

Catesby's humour changed again and he smiled. 'Of course!' He picked up a wineskin from the ground beside him and offered it to Benjamin who shook his head. 'Oh, it's not poisoned!' the murderer quipped and, unstopping the neck, lifted it until the red wine poured into his mouth, spilling thin red rivers down his chin. He reseated it and tossed it to me. I needed no second bidding. A little wine can comfort the stomach; I half-emptied it in one gulp as my master began to decipher the riddle of Selkirk's poem.

'The roots of this tragedy,' Benjamin began, 'go back ten years when Queen Margaret, a lusty young princess, was first married to James IV of Scotland – a prince who loved the joys of the bed chamber and had a string of mistresses to prove it; indeed, he had bastard children by at least two of his paramours.'

Catesby nodded, a faraway look in his eyes.

'Now, Margaret,' Benjamin continued, 'was joined in Scotland by yourself, the young squire Robert Catesby. You were devoted to your Queen and watched with her as James moved from one amorous exploit to another. A deep hatred was kindled in Margaret's heart, made all the more rancorous by James's open support for the Yorkist Pretenders. Margaret retaliated, or so my uncle the Lord Cardinal told me privily, by sending information to James's main rival and opponent, King Henry of England.'

'You speak the truth, Master Daunbey!'

'He does, Sir Robert!' I said, taking up the story. 'Matters came to a head when King James planned his invasion of England which culminated in the tragedy at Flodden Field. Queen Margaret and, I suspect, yourself played upon King James's fertile imagination. You plotted a number of stratagems to create unease in him and his principal commanders: the famous vision of St John where James was rebuked for his love of harlotry; the death-bearing voice, prophesying at Edinburgh Market Cross on the stroke of midnight that James and all his commanders would go down to Hades. These were planned by you, weren't they?'

Catesby smiled and stroked the side of his cheek with his hand.

'You succeeded brilliantly,' Benjamin spoke up. 'James became uneasy, indeed he may have begun to suspect that malcontents in his kingdom might use the Flodden campaign to stage his murder. Accordingly, during the campaign as well as the actual battle, James dressed a number of soldiers in royal livery so as to deflect any assassination attempt. Now, the battle was a disaster. A number of the royal look-alikes were killed – I suspect a few by assassins as well as by the English. Surrey found one of these corpses, proclaimed it was James's body and sent it south to his master, King Henry.'

Catesby glowered at Benjamin.

'That is why,' I added, 'the corpse did not have the penitential chain James wore round his waist. Or why Margaret never asked for the corpse to be returned for burial. Was she frightened,' I jibed, 'that someone in Scotland might discover it was not the King's body?'

Catesby beat his hand upon his thigh. 'And I suppose,' he guffawed, 'you will tell me that King James himself escaped?'

'You know he did!' Benjamin snapped. 'He was dressed in ordinary armour. He and a knight of the royal household, Sir John Harrington, together with Selkirk, fled to Kelso Abbey. There, King James dictated a short letter which he sealed with his signet ring and despatched via Selkirk to his wife, begging for aid and sustenance. The physician took this message to the Queen sheltering at Linlithgow but, instead of sending help, she sent assassins to kill her husband and Harrington.'

Catesby's face now assumed a haunted, gaunt look.

'The perfect murder,' Benjamin whispered. 'How can you be accused of killing a prince whom the world already reckons is dead? God knows what happened to the body but, when Selkirk returned to Kelso, his master was gone and the monks were too frightened to speak. Selkirk escaped from your clutches to France where his mind, tortured by the horror of these events, slipped into madness. Of course, you searched him out but it was too late – the Lord Cardinal's men had already found him. Naturally, you were relieved to discover that Selkirk, due to the passage of time and his own insanity, jabbered his secrets only in obscure verse.'