Джозефина Тэй - The Daughter of Time

‘Yes; actually you could get a dispensation to marry your niece in those days. Perhaps you still can, for all I know. That’s not my department at the Yard. What is certain is that if Richard went to such lengths to contradict the marriage rumour then he most certainly would have gone to much greater lengths to put a stop to the murder one, if it had existed. The conclusion is inevitable: there was no general rumour of disappearance or foul play where the boys were concerned.’

‘Just a thin little trickle between the Fens and France.’

‘Just a thin little trickle between the Fens and France. Nothing in the picture suggests any worry about the boys. I mean: in a police investigation you look for any abnormalities in behaviour among the suspects in a crime. Why did X, who always goes to the movies on a Thursday night, decide on that night of all nights not to go? Why did Y take a return half as usual and very unusually not use it? That sort of thing. But in the short time between Richard’s succession and his death everyone behaves quite normally. The boys’ mother comes out of sanctuary and makes her peace with Richard. The girls resume their court life. The boys are presumably still doing the lessons that their father’s death had interrupted. Their young cousins have a place on the Council and are of sufficient importance for the town of York to be addressing letters to them. It’s all quite a normal, peaceful scene, with everyone going about their ordinary business, and no suggestion anywhere that a spectacular and unnecessary murder has just taken place in the family.’

‘It looks as if I might write that book after all, Mr. Grant.’

‘Most certainly you will write it. You have not only Richard to rescue from calumny; you have to clear Elizabeth Woodville of the imputation of condoning her sons’ murder for seven hundred merks a year and perks.’

‘I can’t write the book and leave it in the air like that, of course. I’ll have to have at least a theory as to what became of the boys.’

‘You will.’

Carradine’s mild gaze came away from the small woolly clouds over the Thames and considered Grant with a question in it.

‘Why that tone?’ he asked. ‘Why are you looking like a cat with cream?’

‘Well, I’ve been proceeding along police lines. During those empty days while I was waiting for you to turn up again.’

‘Police lines?’

‘Yes. Who benefits, and all that. We’ve discovered that it wouldn’t be a pin’s-worth of advantage to Richard that the boys should die. So we go on looking round to see who, in that case, it would benefit. And this is where Titulus Regius comes in.’

‘What has Titulus Regius got to do with the murder?’

‘Henry VII married the boys’ eldest sister. Elizabeth.’

‘Yes.’

‘By way of reconciling the Yorkists to his occupation of the throne.’

‘Yes.’

‘By repealing Titulus Regius, he made her legitimate.’

‘Sure.’

‘But by making the children legitimate he automatically made the two boys heir to the throne before her. In fact, by repealing Titulus Regius he made the elder of the two king of England.’

Carradine made a little clicking sound with his tongue. His eyes behind their horn-rims were glowing with pleasure.

‘So,’ said Grant, ‘I propose that we proceed with investigation along those lines.’

‘Sure. What do you want?’

‘I want to know a lot more about that confession of Tyrrel’s. But first, and most of all, I’d like to know how the people concerned acted. What happened to them; not what anyone reported of anyone. Just as we did in the case of Richard’s succession after Edward’s unexpected death.’

‘Fine. What do you want to know?’

‘I want to know what became of all the York heirs that Richard left so alive and well and prosperous. Every single one of them. Can you do that for me?’

‘Sure. That’s elementary.’

‘And I could bear to know more about Tyrrel. About the man himself, I mean. Who he was, and what he had done.’

‘I’ll do that.’ Carradine got up with such an on-with-the-charge air that for one moment Grant thought that he was actually going to button his coat. ‘Mr. Grant, I’m so grateful to you for all this – this –’

‘This fun and games?’

‘When you’re on your feet again, I’ll – I’ll – I’ll take you round the Tower of London.’

‘Make it Greenwich-and-back by boat. Our island race have a passion for the nautical.’

‘How long do they reckon it will be before you’re out of bed, do you know?’

‘I’ll probably be up before you come back with the news about the heirs and Tyrrel.’

Grant was not, as it happened, out of bed when Carradine came again, but he was sitting up.

‘You can’t imagine,’ he said to Brent, ‘how fascinating the opposite wall looks, after the ceiling. And how small and queer the world looks right way up.’

He was touched by Carradine’s obvious pleasure in this progress and it was some time before they got down to business. It was Grant who had to say: ‘Well, how did the York heirs make out under Henry VII?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said the boy, pulling out his usual wad of notes and drawing up a chair by hooking his right toe in the crossbar. He sat down on the chair. ‘Where shall I begin?’

‘Well, about Elizabeth we know. He married her, and she was queen of England until she died and he made a bid for the mad Juana of Spain.’

‘Yes. She was married to Henry in the spring of 1486 – in January, rather; five months after Bosworth – and she died in the spring of 1503.’

‘Seventeen years. Poor Elizabeth. With Henry it must have seemed like seventy. He was what is euphemistically referred to as “unuxorious.” Let us go on down the family. Edward’s children, I mean. Fate of the two boys unknown. What happened to Cecily?’

‘She was married to his old uncle Lord Welles, and sent away to live in Lincolnshire. Anne and Katherine, who were children, were marked when they were old enough to good Lancastrians. Bridget, the youngest, became a nun at Dartford.’

‘Orthodox enough, so far. Who comes next? George’s boy.’

‘Yes. Young Warwick. Shut up for life in the Tower, and executed for allegedly planning to escape.’

‘So. And George’s daughter? Margaret.’

‘She became the Countess of Salisbury. Her execution by Henry VIII on a trumped-up charge is apparently the classic sample of judicial murder.’

‘Elizabeth’s son? The alternative heir?’

‘John de la Pole. He went to live with his aunt in Burgundy until –’

‘To live with Margaret, Richard’s sister.’

‘Yes. He died in the Simnel rising. But he had a younger brother that you didn’t put in that list. He was executed by Henry VIII. He had surrendered to Henry VII under a safe-conduct, so Henry, I suppose, thought that it might break his luck to ignore that. In any case he had about used up his quota. Henry VIII took no chances. He didn’t stop at de la Pole. There were four more that you missed out of that list. Exeter, Surrey, Buckingham, and Montague. He got rid of the lot.’

‘And Richard’s son? John? The bastard one.’

‘Henry VII granted him a pension of £20 a year, but he was the first of the lot to go.’

‘On what charge?’

‘On having been suspected of receiving an invitation to go to Ireland.’

‘You’re joking.’

‘I’m not. Ireland was the focus of loyalist rebellion. The York family were very popular in Ireland, and to get an invitation from that direction was as good as a death warrant in Henry’s eyes. Though I can’t think why even Henry would have bothered about young John. “An active, well-disposed boy,” he was, by the way, according to the “Foedera.”’