‘Bit of a cheek, isn’t it?’ the Baron blundered on, unaware of his present disfavour. ‘I mean, kidnapping the centre of the realm like that. It’ll be the Tower next!’
As King Henry’s eyes widened and he was about to say something he would regret, Admiral Slovo stepped into the breach.
‘That is entirely the point,’ he said, with all the brusqueness that etiquette would permit. ‘The process is becoming more frequent, and of wider reach. It was for the proving of this that I conducted my Cornshire experiment about which so much unpleasant fuss has been made …’
‘He was a priest, boyo,’ muttered Henry darkly. ‘You just can’t do that here.’
Slovo waved the protest aside. ‘Not only was the Borlase person dead in his “free Kernow”,’ he went on, speaking slowly, anxious that these mere shallows of trouble be properly traversed prior to the really treacherous deeps in store, ‘but on our “return”, he was also found to be similarly deceased – mysteriously struck down in this, our own, real world.’
‘So?’ snapped Henry, thinking of the gold he’d had to throw at the Lords Spiritual to buy their grumpy peace over that little matter.
‘So,’ answered Slovo, ‘this was a progression. The “real” and the “projected” worlds were becoming interactive. One might even suspect they were in the process of merging. Up to now, Your Majesty, you may have mislaid the odd taxman—’
‘Or army,’ added Daubeny.
‘But,’ continued Slovo, ‘they were lost into fleeting visions, leaving behind no lasting effect. What my much maligned experiment showed was that the two possible worlds were coming together and joining as one. These “alternatives” are maturing into reality. In short, one version will ultimately prevail.’
‘And if people begin to retain memories from the period of crossover,’ said de Peubla, entirely enthused as he caught on and raced ahead, ‘then the spirit of independence and rebellion could blossom with a profuse abundance such as never seen before!’
‘It’d make the Wars of the Roses look like a wench’s kiss,’ said Daubeny, smiling broadly.
‘Yes, yes, yes!’ roared Henry. ‘All this I understand – dammit! Now when are you going to tell what there is to do!’
Suddenly all the bluster evaporated and the King looked on Admiral Slovo with plaintive eyes. ‘I want my version of history to win,’ he added sadly.
‘It can still do so,’ replied Admiral Slovo confidently, signalling that Torrigiano should place his picture strategically in the King’s view. ‘But I warn you, stern measures will be required.’
Henry visibly brightened. ‘Oh well,’ he said, ‘I’m no stranger to them. Needs must and all that. Tell me more.’
Admiral Slovo looked at the two Princes standing, invisibly to all bar him, behind King Henry’s throne. They beamed back at him angelically.
‘Then,’ he advised, seeking to minimize his own part in the reckoning to come, ‘might I respectfully refer you to two passages from Holy Scripture: namely Genesis 22 and Luke 10, 37.’
Henry looked puzzled but, in his freshly optimistic mood, was willing to go along with the game. ‘Come on then, Wolsey,’ he called to a loitering cleric, ‘here’s your chance to shine, boy.’
The priest screwed up his face, mentally travelling back to the days when he had learnt his trade. ‘The first,’ he said eventually, much relieved to find the requisite mental cupboards stocked, ‘is the story of Abraham and the abortive sacrifice of his first-born son, Isaac. The second is a quote of Our Lord’s: Go and do thou likewise.’
‘Whaaat!’ shouted Henry, leaping to his feet.
‘A drastic remedy, I agree,’ said Slovo defensively, whilst pondering the correct form for brawling with Kings, ‘and you are not obliged to take my counsel.’
‘I should hope not, Ad-mir-al,’ said Henry, now quiet and deadly.
‘Oh dear,’ gasped de Peubla, full understanding falling on him like a shroud. ‘Oh dear …’
‘I fear, however,’ continued Slovo, conscientiously mindful of a commission accepted, ‘that the gradient of the … slippage is against you. If nothing is done, then very soon some visitor to these shores will find a most radical – and permanent – change. They will assume, I suppose, a rising or some such has taken place and there will be none left to gainsay them. As to where you and yours will be that day, I cannot say.’
‘Nowhere perhaps,’ suggested de Peubla, still in shock.
‘Perhaps,’ nodded the Admiral. ‘A version of events superseded, a history that just didn’t happen.’
Henry went white and scowled. ‘And what brought it all on?’ he asked, quite reasonably in the circumstances. ‘And what’s it got to do with my boy?’
‘Such things have laws entirely their own,’ replied Slovo disarmingly. ‘If forced to explain the phenomenon—’
‘Which you will be, if necessary,’ said Henry, less than gently.
‘… then I postulate the freak convergence of two trends – each separately harmless, but together a mighty tide to overwhelm the sea-walls of normality.’
‘Speak Latin, man!’ spat the King, his Welsh accent ranging wild and free.
‘I speak firstly,’ said Slovo, stoically swallowing the insult, ‘of a thousand years of longing and expectation by a set of emotionally incontinent peoples: sustained by prophecies, engrained by endless defeats, and marvellously revived by your victory at Bosworth. Now, met and enflamed by the choice of name and ceaseless promotion of your first born, the age-old wishes are coming true.’
‘And it’s all my fault, is it?’ asked Henry, his face worryingly impassive.
‘You are your own nemesis, albeit unknowingly,’ Slovo confirmed. ‘You have benefited from, fed and upheld the very alternatives which are superseding you. However, none of this would be so were it not for the second factor, the vital additional force which permits this terrible violence to the way things are.’
‘And what might that be?’ asked Daubeny, looking for a chance to be helpful and pointedly loosening his sword.
‘It is not a matter for promiscuous discussion, I fancy,’ said the Admiral, as quietly as clear diction would permit. ‘Suffice it to say that what I propose, namely the Abraham option minus Jehovah’s intervention, is the cancelling balance to some similar act so horrendous that it has wounded the fabric of the Universe’s propriety. Through this wound, the other gangrene affecting your Kingdom has effected its entry.’
Silence settled on the Tower throne-room as some thought furiously and others just as furiously strove to avoid doing so. The spectral Princes looked, unseen, at King Henry as grim and confident as advancing glaciers.
‘So … if Arthur goes …’ croaked Henry.
‘Some other, equal, act will thus be answered for,’ agreed Slovo, ‘and propitiation is made to the scales of Justice. The decision to act alone should be sufficient: you need not move precipitately. Then, with the deed done, the bubble of your aboriginal races will be burst with their Arthur the Second no longer feeding false hopes. And I would also suggest some judicious oppression.’
‘Annexation? Suppressing the native gobbledey-gook?’ offered Daubeny in joyful tone.
‘Something like that,’ agreed Slovo in a neutral voice. ‘Then I suspect you will have no more trouble from them for some hundreds of years.’
‘By which time we shall be safely in our tombs,’ said Daubeny to the King, as though relating a great stroke of luck.
Once again a humid silence fell. Admiral Slovo presumed Henry was debating as to which he wanted most: his son or his realm. No one else dared speak. It was only then that Slovo realized with a delicious shock that Henry perhaps saw more of the murdered Princes than hitherto suspected.