‘That’s why deposed kings are usually murdered,’ Anne observed.
‘Yes,’ I agreed, remembering Mad Harry, who, it must be said, had been quite harmless in himself and yet still a potent threat to King Edward. ‘Yes, that’s quite true. But we’re dealing with young boys here, and taking them out would very bad for Richard’s image. Disastrous, in fact. Even then, you’d still be left with the five girls. Elizabeth, Cecily, Katherine, Anne and Bridget. How could he possibly slaughter all of them? Next, to be really safe, he’d have to do something with George’s son and daughter. And after that, he’d still have to pop over to Brittany to sort out Henry Tudor.’
‘Who the hell is Henry Tudor?’ Anne asked, her brow furrowing.
‘Margaret Beaufort’s son. He reckons to be the Lancastrian heir, although his claim is so incredibly feeble and obscure that only a madman or a loving mother would advance it. The point is that there’s always someone else. You can’t kill them all. It’s better to rely on the fact that young Edward and his brother are bastards. People will get used to that idea after a while, especially when they discover that they’ve copped for a pretty decent sort of king in Richard.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ she sighed.
‘You bet your sceptre I am,’ I said.
By the time we rejoined Richard, up at Warwick, there had been a considerable improvement in the smell of the Court. Buckingham had gone home to Brecon. He had Morton in prison there, and I guessed that he was planning on a quiet month of torturing or something. How wrong can one woman be?
We moved on to York, where Richard and Anne’s son, brought down from Middleham for the occasion, was invested as Prince of Wales. It was another lavish ceremony, but the public relations value was tremendous, and the people of York gave us the kind of reception that Tudor, the Walking Emetic, will never find anywhere but in his dreams.
Of course, there always has to be something to spoil even the best of days. Roger and I were called out of bed at midnight to attend an urgent conference. Lovell had received a lengthy despatch from our top agent in London, concerning the wild rumours that were flying around. Half the population of southern England already believed that the Princes were murdered, while the other half were involved in various plots to release them. The Woodvilles had been stirring it good and proper in our absence, and there was a hint, though no more, that they had someone else pulling strings on their behalf.
By the same post there was a letter to Richard himself from Brackenbury, the Constable of the Tower. Someone had had a shot at poisoning the Princes.
‘Not strawberries again?’ asked Roger.
Richard shook his head. ‘Give them some credit for imagination. Sweetmeats. Delivered by a man in my livery.’
‘We can’t pin this on the Woodvilles,’ I said. ‘They’d be the last to want to harm the boys. So that means we’re getting hassle from another quarter.’
‘I’d figured that out for myself,’ the King grunted. ‘The question is, what to do about it.’
‘Difficult,’ murmured James Tyrell. He was a dark-haired and rather wiry knight, Richard’s Master of Horse, one of those chaps who is taciturn but utterly reliable.
‘I’ve already set an investigation in train,’ announced Lovell. ‘The suspects are pretty obvious, really. Henry Tudor, in Brittany, and his saintly mother, Margaret Beaufort, Lady Stanley. The Countess of Richmond as she likes to call herself. They have most to gain.’
‘How?’ asked Anne, yawning. She had not troubled to get out of bed. She had just wrapped her chamber-robe about her.
‘Kill the boys and you make Elizabeth, their eldest sister, King Edward’s heir. If you discount their bastardy, that is. If he married her, Tudor would do much to strengthen his pathetic claim.’
‘Then why not announce that Tudor has tried to murder the lads?’ suggested Roger. ‘It’d be good propaganda, even if it turns out not to be strictly true.’
Richard shook his head. ‘I feel inclined to keep a low profile. Say it turns out that one of my friends has done this, trying to please me? If that’s how it lies no one will ever believe that I wasn’t involved. Besides, why give Tudor the oxygen of publicity? An unknown Welshman, whose father I never knew, nor him personally saw! His name is scarcely known outside intelligence circles. Least said, soonest mended. The boys had better disappear for a while. I’ve had it in mind, and it looks like it better not be left any longer. You, with Alianore, and Tyrell here, will take them to my sister in Burgundy, and they can stay there until things cool down. All to be done in secrecy, of course. You will also arrange for a strengthening of the security cordon around Westminster Sanctuary. I don’t want any of Edward’s daughters going missing and turning up in Brittany. Any questions?’
I reckon that we set a new record for the trip to London. King Edward – or rather Hastings – had organised a chain of exchange points for horses all along the Great North Road so that government messengers could make good time. We cut sleeping, eating, and the other natural functions of life down to a bare minimum, picked up fresh mounts at every opportunity, and made it to the capital in less than three days.
We went straight to the Tower, pausing only to despatch a boy round to Westminster with a note to tell John Nesfield, who was in charge there, to quadruple the guard around the Sanctuary.
I found a cushion to sit on while the men talked things through with Brackenbury. I needed it after that journey, believe me.
‘I’ve put th’ boys in closer ward since,’ Brackenbury told us. He was an oldish fellow, bald as a shaven egg, and very worried. A decent sort, but none too sure of himself when dealing with the heavy stuff. ‘The elder of ’em, young Ned, gone to pieces, he has. Expects to die at any minute. Spends all his time praying. Doesn’t help that I can’t let ’em out into th’ garden any more. Used to like a bit of shooting with bows and that. And it got a bit o’ fresh air into th’ lads. But I reckoned it were too public by half for ’em, after th’ warnings we’ve had. Don’t know who’s poking and prying. Caught a fellow called Dighton sneaking round with a pillow th’ other night. Reckoned as how he was off looking for his young woman, but I weren’t for teking chances, not after what’s gone down ’ere up to now. Sent him on his way pretty sharpish.’
‘It’s a damned bad show when they’re not safe in the Tower, of all places,’ grunted Tyrell.
‘They are safe, for now,’ objected Brackenbury. ‘But just you think back to when you were a lad. What sort of life is it for ’em, to be kept in a maximum security lodging, with bars over th’ windows and no chance to see as much as a blade o’ grass?’
‘Sooner we get them to Burgundy the better,’ Roger said briskly. ‘It’s the getting them there in secrecy that’s the problem. I don’t know how it’s to be done. They’re well known in London, especially the younger boy, and there must be umpteen spies around, watching for any sign of them being moved. Any security leak could be a disaster.’
‘We could lay a few false trails,’ suggested Tyrell. ‘Mention Sheriff Hutton in an alehouse or two. Murmur about Ireland somewhere else. We could say that they tried to escape, and that one of them fell in the Thames and drowned. We could even get hold of a big box, fill it with stones, and bury it under one of the Tower staircases. A good deep hole that takes a long time to dig and as long to fill in again. Preferably somewhere where there’s plenty of traffic to be interrupted so that people talk about it.’
‘The first three sound good. I don’t think anyone would be taken in by the other. It’s too obvious. But even after laying the false trails, we’re still landed with the job of getting them out of here undetected. Any ideas anyone?’