The Daughter of Time

‘Yes. Yes, I suppose it is. And would you wonder, after all.’

‘No. No, there was little he was spared. Those last two years of his life must have happened with the suddenness and weight of an avalanche. Everything had been going along so nicely. England on an even keel at last. The civil war fading out of mind, a good firm government to keep things peaceful and a good brisk trade to keep things prosperous. It must have seemed a good outlook, looking out from Middleham across Wensleydale. And in two short years – his wife, his son, and his peace.’

‘I know one thing he was spared.’

‘What?’

‘The knowledge that his name was to be a hissing and a byword down the centuries.’

‘Yes. That would have been the final heart-break. Do you know what I personally find the convincing thing in the case for Richard’s innocence of any design for usurpation?’

‘No. What?’

‘The fact that he had to send for those troops from the North when Stillington broke his news. If he had had any fore-knowledge of what Stillington was going to say, or even any plans to concoct a story with Stillington’s help, he would have brought those troops with him. If not to London then to the Home Counties where they would be handy. That he had to send urgently first to York and then to his Nevill cousins for men is proof that Stillington’s confession took him entirely unawares.’

‘Yes. He came up with his train of gentlemen, expecting to take over the Regency. He met the news of the Woodville trouble when he came to Northampton, but that didn’t rattle him. He mopped up the Woodville two thousand and went on to London as if nothing had happened. There was still nothing but an orthodox Coronation in front of him as far as he knew. It wasn’t until Stillington confessed to the council that he sends for troops of his own. And he has to send all the way to the North of England at a critical moment. Yes, you’re right, of course. He was taken aback.’ He propped the leg of his spectacles with a forefinger in the old tentative gesture, and proffered a companion piece. ‘Know what I find the convincing thing in the case for Henry’s guilt?’

‘What?’

‘The mystery.’

‘Mystery?’

‘The mysteriousness. The hush-hush. The hole-and-corner stuff.’

‘Because it is in character, you mean?’

‘No, no; nothing as subtle as that. Don’t you see: Richard had no need of any mystery; but Henry’s whole case depended on the boys’ end being mysterious. No one has ever been able to think up a reason for such a hole-and-corner method as Richard was supposed to have used. It was a quite mad way to do it. He couldn’t hope to get away with it. Sooner or later he was going to have to account for the boys not being there. As far as he knew he had a long reign in front of him. No one has ever been able to think why he should have chosen so difficult and dangerous a way when he had so many simpler methods at hand. He had only to have the boys suffocated, and let them lie in state while the whole of London walked by and wept over two young things dead before their time of fever. That is the way he would have done it, too. Goodness, the whole point of Richard’s killing the boys was to prevent any rising in their favour, and to get any benefit from the murder the fact of their deaths would have to be made public, and as soon as possible. It would defeat the whole plan if people didn’t know that they were dead. But Henry, now. Henry had to find a way to push them out of sight. Henry had to be mysterious. Henry had to hide the facts of when and how they died. Henry’s whole case depended on no one’s knowing what exactly happened to the boys.’

‘It did indeed, Brent; it did indeed,’ Grant said, smiling at counsel’s eager young face. ‘You ought to be at the Yard, Mr Carradine!’

Brent laughed.

‘I’ll stick to Tonypandy,’ he said. ‘I bet there’s a lot more of it that we don’t know about. I bet history books are just riddled with it.’

‘You’d better take Sir Cuthbert Oliphant with you, by the way.’ Grant took the fat respectable-looking volume from his locker. ‘Historians should be compelled to take a course in psychology before they are allowed to write.’

‘Huh. That wouldn’t do anything for them. A man who is interested in what makes people tick doesn’t write history. He writes novels, or becomes an alienist, or a magistrate—’

‘Or a confidence man.’

‘Or a confidence man. Or a fortune-teller. A man who understands about people hasn’t any yen to write history. History is toy soldiers.’

‘Oh, come. Aren’t you being a little severe? It’s a very learned and erudite—’

‘Oh, I didn’t mean it that way. I mean: it’s moving little figures about on a flat surface. It’s half-way to mathematics, when you come to think about it.’