He shrugs as if it does not much matter. ‘I had to go and see the queen,’ he says.
I am the queen. It seems that he has made one visit to the Woodville woman and forgotten everything that we hold dear. Everything that we have fought to win.
‘I wanted to ask her about the boys.’
‘No!’ I cry out, and then I put my hand over my mouth so that no-one can hear my arguing with my husband, the king. ‘My lord, I beg you. How could you do such a thing? Why would you do such a thing?’
‘I had to know.’ He looks haunted. ‘They told me of Buckingham’s rebellion and his words at the same time. One was as bad as the other. I wrote to you at once.’
I nod. ‘I remember. But . . .’
‘I sent at once to the Tower, as soon as I heard that everyone was saying they were dead. All they could tell me was that the boys were gone. As soon as I got to London, the first thing I did was go to the Tower. Robert was there—’
‘Robert?’ I ask, as if I have forgotten the name of the Constable of the Tower. Robert Brackenbury, who looked at me with his honest understanding and said, ‘Oh, you’re tenderhearted’ when I said that the boys should be killed, but that I could not bring myself to give the order in so many words.
‘Brackenbury,’ he says. ‘A true friend. He would be true to me. He would do anything for me.’
‘Oh yes,’ I say, and I can feel dread in my belly as if I have been drinking ice. ‘I know he would do anything for you.’
‘He doesn’t know what has happened to the boys. He is the Constable of the Tower and he did not know. All he could say was that when he got to the Tower the boys were gone. All the guards would say was that they put them to bed one night and guarded the door all night and in the morning they were gone.’
‘How could they just go?’
His old energy returns. ‘Well, someone must be lying. Someone must have bribed a guard.’
‘But who?’
‘I thought perhaps the queen had taken them. I was praying that she had taken them. That’s why I went to see her. I said to her, I won’t even pursue them, I won’t even try to find them. If you have smuggled them away somewhere, they can stay there in safety. But I have to know.’
‘What did she say? The Woodville woman?’
‘She went down on her knees and she wept like a woman who knows heartbreak. There is no doubt in my mind that she has lost her sons and she doesn’t know who has them. She asked me if I had taken them. She said she would put a curse on whoever has killed them, if they are dead, that her curse would take the murderer’s son and his line would die without issue. Her daughter joined with her in the curse – they were terrifying.’
‘She cursed us?’ I whisper through cold lips.
‘Not us! I didn’t order their deaths!’ he shouts at me in a sudden explosion of rage that echoes off the wooden panelling of the little room. ‘I didn’t order their deaths! Everybody thinks I did. Do you think so too? My own wife? You think I would do that? You think that I would murder my own nephews when they were in my keeping? You think I would do something as sinful, as criminal, as dishonourable as that? You call me a tyrant with blood on my hands? You? Of all the people in the world who know what I am? You who know that I have spent my life pledging my sword and my heart to honour? You too think me a killer?’
‘No, no, no, Richard.’ I catch his hands and shake my head and swear that I know he would not do such a thing. I stumble over my words before his furious face and the tears come, and I cannot tell him – dear God, I cannot tell him – no, it is not you but it might have been me who ordered their deaths. It might have been my careless speech, my thinking aloud which prompted this. And so it is my sin that will draw the curse of the Woodville woman onto the heads of my Edward so that our line is without a son like hers. In that one moment, when I thought I was protecting us, when I dropped a word into Robert Brackenbury’s ear, I destroyed my future and everything my father worked for. I have drawn on my beloved son’s head the righteous enmity of the most dangerous witch in England. If Robert Brackenbury thought he heard an order in my words, if he did what he thought was my bidding, if he did what he thought was best for Richard, then I have killed her sons and her revenge will be thorough. I have destroyed my own future.
