Plan for the Worst

by Jodi Taylor

  The men all had long hair down to their shoulders and, apart from a few obviously low-ranking servants, all were clean-shaven. Everyone wore a thick, knee-length tunic, belted and flaring out from the waist. Some of the more important officials, despite the heat, sported an over-tunic that was almost a coat. They must have been baking hot.

  Older men wore longer robes. I wondered how Dr Bairstow was faring in all this heat but he looked as cool as a cucumber. As did Mrs Brown, staring haughtily around, clearly conveying that she had standards and the Tower didn’t come anywhere near them.

  To be fair – it was reasonably clean. Yes, there were wisps of straw caught between the paving stones and there were a few slimy places where the sun never shone and the paving was slippery, even in June, and there were some dodgy stains on some of the walls – at just below waist-height, so I think we can all guess that someone couldn’t be bothered to find a bucket. On the other hand, I was from a time when the pavements are covered in dog-ends and chewing gum and the walls sport identical stains at waist-height, so I was hardly in a position to criticise.

  We turned left between the Garden and the Wakefield Towers and here we were.

  It looked bigger than I remembered but that could be because there were considerably fewer stone buildings around us than I remembered from modern times, but a great many more wooden ones, mostly crowded higgledy-piggledy around the walls. Workshops, mostly, by the look of them.

  I took a discreet look around. My main concern was Lord Hastings. Or rather – the late Lord Hastings. He’d been executed on 20th June – only a few days ago – outside St Peter’s Chapel. Believe it or not, he was the first person to be executed within the confines of the Tower itself. Most people were dragged outside, to be offed in public on Tower Hill. In fact, despite its fearsome reputation, until quite modern times, only seven people were ever executed inside the Tower.

  The first, as I said, was William Hastings. There was no block – they’d had to use an old log from somewhere and a poleaxe. I hoped they had washed the bloodstains away.

  Followed, some fifty years later, by Anne Boleyn.

  Kal and I argue incessantly over Anne Boleyn. I know it’s fashionable to regard her as an innocent victim, but given that everyone agrees she was a scheming, conniving, manipulative bitch, I reckon she was guilty as hell. Failure to produce an heir meant her hold on the king was fast weakening. Her enemies – and she’d made a lot of those – were closing. Producing a boy was the only thing that would save her. Henry’s ulcerous leg was playing up. He almost certainly wasn’t as frisky as he’d once been. She’d been his mistress and then married him. Mistresses should never marry their lovers – it creates a vacancy usually filled only too quickly.

  For Anne, there was only one way out. Adultery. Or even incest – I wouldn’t have put that past her, either, and I could certainly see the point of keeping it in the family, because cuckolding the king wasn’t something you’d want anyone else to know, would you?

  And then there was Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury in her own right – who died in a wretchedly botched execution. There are two versions – either the executioner was appallingly incompetent and literally hacked her to death – or, since she hadn’t been charged with any specific crimes, or indeed, any crimes at all – she’d decided to put up a fight. She refused to lay her head on the block and one version says they had to chase her all around the scaffold before they could subdue her sufficiently for the sentence to be carried out. I should imagine the front rows were a bit of a splash zone.

  Then there was Catherine Howard – Henry’s child bride and almost certainly guilty of adultery because that’s what happens when you’re an old, fat, diseased and impotent king and you imprudently marry a ditzy teenager to try and recapture your legendary youth.

  Followed, only minutes afterwards, by Anne Boleyn’s former sister-in-law, Jane Rochford. Catherine was executed first, then Jane immediately afterwards. It might even have been that Jane had to kneel in Catherine’s blood and place her head on the still sticky block. Not a nice thought.

  And then – Jane Grey. The Nine-Day Queen, according to the rest of the world, who would actually have ruled for a blood-soaked thirty-five years if we and the Time Police hadn’t stepped in. I will repeat – we didn’t change History, we simply rerouted it.

  And finally, Elizabeth’s toy boy, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, who honestly thought tough-as-boots-I’ve-survived-everything-the-world-can-throw-at-me Elizabeth Tudor would surrender her crown to him. Silly boy.

  Anyway, to my relief, the log had been tidied away, the place was not sticky with blood and Lord Hastings’ severed head was not being used as a football.

  The Garden Tower stood to our left and the Wakefield Tower to our right. Where Henry VI had been murdered while praying. Which sounds shocking, but rumour had it he was at it almost continually so the challenge would have been to catch him during the few minutes of the day when he wasn’t praying.

  In front of us, diagonally opposite, the White Tower managed to both sparkle and loom at the same time.

  I turned my attention back to the Garden Tower and the gardens for which it was named. Well, I say gardens – a low wall enclosed a patch of grass, several small trees and some herb borders. Neat, but unimaginative.

  I’d fretted that the gardens might be enclosed by a high wall but that wouldn’t have made any sense. Not only must the boys have actually been visible as they played in the garden, but the authorities certainly wouldn’t have wanted to build high walls behind which anyone could be concealed. Looking around, everywhere was visible from somewhere else and the windows in the tall towers overlooked everything. Including us.

  We didn’t approach directly. We strolled very slowly around the inner ward – although in those clothes and in that heat, it really wasn’t possible to do anything else – and gave people plenty of time to get used to us.

  Dr Bairstow went first, supporting Mrs Brown, and I followed on in the position usually occupied by Markham. I tried to be vigilant but quite honestly, I was wasting my time. The bustle had died away and everyone seemed to be in some sort of midsummer stupor. Perhaps they were sleeping off lunch. There was the occasional raised voice or door banging in the distance, but otherwise an air of imminent slumber hung over everything. This might be one assignment where the presence of the Security Section would have been entirely superfluous anyway. I must remember to tell Markham so on my return. Just to hasten his recovery from whatever foul pestilence he’d managed to contract.

  ‘No ravens,’ murmured Mrs Brown, stopping to glance around.

  ‘No, ma’am,’ I said, happily seizing the opportunity to show off. ‘It’s thought the legend originated because the giant, Brân, King of the Britons, ordered his men to cut off his head and bury it under the White Hill in London. Which they did. It’s over there. Where the White Tower stands today. The head is still beneath it, facing towards France and keeping the country safe from invasion. Brân is Welsh for raven which is probably where we get the raven legend. But it was Charles II who, having heard the prophecy that England will fall if the ravens leave the Tower, ordered they have their wings clipped. Just in case.’

  ‘Ah.’ She nodded.

  My little exposition had brought us level with the garden. Which was empty. A complete Princes in the Tower-free zone. To the right stood the little row of cottages where we should have landed. A wooden bench stood over against the wall so I steered the two of them towards it and we made ourselves comfortable. I remembered not to cross my legs.

  ‘Records say the princes were seen less and less frequently,’ I said. ‘I suppose we should have expected this.’

  ‘They were seen up until the end of June,’ said Mrs Brown, who had obviously done her homework. ‘I don’t think we should despair just yet.’

  True, but I couldn’t think of any reason why two active boys would be i
nside on a day like this.

  ‘Lessons,’ said Mrs Brown, when I mentioned my misgivings.

  ‘I’m sorry, ma’am?’

  ‘They’ll be having lessons, I assume. If Richard is keeping up the pretence of a normal life for the boys then they’ll be having lessons. And then there would have been their midday meal. And then possibly more lessons. And then any other tasks they might have to perform. Or their tutors might simply feel it’s too hot. Remember, Edward was supposed to be sickly. The doctor called nearly daily.’

  All quite true. We leaned back against the warm wall and waited. Gradually, people disappeared inside. Those remaining appeared to be asleep on their feet. I’m sure that there were times when the place heaved with activity, but not this afternoon.

  Time wore on and still no sign of the boys. I told myself there was nothing sinister in that. They might have misbehaved and were being kept inside as a punishment. Or they might not have finished their lessons yet. Or as Mrs Brown had said – they weren’t allowed out in the heat of the day. Or they weren’t coming out because they were already under lock and key. Or they were already dead.

  The sun dropped lower in the sky, taking my optimism with it. The door to the Garden Tower was open but the interior was in deep shadow and I could see nothing. I was starting to formulate plans for going inside and what to do when I got there when Mrs Brown said suddenly, ‘They’re here. Look.’

  I sat up with a jerk.

  Oh my God. They were. They were here. Two young boys were emerging from the Garden Tower, followed by several servants carrying a ton of stuff we couldn’t identify. They were here and we were looking directly at them. I felt Mrs Brown grip my arm with excitement and I didn’t blame her one bit. They were here. King Edward V and his younger brother, Richard, Duke of York. The Princes in the Tower were not twenty yards away. I palmed my recorder and began.

  The two boys and their four attendants stood in the shade of a gnarled old apple tree. Both boys had stripped down to their long linen shirts – lucky things – and carried wooden swords and small wooden shields. Two of their attendants were demonstrating – thrust and parry. Thrust and parry. A little bit of sword practice for the young king and his brother.

  We could see they were both fair-haired – as their father had been. Edward, I think, had reached the growth-spurt stage. He was tall, much taller than his brother, but very thin. His hair was lighter than Richard’s – a pale flaxen colour which fell to his shoulders, long and straight. He had the long, bony Plantagenet face, all nose and chin. I wasn’t close enough to see the colour of his eyes, but I could zoom in and check that out later. I thought he seemed rather pale but that might simply have been because he didn’t get out much. On the other hand, his doctor is on record as saying Edward daily expected death. Whether at the hands of his uncle or because he was ill was unclear. Edward was the elder. Was he old enough to have some idea of the danger in which he and his brother stood? Did he actually know how precarious their position was? How aware was he of what was going on in the outside world?

  Or was his pallor caused by his sickness? Was it ill-health that made his hands tremble? If he had lived – would he have died young anyway? He didn’t look particularly robust.

  He rolled up his sleeves, grasped his sword tightly, made a few preliminary thrusts and stood waiting for his brother.

  Richard had his back to me. I could see at once he was a different physical type to his brother. Much, much shorter, and stockier with a great bush of hair that grew in all directions. It wasn’t so much curly as just . . . haphazard. The sort of hair that, no matter how often or how thoroughly he combed it, would always look tousled. It was darker than his brother’s, too. I rather thought that while Edward might remain flaxen all his life, Richard’s hair would soon darken to a kind of dirty blond.

  He was bouncing with excitement, barely able to stand still while his attendants made sure his light leather helmet was secure and he was holding his shield properly. His brother said something to him and he calmed down slightly. One of his attendants bent over him, offering words of advice, perhaps. The other one showed him how to adjust his grip, and then they stepped back into the shade and let them get on with it.

  The boys practised for nearly an hour. Thrust and parry. Thrust and parry. The garden echoed with the wooden clack of sword on sword. Richard was considerably more proficient than his older brother, shouting with excitement and jumping in the air every time he scored a hit.

  His energy was actually causing me some professional problems. No matter how I angled my recorder, I just couldn’t get clear shots of his face. The padded leather helmet didn’t help. And he was never still. If he’d been mine, I’d have had him on the medieval equivalent of Ritalin just for half an hour’s peace.

  At the end of the session, their servants called them back into the shade. Edward went quietly, but Richard wanted to do more, slashing at the grass with his wooden sword and then stabbing at one of the apple trees.

  Both boys were brought a drink. Richard talked all the while, simultaneously gesturing with his sword and gulping down his drink. Someone set a chair for Edward and he remained under the tree, sipping and watching his brother.

  Obviously still eager for more, Richard took on an attendant who worked him hard. They probably had to do this for a couple of hours every day just to tire him out so they could get him to bed. But for his age, he was very proficient. There was no need for any of the attendants to pretend to stumble or trip over to let him win. No allowances were made. These boys were princes. They would be expected to fight and they would be expected to fight well. One day they would lead armies. As their ancestors had done. As their father and uncle had done. If they had lived, there would have been another Richard to defend another Edward’s throne.

  The two brothers obviously got on well. Edward leaned forwards and called encouragement. He and the remaining attendants would applaud a good move.

  And that was another inconsistency. Thomas More – that old hypocrite and never the most unprejudiced of sources – had reported that their regular attendants had been removed and replaced by rough men in the pay of Uncle Richard’s trusted man, James Tyrrell. I don’t know who was paying this bunch, but they weren’t rough men. They were neat and clean and obviously enjoyed an excellent relationship with their charges. Both princes obeyed them almost without question.

  We watched, fascinated. It was late June and we were among the very last people to see these boys alive and I made sure I recorded every moment. Priceless, irreplaceable data for historians to fight over on our return.

  I spent some time recording their shields because there was a bit of a clue there. Edward’s wooden shield bore the arms of the kingdom. Gules, three lions passant guardant or. In other words, the arms of a king of England.

  His younger brother also bore the arms of the kingdom – to which he was entitled – differentiated by a label argent, on the first point a canton gules. So obviously, at this point in their lives – or at least, the point at which the shields had been made for them – they were publicly recognised as the king and his brother.

  But here was the strange thing. None of the people moving around the innermost ward were taking any notice of the boys. Servants, soldiers, officials – all kept their eyes firmly ahead as they passed. I didn’t notice to begin with, so busy was I trying to pin down that dancing butterfly, Richard of York. You’d have thought the guards would have gathered to take a professional interest in the swordplay, but they didn’t. Or, human nature being what it is, that some of the Tower officials would have paused, at least for a moment, to ingratiate themselves with a future king and his brother, but apart from their attendants, no one took a blind bit of notice of them. It was as if they didn’t exist.

  I remarked on this to Dr Bairstow, who nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes. I think, if you have all the material you need, Dr Maxwell, we should stop pushin
g our luck and start making our way back to the pod.’

  He was right. The gates were ceremonially locked every night – and had been so ever since Edward III apparently turned up one night and just strolled in. Furious at this lapse of security, he instituted what became known as the Ceremony of the Keys and every night the Tower is secured. Those who are inside can’t get out and those outside can’t get in. We needed to be on the right side of the walls when dusk fell.

  Dr Bairstow was continuing. ‘Once there, I think a small conference might be in order. We will review our findings with a view to determining tomorrow’s programme.’

  He was talking about another day here! I could hardly believe my luck.

  ‘As you please, sir. I’ve managed to get footage of nearly everyone and everything. Tomorrow, if someone can persuade him to stand still for a second, I’d like to have another go at young Richard. There’ll never be another chance.’

  He nodded. ‘I think that can be arranged. If Mrs Brown has no objections.’

  ‘I should be delighted,’ she said, rising to her feet and arranging her skirts properly. ‘Does this mean we will spend the night in a pod? How thrilling.’

  I wondered if I should mention my snoring and decided against it.

  She was talking about the younger prince. ‘I think in modern times he would almost certainly be diagnosed with ADHD. He simply never stops, does he? His attendants must be exhausted. And the heat is really very oppressive.’

  It was. There was no wind in the inner ward and the heat was bouncing off the stones. My scalp prickled with perspiration, I had damp armpits and my linen underdress was glued to me with sweat.

  We arranged ourselves as before, with me bringing up the rear, and very slowly and very casually, we retraced our steps out past the Byward Tower and over the swampy moat, where by now the smell was so strong it almost rippled the air – like a heat haze.

  Dr Bairstow nodded to the guards who appeared almost comatose at this point, and then we were out into the really not much fresher air and staring across the glittering Thames.