The Disappearing Rose

by Renee Duke

  “That might not have happened in her lifetime. And, later on, the Keeper Pieces got scattered all over the world.” Dane looked down at the book again. “I’m sure the princes had the ring in this picture. The roses on all these Keeper Pieces look just like the one on the medallion. And so did the rose on a ring Ned was wearing.”

  “That’s right. It did,” said Jack, following his gaze. “Kids of other eras wore a lot more jewellery than we do. There’s a good chance the Keeper Pieces all had youthful owners at one time or another. The medallion probably goes from one to another trying to find Varteni.” He picked up the box lid and pointed at a line of verse. “Look here, where it says, ‘For divers lives must come to blend, ere the roses’ peregrinations end’. ‘Divers’ means ‘several’. And it’s roses plural, not rose’s singular, like we thought.”

  “That could mean Paige was right, and we’ll be taken to another time period the next time we use the medallion,” said Dane. “We might not ever go back to the princes.”

  “I think we will,” Jack assured him. “Their being at Rosebank with the ring and us being there with the medallion gave us something in common—a point where our lives could blend just like it says in the verse. And we can be guided to them up to five times. Unless, of course, that ‘five times’ refers to how many Keeper Pieces we’re allowed to connect to, and not how many times we can visit any one time period. I suppose we won’t know until we try it again.”

  “Which we’ll be able to do as soon as we go back to Rosebank to finish our scenes,” said Paige, her eyes shining. “That could be tomorrow if it stops raining. I can hardly wait!”

  This amused Jack. “I thought you were nervous about making a time transfer.”

  “Not any more. But I’d still like to do some research on the princes first.”

  The boys were willing, but their maternal grandparents arrived before they could make a start on anything. Having just returned from a lecture tour in Sweden, they were eager to see their grandchildren and spent the rest of the day with them.

  The next day was dull but dry. The children arrived at Rosebank with the intention of completing Mr. Marchand’s fifteenth-century flashback scenes and paying a visit to the real fifteenth century as soon as they were finished.

  Paige was so excited about the prospect of making a time transfer that she, like the boys, scrambled out of the car in full costume.

  This caused Mr. Marchand to blink and then stagger backward. “Who are you, and what planet have your people taken my daughter to?” he demanded.

  “Very funny, Dad,” Paige replied. “I’ve been thinking about Edward the Fourth and his family a lot lately. It’s helped me get a better feel for my character. I can really relate to Cecily of York now. I’m in tune with her spirit. In fact, we are as one.”

  To prove it, she closed her eyes and clasped her hands in front of her in a perfect imitation of Cousin Ophelia.

  Mr. Marchand shuddered. “I knew that nut job was going to contaminate you kids sooner or later. Someone get a doctor, quick.”

  Dane started to laugh, but then caught sight of Cousin Ophelia coming up the drive with the Dexter family. Since she wasn’t in any of the garden scenes they were about to shoot he could only assume she had come to watch her friends. As she called a greeting to them, he exchanged wary looks with Paige and Jack. They all knew her presence was likely to disrupt filming and delay their adventure.

  Equally dismayed, but far from defeated, Mr. Marchand summoned Professor Hodges and Professor Clarke. Still keyed up from their recent debate, they arrived glaring at each other.

  Mr. Marchand smiled at them. “I enjoyed hearing your opposing views on the validity of the statements made in the Wolverton Letters the other day, gentlemen. I was only sorry we never got around to discussing Henry the Seventh. I heard you having an argument about him just before the debate. Did you ever resolve it? If not, I believe my cousin here might have some thoughts on the subject.”

  She certainly did. Within minutes, the conflict had become so heated, Mr. Marchand and the others were able to slip away unnoticed. The remaining scenes were shot without incident and the cast allowed to disperse.

  As soon as they were alone in the gardens, Dane closed his fist around the medallion and offered his other hand to Paige. Paige took it and gave her free hand to Jack.

  The two watched intently while Dane recited what they had all come to think of as the connecting rhyme. But when he got to the end of it, nothing happened.

  No sparks.

  No mist.

  Nothing.

  “Something’s gone wrong.”

  “What?” said Paige.

  “How should I know? Even if the medallion’s not going to take us to the princes, it should be taking us somewhere.”

  They looked at one another in consternation.

  “Perhaps Ned’s just not wearing his Keeper Ring at the moment,” Jack suggested.

  Dane considered this. “No, that can’t be it. We didn’t pop up directly in front of it before. As long as the place we’re starting out from in our own time is somewhere in the vicinity of where the ring is in the princes’ time, we should be able to move from one to the other.”

  “Well there must be some reason the rhyme’s not working,” Jack argued.

  Paige gave her brother an accusing look. “Maybe Dane didn’t say it exactly the same way he did before.”

  “I did,” Dane said indignantly. Then he remembered something. “Wait a minute. Dickon said his family was only going to be at Rosebank for two days. That must be it. We’ve waited too long. The princes aren’t here anymore.”

  Chapter Eight

  Paige groaned. “I knew it was too good to be true.”

  “We should have gone back while we still had an established connection,” Dane said sadly. “The medallion isn’t going to work for us again.”

  Jack looked at both of them and shook his head. “What a pair of defeatists. If the princes have left Rosebank, we should still be able to connect to them from wherever it is they’ve gone. We just have to figure out where that is.”

  “That’s right,” said Dane, brightening. “Your dad might have some idea. Let’s go ask him.”

  Uncle Gareth was around the front of the house with Professor Clarke and Professor Hodges, whom he had finally managed to pry away from Cousin Ophelia.

  “The letters don’t say where the royal family went after they visited here,” he told them, “but I would imagine they returned to their palace at Westminster.”

  “Young Edward wouldn’t have,” said Professor Hodges. “As the king’s heir, he had his own household.”

  Dane recalled what Ned had said about being free of that household while he was at Rosebank. “At a place called Ludlow?”

  “Yes,” said Professor Hodges. “He went there when he was but three years of age.”

  “Where’s Ludlow?”

  “Near Shrewsbury, on the Welsh border.”

  “Did the younger prince live there too?” asked Paige.

  “No,” said Professor Clarke. “He lived at Court. He did pay some visits to Ludlow though, and was thus forced to share his brother’s misery from time to time.”

  “Misery?” murmured Uncle Gareth, trying to suppress a smile.

  “Well, do you imagine the little chap got any enjoyment out of life with Anthony Woodville as his governor?”

  “Who was Anthony Woodville?” Paige inquired.

  “His uncle on his mother’s side,” Professor Clarke replied. “He had a great many uncles on his mother’s side, and a great many aunts, as well. After her marriage to the king, the queen spent most of her time furthering the interests of her brothers and sisters. She made sure the former received numerous lands and titles, and the latter were married off to men possessing lands and titles.”

  Jack nodded. “One of Grantie’s friends told me the Woodvilles were a greedy, arrogant lot.”

  “Yes, well, I expect even Professor Hodges woul
d have to agree with that statement,” said Uncle Gareth, “but Earl Rivers—that was Anthony Woodville’s title—was considered the best of them.”

  “And probably very fond of his little nephew,” said Professor Hodges. “He was a great scholar, and the boy was shaping up to be one. Young Edward was able to understand almost any type of book and could hold his own in literary discussions. The only works that gave him any trouble were by the more highbrow authors whose writing tended to be a bit abstruse—that means complicated.”

  “I know,” said Paige. “It was one of our Words of the Week at school.”

  “Oh, they teach vocabulary in Canada, do they?” said Professor Hodges, beaming. “I wasn’t sure. The standards here have slipped mightily these last few years, if my students are anything to go by.”

  “And mine,” agreed Professor Clarke. “But the king’s side of the family appreciated books just as much as Earl Rivers did,” he added, huffily. “Rivers’s primary interest in his nephew was the influence he and the other Woodvilles could exert over him when he came to the throne.”

  “I beg to differ,” said Professor Hodges.

  Within minutes, the two were in the midst of another argument. The children hastily withdrew and made their way to the kitchen to see if Mrs. Purdom had anything interesting for them to snack on.

  “Well, at least we know Ned’s probably back in Ludlow,” said Dane. “But the Welsh border’s a long way from here. How will we ever get there?”

  “Mummy would probably take us if we asked her,” said Jack.

  “Not dressed like this, she wouldn’t,” said Paige. “Or if she did, she’d ask a lot of questions we’d rather not answer. But I don’t think it would be a good idea to turn up in the fifteenth century wearing modern day clothes.”

  “We could take our medieval outfits with us without her knowing,” Dane suggested.

  “How? Scrunched into a backpack? That’d do them a lot of good. They’re not exactly permanent press, you know.”

  Dane glared at her. “Well, then, we’ll just have to come up with some excuse for wanting them, won’t we?”

  An excuse presented itself that very evening. A writer-photographer friend of Mrs. Marchand had heard about the documentary and phoned her to discuss some problems she was having with a photo story she was doing about young Edward the Fifth.

  “It doesn’t deal with his time in the Tower though,” Mrs. Marchand said at supper. “The primary setting is Ludlow Castle.”

  Paige’s head jerked up. “Is that where she’ll be taking most of her pictures?”

  Mrs. Marchand nodded. “If she can. She’s got all the adult models she requires, but she’s having a hard time finding suitable children.”

  Paige exchanged looks with the boys.

  “What about us?” Dane tried to sound casual. “Wouldn’t we be suitable? We’re already playing the princes for Dad.”

  “We even have our own costumes,” Jack added.

  “Yes, I suppose you do,” said Mrs. Marchand, smiling.

  “And we’ve only got a couple of indoor scenes left to do for Dad,” Paige put in. “He said the set re-creation for Rosebank’s medieval hall should be ready the day after tomorrow. Once we’re finished with that, we’d be free to do a photo shoot any time Mrs. Kemp wants.”

  Mr. Marchand stopped eating and stared at her. “Does that ‘we’ include you?” he demanded, his fork suspended in mid-air. “You? Little Miss How-Can-You-Possibly-Humiliate-Me-In-This-Way-Paige?”

  “Of course it includes me,” said Paige. “I told you I was really into being Cecily of York now.”

  “I don’t know that Cecily ever visited Ludlow, dear,” said Mrs. Marchand.

  “Oh, I don’t have to be Cecily,” Paige said airily. “I can be someone else. It’s the era I like, not just my character.”

  “I’m pleased to hear it,” Mrs. Marchand said as her husband continued to shake his head in disbelief, “but I don’t think there were any girls, or even women, at Ludlow. Still, I suppose there’s a chance Joyce might be able to use you. I’ll ring her back and offer her your services.”

  Joyce Kemp was so delighted to hear that Dane and Jack were willing to do her photo shoot, she said she’d create a small role for Paige.

  “She wants the children in Ludlow by the end of the week,” Mrs. Marchand told her husband. “That means they’ll have plenty of time to do your indoor scenes.”

  “We’ll have plenty of time to find out more about the princes, too,” Dane whispered to the others.

  After a late breakfast the next morning, he suggested they get started.

  “Uncle Gareth can probably tell us everything we want to know.”

  Jack shook his head. “I don’t think we can disturb him. Mummy told me he’s been in his study since dawn, writing up something for a historical magazine.”

  “Oh. Well then, what about those professors Dad’s using as consultants?”

  “Are you kidding?” said Paige. “Even if we could get someone to take us to them, they’d argue about an hour per question.”

  “We can find things out for ourselves,” said Jack. “Daddy has lots of books about that era. If I’m quick and quiet, he won’t mind if I nip in and get them.”

  A few minutes later, he staggered up the stairs with an armload of historical reference books.

  “These should have what we’re after,” he said, dropping them onto his bed.

  Paige looked at the assortment with distaste. “Do we have to wade through that whole pile? I’d rather pull some stuff off the Internet. It would be way faster.”

  “We’d still have to read it,” said Jack. “And some of these books are out of print. They might contain information we won’t find anywhere else—not even on the Internet. Besides, Mummy and Daddy don’t let me use it unless they’re around to supervise. They say there are things out there they’d rather I didn’t know about just yet.”

  Paige looked around. “Is that why you don’t have a computer of your own?” Her cousin’s room contained a number of expensive toys and gadgets, and she knew his parents could well afford to get him a computer.

  “No. My computer-less state is down to an article Daddy came across in a parenting magazine. Ever since he read about how too much computer use can change the structure of the developing human brain, he hasn’t been too keen on me spending a lot of time on one.”

  “He and your mum use theirs every day,” Paige pointed out.

  “He says their brains are already structured.”

  Paige shook her head. Like most kids, she and Dane had some computer-related restrictions, including no Internet use without a parent nearby, but they obviously got more screen time than Jack. “I guess all parents have their peculiar little hang-ups.”

  She picked up a book. The boys did the same and were soon engrossed in their selections. The political ins and outs of the Wars of the Roses were difficult to follow, so they just focussed on what the books had to say about Ned and Dickon’s family.

  After a while, Dane said, “Here’s something about Ned’s household at Ludlow. And, wow, did he ever have a schedule.”

  “What kind of schedule?” asked Paige, looking up.

  “Well, I don’t think Edward the Fourth was too saintly himself, but he sure wanted his son to be. The kid had to get up early and listen to Morning Prayer in his room before going to the chapel for Mass.”

  “What about breakfast?”

  “That came after. Between breakfast and dinner, he was kept busy with ‘such virtuous learning as his age would suffer him to receive’. His dinner was ‘honourably served’ and while he was eating it, people either read him ‘noble stories’ or talked to him about things that would ‘incline him towards virtue, honour, and wisdom’.”

  “You forgot boredom,” Paige quipped.

  “Yeah, well, afterwards he went right back to lessons. If he did okay with them, he got to play various sports before going back to the chapel for Evensong. After Even
song, he had supper. And after supper, people entertained him until he went to bed, where he was kept under ‘sure and good watch’.” Dane paused. “Professor Clarke was right. Ned probably did find life at Ludlow quite tedious.”

  “Especially when Dickon wasn’t there to liven things up,” Jack interjected. “His other brothers were a lot older than him, so they wouldn’t have been much fun.”

  “Older?” said Dane. “But Ned was heir to the throne. How could he be the heir if he wasn’t the king’s oldest son?”

  “He was. Thomas and Richard Grey weren’t the king’s sons. The princes’ mother was a widow when she married Edward the Fourth.”

  “I’ve just been reading about her,” said Paige. “King Edward’s advisors wanted him to marry a princess from some other country. They even had some picked out. He went against them and married Elizabeth Woodville in secret. No one found out about it for months. When they did, they were pretty mad.”

  They continued to read and exchange information until they heard some tinkling music coming from outside.

  “What’s that?” said Paige.

  “The ice cream man,” Jack announced, scrambling up. “Would you like something? I’m sure Mummy will treat us.”

  Aunt Augusta obligingly handed over some money, and they dashed outside to flag down the ice cream truck. Its driver seemed to know Jack well. He had a chocolate covered ice cream bar all ready for him and waited patiently while the boy gave his cousins his opinion of all the other confections on offer. After some deliberation, Paige chose a brick of vanilla ice cream between two wafers and Dane a rocket shaped ice-lolly.

  While they were eating, Paige continued their earlier conversation. “If we do connect to the princes again, how are we going to explain that disappearing act you did last time? They must have wondered where you went—and why the people you claimed to be related to had never heard of you.”

  Dane took a long suck of his ice-lolly before answering. “I’ve been wondering about that. It might be best to just go with the truth.”