The Disappearing Rose

by Renee Duke

  Try as they might, they could not get the princes to share their concern. In the end, they left them talking about their journey and wandered back outside.

  “Well, that didn’t do much good,” Paige grumbled. “How can we help them if they’re not willing to help themselves?”

  “Ned’s spent his whole life being told what to do,” said Dane. “He probably doesn’t have a lot of initiative. Dickon does, but he’s so taken with the idea of going north, he won’t put it to use. We’ll just have to come up with an escape plan ourselves and get them to go along with it.”

  “I don’t think either of them will go along with anything that’s likely to interfere with them seeing their mother,” said Jack. “I wonder how Lady Stanley plans to smuggle them past the guards around Sanctuary.”

  Paige snorted. “Going by the ones here, I’d say she’s probably using bribery. If we could talk Ned and Dickon into balking at this northern trip after they’d seen their mother, there’s a chance their escorts could be bribed into letting them go. And I expect that someone within the city could be bribed into hiding them until their uncle gets back.”

  “What if he’s the one they have to watch out for?” Dane worried aloud. “I don’t really think he is, but who knows?”

  “It might be safer to get them right out of the country,” Jack mused.

  “That’ll take money too,” said Paige, “and the princes might not have any. Their family’s rich, but I’ve never actually seen either of them handling money. Earl Rivers would have taken care of everything when Ned was on his way to London, and it was Miles who paid for our barge yesterday.”

  “So much for that idea, then,” Dane said gloomily. “We sure haven’t got anything that would be regarded as cold, hard cash.”

  “I have some medieval money at home,” said Jack. “Daddy’s got a huge coin collection, and he gives me some every Christmas and birthday. I must have almost a dozen that were in use at this time.”

  “Maybe we should go back and get them,” said Paige. “And check out a few people too—people who might have had a reason to harm the princes. That would help us know who to keep them away from after we help them escape.”

  The boys agreed. This time, their return only startled the two ravens that had been sitting on the railing when they left. The birds squawked at them indignantly, causing several people to turn in their direction. Fortunately, Sam and Mabel were not among them. Making their way up past the White Tower again, they saw the couple near the Scaffold Site in front of the little chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula.

  “They probably want to know if there was anyone executed there who might decide to contact them from the spirit world,” said Paige. “They’re as weird as Cousin Ophelia.”

  “They could be, I suppose,” said Mrs. Marchand, coming up behind them. “On the other hand, they might just have active imaginations. Imaginations stimulated by the sight of medieval children jumping out at them unexpectedly. I assume that’s what you did, and I’ll tell you now that I don’t think much of such games. Especially since, having had your fun, you didn’t bother to explain things to them.”

  “We couldn’t,” said Paige. “They, uh…sort of took off.”

  “Oh? And what do you suppose inspired them to do that?” said Aunt Augusta, looking straight at Jack.

  Jack gave her a disarming smile. “I consider it one of my best performances.”

  Unlike Earl Rivers, his mother knew him too well to be susceptible to his charms. “It isn’t nice to fool people like that,” she said severely. “We were talking to those two a while ago. They told us the children they saw definitely came from realms beyond, and nothing would convince them otherwise.”

  “Well, we probably couldn’t have convinced them either,” said Paige.

  “You could have tried,” Mrs. Marchand admonished. “We certainly did.”

  Mr. Marchand joined the conversation. “Not me. I was for disavowing all knowledge of such insensitive brats, but your mother admitted you came here with us. She told them you were just in costume from some photo work you’d been doing. Unfortunately, they didn’t buy it.”

  “No, they just kept chuntering on about how you’d materialized in front of them,” said Uncle Gareth, chuckling.

  Mrs. Marchand glared at him. “It’s not funny, Gareth. They gave those poor people a terrible shock.”

  “To begin with, maybe,” said Mr. Marchand. “They’re revelling in it now. Think of the story they’ll be able to tell the folks back home.”

  “Be able to dine out on it for a month, I should think,” Uncle Gareth agreed.

  “Possibly, two,” said a yeoman warder standing a little to the right of them. Turning, they saw he was the same one Sam and Mabel had dragged into the royal apartments.

  Mr. Marchand flashed him a smile. “Maybe we should get out of here before they spot this ghostly trio again.”

  “That might be best, sir,” the yeoman warder agreed. As their parents hastened them away, he grinned and gave the ghostly trio a big wink.

  Unobserved by his mother, Jack grinned back at him.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Despite the number of time transfers they’d made that day, the children felt surprisingly well. They could only suppose they were getting used to moving through time, and thoroughly enjoyed the meal they had in a café near the Tower before returning to Windsor.

  As soon as they got back to the house, Paige and Dane followed Jack upstairs and went through Jack’s coin collection. It contained nine coins that were in circulation during the reign of Richard the Third: four silver pennies, two groats, and three half-groats.

  “So, do we have enough to bribe people with?” Paige asked her cousin as he placed the coins in a pile.

  “I should think so. Soldiers and lower class servants only earned about a penny a day. A groat would be hard to turn down.”

  “What’s a groat worth?”

  “Fourpence. Even if we have to use a couple of them, we’ll have enough left over to hire some horses and get the princes out of London.”

  “Good,” said Paige. “Now let’s try to get some reading in before bed.”

  To better understand the mood of the times, they went into the Wars of the Roses more deeply than they had before. They were still very confusing, but political loyalties and personal ambition seemed to be the key factors influencing most of the people with whom the princes had to deal.

  “I’d put my money on the Duke of Buckingham,” Paige said after scanning a chapter in one book. “He’s the one organizing the trip north. And according to this, he’s going to be beheaded in a couple of months for leading a rebellion against King Richard. He was of royal descent, too, and thought the crown would look better on his head.”

  “I’m not so sure,” said Dane. “I don’t like him, but that doesn’t make him guilty. Well, not of doing in the princes, anyway. After all, they were his nephews as well.”

  “And the princes were barred from the throne,” said Jack. “If the duke wanted it, it would have served him better to get King Richard and his son out of the way.”

  “What do you think he was trying to do by leading a rebellion? And the king’s son was got out of the way. The kid died a ‘sudden, mysterious death’ just a few months later.” Paige paused. “The Duke of Buckingham could hardly have had anything to do with that though. And there were other people interested in the throne.”

  “Most notably Henry Tudor, the future Henry the Seventh,” said Jack. “Being descended from an illegitimate Lancastrian line, he was no more entitled to the throne than the princes were. He eventually got it by right of conquest and strengthened his claim by marrying the princes’ oldest sister.”

  “‘How could marrying into another illegitimate line strengthen his claim? I’d have thought it would have weakened it,” said Dane.

  “Henry destroyed all the documents proclaiming Elizabeth and her brothers and sisters illegitimate.”

  “But that would
have made Ned the lawful king,” said Paige. “He was Edward the Fourth’s heir. It doesn’t hold nowadays, of course, but back then, boys took precedence over girls when it came to inheriting a crown.”

  “Only if there were some,” said Jack. “The princes had disappeared by then.”

  “Which means Henry Tudor had plenty of reason to want them eliminated before he married their sister and made himself king,” said Dane thoughtfully.

  Jack nodded in agreement. “He was in France when the princes disappeared, but he could have got someone else to get rid of them for him.”

  “Like the Duke of Buckingham?” Paige seemed unwilling to let go of him as a candidate.

  “I doubt it,” said Jack. “Not if he wanted the throne for himself. But Henry Tudor had lots of supporters. He was the only real claimant the Lancastrians had.”

  Dane nodded. “I’ve been reading about some of those ones who moved against King Richard while he was still Protector. Dr. Morton was a Lancastrian from way back, and Lord Stanley was Henry Tudor’s step-father.”

  “Lord Stanley?” Paige echoed. “Whose wife is presumably called Lady Stanley? Is she the same Lady Stanley who’s arranging for the princes to see their mother?”

  “Yes,” said Dane. “And if Henry Tudor is her son…”

  “Then Ned and Dickon are playing right into the Lancastrians’ hands,” Jack said with a gasp. “They mustn’t go! We’ve got to stop them.”

  For a moment, Dane and Paige made no reply. They were too stunned.

  At last Paige said, “We can’t do anything tonight, Jack, but we’d better get up to London first thing tomorrow.”

  Unfortunately, their parents had other ideas.

  “I’m sorry, dear,” Mrs. Marchand said at breakfast. “We won’t be able to take you to London again until we get back from Cornwall. One of your auntie’s colleagues rang up while we were in Ludlow, and wants her to go to Perranporth to compare notes on something. She and Uncle Gareth are driving down today. Since the Rosebank documentary’s about finished, your father and I are going too. He wants to see if he can come up with enough material to do something on Cornish pixies.”

  “But we don’t want to go to Cornwall,” Paige wailed.

  “Then not going shouldn’t bother you,” said her father. “You three are going to stay with Grantie Etta. She’s been after us to let you spend a couple of nights with her anyway, and this seemed like a good time to indulge her. Uncle Gareth’s going to run you over to Rosebank after breakfast.”

  “What about London?” Dane persisted.

  “You can go when we get back. It’ll still be there.”

  But the princes might not, thought Dane.

  “Perhaps Grantie could run us up to London,” Jack suggested, refusing to give up. “She has a car, and a chauffeur, and I don’t expect she’s been there for ages. She’d probably enjoy it.”

  “Well, you’re not going to ask her,” said Aunt Augusta. “Looking at the sky, it’s going to be cold and wet later on. Not at all good for sightseeing. Especially with someone of that age. Grantie’s far too old to go chasing around London with three children. And before your thoughts turn toward your grandparents, the same applies to them. I know they’re both still quite spry, but lecture tours can be exhausting, and they haven’t been home all that long.”

  “There must be someone who could take us,” said Paige. “At this point, I’d even consider Cousin Ophelia.”

  “You’d be safer going alone,” Mr. Marchand muttered.

  “Could we?” said Paige eagerly. “We wouldn’t mind. I’m thirteen. I could look after the boys. I’ve got a babysitting certificate—first aid and everything. The train goes straight into Paddington Station, and from there we’d be taking the Underground. It’s easy enough to use.”

  Mr. Marchand gave her an incredulous look. “Paige, we don’t even let you go to the mall by yourselves back home. We’re certainly not going to turn you loose in a huge city like London.”

  Paige almost jumped up and down in frustration. “That’s ridiculous, Dad. We’re not babies. We know all about not going with strangers and stuff.” She turned to her mother and aunt. “I bet you guys went up to London by yourselves when you were kids.”

  “We might have,” Mrs. Marchand said vaguely, “but the world’s a bit more dangerous now.”

  “We know about the dangers. We’ll be careful, honest.”

  “Please?” Dane begged.

  “Please?” added Jack, appealing to his own parents.

  “No,” Mr. Marchand said firmly. “End of discussion.”

  Immediate nods from the other adults confirmed that he spoke for all of them.

  Furious, Paige excused herself and stomped out of the room. Dane felt like doing the same. Jack had a thunderous look on his face as well, but the two boys finished breakfast before following Paige out into the garden, where she was standing by the garden shed ranting about the total unreasonableness of parents everywhere. This did not go over well with Socrates, who had been taking a nap on the shed roof. He sprang down with an indignant meow and stalked off, lashing his tail.

  “What are we going to do?” Jack demanded as Dane went after the cat to give it a sympathetic pat. “We’ve got to get to the princes.”

  “Well, we can’t,” Paige told him flatly.

  “We could if we took a bus to Slough and caught the London train.”

  “Dad would have the police waiting for us at Paddington.”

  “Not if we wait until he’s safely on his way to Cornwall,” Jack reasoned. “Rosebank’s a bit of a hike from any station, but we could do it.”

  “Grantie will get worried if we just take off,” said Dane, returning to the others. “We can’t upset her like that.”

  “But we’ve got to do something,” said Jack. “We can’t wait another three days to go back to the Tower. The princes were supposed to be leaving the day after we last saw them. The time gaps are getting shorter now, but they’re not going backward, and that’s what they’ll have to do if we don’t use the medallion today.”

  “Well, maybe they will,” said Dane. “If the medallion wants us to help the princes, it must know we can’t do anything unless we can get to them. It might just freeze time for them until we do. It freezes it for us when we’re not here.”

  “I know it does, but I have a really bad feeling about the princes today. Much worse than I did last night.”

  Paige nodded. “So do I.”

  Dane had to admit that he did as well, but wanted to cling to the belief that the medallion would sort things out for them.

  Half an hour later, overnight bags had been packed for them and put in the car.

  “Do try to look a little less miserable when you’re with Grantie,” Uncle Gareth said as they climbed dejectedly into the back seat. “She’s really looking forward to having you.”

  “That’s right,” said Mr. Marchand, sticking his head through the open window. “I expect she’s gone to all kinds of trouble to see that you enjoy yourselves, so you’re going to. Understand?”

  Had they not been so worried about the princes, they would have enjoyed themselves. In addition to sausages and cakes, Mrs. Purdom had stocked up on soft drinks, sugary cereals, potato crisps, and other assorted junk food. Grantie Etta knew lots of interesting stories about the family and allowed them free access to all the treasures in her living room, many of which had interesting stories of their own. But their feelings of anxiety increased as the day wore on, and they had to put real effort into looking as though they were having a good time.

  All in all, it was a relief to go to bed. The boys were upstairs, in a room just off the modern staircase. Since it was now Rosebank’s only habitable guestroom, a small cot had been put in Grantie Etta’s ground floor room for Paige. Mrs. Purdom’s room was right beside it, and she retired to it as soon as she had helped Grantie Etta get ready for bed.

  Upstairs, Dane found it difficult to get to sleep. He tossed and turned f
or some time. He had only just drifted off when he was jerked awake by cries and moans from Jack. Turning on his bedside lamp he got out of bed to go to him, but Jack leapt up, wild-eyed, and jerked his dressing gown off of a hook on the bedroom door.

  “We must go to the princes!” he cried, wrapping it around him. “Some men are trying to hurt them. They’re going to hurt them. We’ve got to help!”

  “Jack, calm down. You’ve been dreaming. You’re so worried about what’s going to happen to the princes that—”

  “Whatever happened to them is happening. It’s happening right now! We’ve got to find them.”

  Dane had left the medallion on the dresser between their two beds. “No, don’t,” he cried as Jack snatched it up, threw open the door, and stumbled out of the room. Hurriedly getting into his own dressing gown, Dane rammed on his glasses and sped after him. The light from their room helped him get to the stairs without tripping, and downstairs night-lights led the way to the kitchen and bathroom. When he got to the bottom of the stairs, he saw a startled Paige standing at the door of her own room watching Jack disappear into the kitchen. Behind her, Grantie Etta was sitting up in bed looking bewildered.

  Paige caught Dane by the arm and demanded to know what was going on.

  “It’s Jack. He had some kind of dream. He grabbed the medallion and took off.”

  “What for? Is he crazy? He can’t run all the way to London with it.”

  “I know, but he’s all worked up. He’s not thinking straight.”

  “Go after him,” said Grantie Etta, struggling into a bed jacket. “He shouldn’t go off alone when the feelings are this strong. You must stop him. Run!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Dane ran. So did Paige, but he got to the kitchen first.

  Jack wasn’t there, but the light was on, and the drawer containing the flashlights was open.

  So was the cellar door. The blackness beyond it told them that Jack had not stopped to fumble for the switch. Seizing a flashlight, Dane headed down the stairs. Paige grabbed another and followed him. When they got to the bottom, they could see Jack’s flashlight beam bobbing along.