Marta poked her finger at Oliphant again. ‘Does your dull fat historian acknowledge that it is a biased version?’
‘Oliphant? Only by implication. He is, to be honest, in a sad muddle himself about Richard. On the same page he says that he was an admirable administrator and general, with an excellent reputation, staid and good-living, very popular by contrast with the Woodville upstarts (the Queen’s relations) and that he was “perfectly unscrupulous and ready to wade through any depth of bloodshed to the crown which lay within his grasp”. On one page he says grudgingly: “There are reasons for supposing that he was not destitute of a conscience” and then on a later page reports More’s picture of a man so tormented by his own deed that he could not sleep. And so on.’
‘Does your dull fat Oliphant prefer his roses red, then?’
‘Oh, I don’t think so. I don’t think he is consciously Lancastrian. Though now that I think of it he is very tolerant of Henry VIIs usurpation. I can’t remember his saying anywhere, brutally, that Henry hadn’t a vestige of a shadow of a claim to the throne.’
‘Who put him there, then? Henry, I mean.’
‘The Lancastrian remnant and the upstart Woodvilles, backed, I suppose, by a country revolted by the boys’ murder. Apparently anyone with a spice of Lancastrian blood in their veins would do. Henry himself was canny enough to put “conquest” first in his claim to the throne, and his Lancaster blood second. “De jure belli et de jure Lancastriae.” His mother was the heir of an illegitimate son of the third son of Edward III.’
‘All I know about Henry VII is that he was fantastically rich and fantastically mean. Do you know the lovely Kipling story about his knighting the craftsman not for having done beautiful work but for having saved him the cost of some scroll-work?’
‘With a rusty sword from behind the arras. You must be one of the few women who know their Kipling.’
‘Oh, I’m a very remarkable woman in many ways. So you are no nearer finding out about Richard’s personality than you were?’
‘No. I’m as completely bewildered as Sir Cuthbert Oliphant, bless his heart. The only difference between us is that I know I’m bewildered and he doesn’t seem to be aware of it.
‘Have you seen much of my woolly lamb?’
‘I’ve seen nothing of him since his first visit, and that’s three days ago. I’m beginning to wonder whether he has repented of his promise.’
‘Oh, no. I’m sure not. Faithfulness is his banner and creed.’
‘Like Richard.’
‘Richard?’
‘His motto was: “Loyaulté me lie”. Loyalty binds me.’
There was a tentative tap at the door, and in answer to Grant’s invitation, Brent Carradine appeared, hung around with topcoat as usual.
‘Oh! I seem to be butting in. I didn’t know you were here, Miss Hallard. I met the Statue of Liberty in the corridor there, and she seemed to think you were alone, Mr Grant.’
Grant identified the Statue of Liberty without difficulty. Marta said that she was in the act of going, and that in any case Brent was a much more welcome visitor than she was nowadays. She would leave them in peace to pursue their search for the soul of a murderer.
When he had bowed her politely to the door Brent came back and sat himself down in the visitor’s chair with exactly the same air that an Englishman wears when he sits down to his port after the women have left the table. Grant wondered if even the female-ridden American felt a subconscious relief at settling down to a stag party. In answer to Brent’s inquiry as to how he was getting on with Oliphant, he said he found Sir Cuthbert admirably lucid.
‘I’ve discovered who the Cat and the Rat were, incidentally. They were entirely respectable knights of the realm: William Catesby and Richard Ratcliffe. Catesby was Speaker of the House of Commons, and Ratcliffe was one of the Commissioners of Peace with Scotland. Its odd how the very sound of words makes a political jingle vicious. The Hog of course was Richard’s badge. The White Boar. Do you frequent our English pubs?’
‘Sure. They’re one of the things I think you do better than us.’
‘You forgive us our plumbing for the sake of the beer at the Boar.’
‘I wouldn’t go as far as to say I forgive it. I discount it, shall we say.’
‘Magnanimous of you. Well, there’s something else you’ve got to discount. That theory of yours that Richard hated his brother because of the contrast between his beauty and Richard’s hunchbacked state. According to Sir Cuthbert, the hunchback is a myth. So is the withered arm. It appears that he had no visible deformity. At least none that mattered. His left shoulder was lower than his right, that was all. Did you find out who the contemporary historian is?’
‘There isn’t one.’
‘None at all?’
Not in the sense that you mean it. There were writers who were contemporaries of Richard, but they wrote after his death. For the Tudors. Which puts them out of court. There is a monkish chronicle in Latin somewhere that is contemporary, but I haven’t been able to get hold of it yet. One thing I have discovered though: that account of Richard III is called Sir Thomas More’s not because he wrote it but because the manuscript was found among his papers. It was an unfinished copy of an account that appears elsewhere in finished form.’
‘Well!’ Grant considered this with interest. ‘You mean it was More’s own manuscript copy?’
‘Yes. In his own writing. Made when he was ‘bout thirty-five. In those days, before printing was general, manuscript copies of books were the usual thing.’
‘Yes. So, if the information came from John Morton, as it did, it is just as likely that the thing was written by Morton.’
‘Yes.’
‘Which would certainly account for the – the lack of sensibility. A climber like Morton wouldn’t be at all abashed by back-stairs gossip. Do you know about Morton?’
‘No.’
‘He was a lawyer turned churchman, and the greatest pluralist on record. He chose the Lancastrians side and stayed with it until it was clear that Edward IV was home and dried. Then he made his peace with the York side and Edward made him Bishop of Ely. And vicar of God knows how many parishes besides. But after Richard’s accession he backed first the Woodvilles and then Henry Tudor and ended up with a cardinal’s hat as Henry VII’s Archbishop of—’
‘Wait a minute!’ said the boy, amused. ‘Of course I know Morton. He was Morton of “Morton’s Fork”. “You can’t be spending much so how about something for the King; you’re spending such a lot you must be very rich so how about something for the King?”’
‘Yes. That Morton. Henry’s best thumbscrew. And I’ve just thought of a reason why he might have a personal hatred for Richard long before the murder of the boys.’
‘Yes?’
‘Edward took a large bribe from Louis XI to make a dishonourable peace in France. Richard was very angry about that – it really was a disgraceful affair – and washed his hands of the business. Which included refusing a large cash offer. But Morton was very much in favour both of the deal and the cash. Indeed he took a pension from Louis. A very nice pension it was. Two thousand crowns a year. I don’t suppose Richard’s outspoken comments went down very well, even with good gold for a chaser.’
‘No. I guess not.’
‘And of course there would be no preferment for Morton under the straight-laced Richard as there had been under the easy-going Edward. So he would have taken the Woodville side, even if there had been no murder.’