The White Rose

Justice Prepared

They had denied everything at first, but eventually had folded after being strapped to the rack. A complete report was drawn up meticulously recounting every detail of their confessions. In torturing the Bryans, Knox thought he was benefiting the life of the kingdom; he had looked upon the almost anonymous faces of Philip and Walter without it even occurring to him that they were the faces of men; conscience-free, he had cast his shadow across these haggard lineaments; for him they were no more than signs of disorder; he had conquered.

'Christ, those monks were tougher. Who thought these two squires would be good knights?,' was the only remark he made to himself. And what was more, he had only had local executioners available, not those of the Tower of London.

As he straightened up, he frowned, his back felt stiff and he was aware of a vague pain in his bones. 'It's the cold,' he murmured. He had the skylights closed and went over to the brazier where the fire still glowed. He extended his hands, rubbing them together, then massaged the small of his back, muttering to himself.

The two executioners, still leaning against the wall, seemed to be asleep. A moaning came from the ground where the brothers lay, but Knox no longer heard it. When he had sufficiently warmed himself, he came back to the table and picked up a parchment. Then, with a sigh, he went across to the door and went out.

The executioners went over to Philip and Walter and tried to make them stand up. As they could not, they took in their arms the bodies they had tortured and carried them, as one carries sick children, to their cell. From the Post of Chelsea, which was used only as a garrison and a prison, it was about a mile or so to the royal residence of Westminster. Knox traversed the distance on foot, preceded by two of the Provost's sergeants-at-arms and followed by a clerk carrying parchments and an inkstand. Knox walked quickly, his cloak floating out behind his tall thin body. He enjoyed the cold morning breeze and the damp smell of the forest.

Without replying to the salute of the archers of the guard, he crossed the courtyard of Westminster, entered the doorway, paying no attention to the whisperings, to the air of making vigil for the dead, which lay upon the chamberlains and gentlemen gathered in the hall and the corridors. A squire leapt forward to open a door, and the Keeper of the Seals found himself face to face with the Royal Family.

Edward IV was sitting at a long table covered with a silken cloth. His face appeared more drawn than usual. His unblinking eyes had blue shadows beneath them and his lips were a compressed line. Upon his right was Elizabeth, upright, rather hieratic, her crimped coif surmounted by a light diadem, the red coils of her hair, framing her face like the handles of an amphora, accentuated the sternness of her expression. She was the author of the disaster. In other people's eyes she shared the responsibility for it and, by that curious link which joins accuser to accused, she felt that she herself was also upon trial. Cecily and Grace stood behind their sister.

On Edward IV's left sat George of Clarence, nervously tapping the table with his fingers and wagging his head as if there was some irritating roughness in his collar. The King's other brother the Duke of Gloucester, his manner calm and his dress quiet, was also present. The King's three sons were there too, the three husbands of the Princesses; they were shattered and made ridiculous by the catastrophe; the Prince of Wales, with his squint and hollow chest, in continuous nervous movement; Edmund of York whose face, which always looked rather like a greyhound's, was now still thinner and longer from the effort he was making to keep calm; and lastly Richard of March, whose adolescent good looks seemed ravaged by the first sorrow of his life. But Knox did not look at them; Knox wished to look at no one but the King, and he began to recite his findings. By the end, his audience was sufficiently unnerved, and at the King's gesture he left.

When he had ended, the Prince of Wales had only been half listening. A series of disturbing dates were being put together in his head. For the first five years of his marriage to Margaret Howard, he had been given no children. Three years ago, when Margaret began her affair with Philip Bryan, she had produced a daughter. A bastard, he thought viciously to himself, that bitch has given me a bastard! This harrowing thought ran through his head nonstop. It was enough that he had been cuckolded-- the possibility that little Beatrice was illegitimate was too much. His face turned hot red.