“I don’t think our line will die out,” he says, trying to smile. “We have three sons. Three healthy princes: Arthur, Henry, and Edmund. I hear nothing but good of Arthur, Henry is bright and handsome and strong, and Edmund is well and thriving, thank God.”

“My mother had three princes,” I reply. “And she died without an heir.”

He crosses himself. “Dear God, Elizabeth, don’t say such a thing. How can you say such things?”

“Someone killed my brothers,” I say. “They both died without saying good-bye to their mother.”

“They didn’t die at my hand!” he shouts. “I was in exile, miles away. I didn’t order their deaths! You can’t blame me!”

“You benefit from their deaths.” I pursue the argument. “You are their heir. And anyway, you killed Teddy, my cousin. Not even your mother can deny that. An innocent boy. And you killed the boy, the charming boy, for being nothing but beloved.”

He puts one hand over his face and blindly stretches his other hand out to me. “I did, I did, God forgive me. But I didn’t know what else to do. I swear there was nothing else I could do.”

His hand finds mine and he grips it tightly, as if I might haul him out from sorrow. “Do you forgive me? Even if no one else ever does. Can you forgive me? Elizabeth? Elizabeth of York—can you forgive me?”

I let him draw me to his side. He turns his head towards me and I feel that his cheeks are wet with tears. He wraps his arms around me and he holds me tightly. “I had to do it,” he says into my hair. “You know that we would never have been safe while he was alive. You know that people would have flocked to him even though he was in prison. They loved him as if he was a prince. He had all that charm, all that irresistible York charm. I had to kill him. I had to.”

He is holding me as if I can save him from drowning. I can hardly speak for the pain I feel but I say: “I forgive you. I forgive you, Henry.”

He gives a hoarse sob and he puts his anguished face against my neck. I feel him tremble as he clings to me. Over his bent head I look at the stained-glass windows of his room, dark against the dark sky, and the Tudor rose, white with a red core, that his mother has inset into every window of his room. Tonight it does not look to me as if the white rose and the red are blooming together as one, tonight it looks as if the white rose of York has been stabbed in its pure white heart and is bleeding scarlet red.

Tonight, I know that I do indeed have much to forgive.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

This book is written on a number of levels. It is a fiction about a mystery—so two steps from any historically recorded fact; but at the heart of it are some historical facts that you can rely on, or study for yourself. The death of the princes, traditionally blamed on Richard III, was not, I believe, his act, and the suggestion that one prince actually survived has been made by several historians whose books are listed below. I am inclined to believe the version I tell here. However, nobody knows for sure, not even now.