“Indeed?” the queen said coldly.
“Indeed,” Richard said. “A vision of your two sons, in a happier place. Away from the struggles and travails of our mortal lives.”
“Oh. My. Gosh,” Katherine practically shrieked. “Is he trying to tell her that her sons are better off dead? Because he thinks they are dead. Because he hired murderers. Because we convinced him he saw their angels. This is incredible! This is better than a soap opera!”
Before them, the queen froze at Richard’s words.
“Right, right, that’s what you have to do,” Katherine coached. “Pretend that you’re devastated so he’ll think that you think that Chip and Alex are dead. That way he won’t try again to kill them. And—”
“Katherine, she can’t hear you,” Jonah said disgustedly.
“I know, I know,” Katherine said excitedly. “But …” She broke off because the queen was speaking again.
“You had a vision of my boys,” the queen repeated numbly. “In heaven?”
“They were such saintly boys,” Richard said, bowing his head slightly, as if in tribute.
“He’s using past tense now!” Katherine screamed. “Don’t let him get away with this!”
The queen inclined her head slightly.
“Henry the Sixth was a saintly man,” she said with studied casualness. “Too saintly to be king, don’t you think? And yet, others fought to restore him to the throne.”
“What?” Katherine screeched. “Henry the Sixth? Who’s that? What’s he got to do with anything?”
“Former king of England,” JB said quickly. “Very holy, occasionally crazy. But he took the throne from Edward the Fourth for a few years. Because of Henry, Edward the Fourth was in exile when Edward the Fifth—er, Chip—was born.”
However Henry VI was connected, King Richard definitely recognized the name. His face drained of color; he opened his mouth and then shut it again without speaking.
“You remember?” the queen said almost airily. “You remember what a painful experience that was for my husband?”
“Wow,” JB muttered. “She’s really good at this.”
In the scene before them Richard seemed to be struggling to regain his composure.
“E-everyone knew where Henry was,” Richard finally said. “Until your husband ensured his death.”
“Richard’s not bad at this either,” JB said.
“Wait. Is he accusing his brother of murder?” Katherine asked. “To make it sound better that he’s murdering people too?”
JB waved his hands quickly at her, signaling for silence. “Later,” he whispered. “I’ll explain later.”
The queen raised one elegant eyebrow.
“You wish it to be a fight to the death, then?” she said. “Very well. I assure you, others do as well.”
Richard bolted upright in his chair.
“You dare to threaten me? Me, the king of England?”
“Game over,” JB muttered. “See? Right there? He just lost his cool.”
The queen looked shocked, though Jonah thought it was probably fake shock.
“You think I could threaten anyone?” she asked, her voice tremulous. “Me, a defenseless widow?”
“Defenseless, my foot,” JB murmured.
Richard looked like he wanted to say the same thing. He grimaced, as if struggling to regain his composure. Finally he gave a tight nod.
“I see my sympathies were unnecessary,” he said in a clipped voice. “I should return to the festivities.”
“Aye,” the queen said. “For who but God knows how long any mortal has left to celebrate?”
JB began clapping.
“Bravo!” he cried. “What a performance!”
Jonah sank back on his haunches, his search for the Elucidator completely forgotten.
“Performance?” he repeated numbly. “You mean that wasn’t real? It was just a play or something? Just … acting?”
“Oh, it was real, all right,” JB assured him. “But incredible acting, too, couldn’t you tell? Neither one of them could come out and say what they were really thinking, but they both got their messages across.”
“Like at school, when Caitlin Deets tells Alexis Raypole, ‘Wow, that shirt is really flattering on you. Very slimming,’ she’s not really giving her a compliment,” Katherine said. “She’s really saying, ‘You’re fat and ugly and nowhere near cool enough to be my friend.’ And then when Alexis tells Caitlin—”
“Katherine, stop!” Jonah said. “Nobody cares about that right now!”
JB grinned.
“She’s right, though,” he said. “It’s the same kind of double-talk. Richard left his own coronation to tell Elizabeth, ‘Look, your sons are dead. I’m the king now. Give up.’ He expected to find her weak and sobbing, and then he could be charitable and comforting, as if he’d had nothing to do with her sons’ deaths. But she told him, ‘Hey, you can’t bully me. How can you be so sure my boys are dead? Even if they were, how can you be so sure that I wouldn’t pretend that they’re still alive and have my friends mount a campaign to put them or some impostor on the throne? You may have the Crown tonight, but that doesn’t mean you’ll still be alive next week!’” JB grew so animated acting out each side’s hidden message that he swung his fists, punching the air. “And they said all that without actually uttering a single discourteous word.”
Jonah frowned. Did people do that kind of double-talk all the time—not just sixth-grade girls and medieval royalty? Why hadn’t he noticed? Most of the time he just said exactly what he meant. Who needed the complications?
Katherine scrunched up her face.
“Yeah, well … Caitlin Deets is really nasty, but even she’s not threatening to kill anyone,” she said doubtfully.
JB shrugged.
“What if she lived in a society where certain types of murder were considered perfectly acceptable—would she be making death threats then?” he asked.