Lessons in Discovery Read Online Free PDF Page B

generally
    regarded as the most accurate of the summaries of the Woodville
    Ward case. The story was well known to anyone at Bride’s, being
    one of the frequent topics for conversation in both common
    rooms. Theories were often bandied forth as to the means and
    motive for the death, hypotheses that were often completely
    outrageous.
    Having made another strong pot of coffee and settling
    himself in a comfortable spot on his old, familiar sofa, Orlando began to re-familiarise himself with the main points of the case.
    Charles Shaa had been orphaned at eleven, taken under the wing
    of Elizabeth of York, who had been a great friend of his mother, then conveyed to the college for safekeeping. He was raised
    among the students, much cosseted by them and by the college
    tutors. The Queen Elizabeth Hall records which had survived
    showed that he’d been well cared for and had soon been taken on
    as a student himself, to study astronomy. His name, the treatise stated, showed up among various remaining documents of the
    time, even appearing on a laundry bill that had somehow
    continued in existence until the 1850’s.
    Any mention of Shaa ceased in early 1497 and the records
    showed that the queen had herself visited the Hall in great
    agitation to seek her ward, for whom she felt a particular
    responsibility. She’d returned home with no more understanding
    of what had happened than when she came. Much time and
    money had been spent on a search, extending, given the lad’s
    avowed wish to be a sailor, to the local seaports. In the end the hunt had, like all the other avenues explored, drawn a complete

    www.lindenbayromance.com 31
    Charlie Cochrane
    blank—the Master at the time believed the young man had simply
    given them all the slip and was halfway across the Atlantic.
    The body had been found in 1701, a sad corpse in a dried-
    out, disused well. College records put the closure of the water
    supply at June, 1497, so the theory was that Shaa had been put in there almost as soon as he’d disappeared. The hue and cry had
    been in vain, the net spread far and wide for someone who all the time was just outside the Hall’s portals. The body had been
    identified by means of the distinctive jewellery he wore, items
    which could be traced back to his grandmother, whose portrait
    was still in existence at the time. So was a sketch of Shaa himself, with the items clearly displayed. To clinch things, the body
    showed signs of a slight fracture to the arm that had not had a
    chance to heal. It was known that young Shaa had suffered a
    suspected break in one of his bones shortly before his
    disappearance.
    The author of the work concluded with a series of
    summaries. First of all the probable means of death, which was
    given as drowning, strangulation or suffocation. All these had
    been put forward at the time of the body’s discovery, although
    given the long interval since his demise, none of them were likely to be more than guesswork. Then there was motivation, which
    centred on Shaa having left a small amount of money that had
    been put in trust to him. His next surviving blood relative had
    been little more than a baby at the time of Shaa’s death, and only the most ludicrous of theorists implied that he had done it.
    The rival Yorkist and Lancastrian factions had inevitably
    been drawn into the reckoning, their inferred motives being as
    varied as the people writing the treatises. Virulent followers of Henry VII were sure that the ward had been killed by supporters
    of Gloucester, in revenge for Elizabeth taking a Tudor husband.
    Supporters of Richard III were convinced that Henry himself had
    been jealous of his wife’s affection for the boy and had made a
    32
    www.lindenbayromance.com

    Lessons in Discovery
    midnight visit to the college, sword in hand to dispatch him,
    bribing the college servants to hide the corpse. There were serious yet extravagantly wild theories abounding, at least one of which involved Shaa being a