and was probably hunch-backed. His unexpected rise to the crown, his ignominious death at the Battle of Bosworth, the legend that he had killed the Princes in the Tower, his unprepossessing appearance -- all suggested his facial reconstruction kit would be a hit if it could be launched at the height of the furor. Timing was everything.
No one was more excited than Madeleine Harrod by the news that the skeleton under the parking lot was really Richard III’s. It was, she believed, a sign. To her, reincarnation was not a theory but a fact. When she was thirteen, after a particularly vivid session with Dr. Beltrami involving regression analysis, she haltingly told her father that she believed many years ago she was a girl married to a man with a hunchback and he was a king. She had had long blond hair and beautiful jewels and thought her name had been Anne. She described a headdress in preposterous detail. Her mother, who was lying on the sofa with a cold cloth over her eyes, roused herself enough to mumble, “Richard III.”
“What?” Chester asked. “Speak up.”
“The hunchback who was king was Richard III. I read the play in high school.”
After that, Madeleine had many other such visions, though the only person she ever told, other than Dr. Beltrami, of course, was her father in the presence of her mother.
At first, Dorothy had listened to her daughter’s visions of previous lives without much comment. But finally, one day when Mattie described a poisoning she thought occurred in the ancient library of Alexandria amidst shelves of heavy papyrus scrolls and carved columns, Dorothy had had enough. From the couch, she said, “Beware, Mattie. The devil’s speaking through you.”
Neither Chester nor Mattie replied to that ominous statement. But the regression analysis continued, so the visions of previous lives continued too. Mattie faithfully related them to her credulous father and skeptical mother. If only Dorothy had lived, she’d have seen that Dr. Beltrami’s regression analysis was vindicated, for the previous lives Madeleine “remembered” launched a global business.
Today, in the middle of a round conference table sat two creepy, decapitated, three-dimensional objects. One was a model of Richard III’s skull found last September during an archaeological dig in Leicester, Britain’s Midlands. The other was his reconstructed head: black ear-length hair, faintly misaligned dark eyes under bushy black eyebrows, aquiline nose, rosy cheeks, chiseled lips, square jaw. The British forensic team that created the original reconstruction had dazzling credentials, bringing together DNA analysis, CT scans, genealogical research, osteology, carbon dating, forensic art, digital reconstruction, and stereolithography.
But the head reconstructed by British experts irritated Madeleine, who stared at its twin with distaste, not because she found decapitated heads to be creepy, but because this one looked far too soft, almost friendly, and far too generic for the character she imagined she had once been married to. His eyes should be more penetrating, his skin sallower, his cheeks hollower. He should look like the highly skilled fighter he was. Perhaps there should be just the faintest suggestion of surprise, either at becoming king at all or at dying in the ignominious way he did. Despite the British team’s dazzling credentials, Madeleine was sure that under her leadership her team could do better.
By the time the brainstorming session ended and Madeleine had sketched a new face for the King, Richard III’s face had morphed into a far more saturnine and devious image than the British experts imagined.
Though every one of Madeleine’s staff was practically a genius in a particular discipline, and though each person was proud of being an independent thinker, not one could have articulated how they’d been brought around to share their boss’s exact vision while thinking it was their own. Her stories of
No one was more excited than Madeleine Harrod by the news that the skeleton under the parking lot was really Richard III’s. It was, she believed, a sign. To her, reincarnation was not a theory but a fact. When she was thirteen, after a particularly vivid session with Dr. Beltrami involving regression analysis, she haltingly told her father that she believed many years ago she was a girl married to a man with a hunchback and he was a king. She had had long blond hair and beautiful jewels and thought her name had been Anne. She described a headdress in preposterous detail. Her mother, who was lying on the sofa with a cold cloth over her eyes, roused herself enough to mumble, “Richard III.”
“What?” Chester asked. “Speak up.”
“The hunchback who was king was Richard III. I read the play in high school.”
After that, Madeleine had many other such visions, though the only person she ever told, other than Dr. Beltrami, of course, was her father in the presence of her mother.
At first, Dorothy had listened to her daughter’s visions of previous lives without much comment. But finally, one day when Mattie described a poisoning she thought occurred in the ancient library of Alexandria amidst shelves of heavy papyrus scrolls and carved columns, Dorothy had had enough. From the couch, she said, “Beware, Mattie. The devil’s speaking through you.”
Neither Chester nor Mattie replied to that ominous statement. But the regression analysis continued, so the visions of previous lives continued too. Mattie faithfully related them to her credulous father and skeptical mother. If only Dorothy had lived, she’d have seen that Dr. Beltrami’s regression analysis was vindicated, for the previous lives Madeleine “remembered” launched a global business.
Today, in the middle of a round conference table sat two creepy, decapitated, three-dimensional objects. One was a model of Richard III’s skull found last September during an archaeological dig in Leicester, Britain’s Midlands. The other was his reconstructed head: black ear-length hair, faintly misaligned dark eyes under bushy black eyebrows, aquiline nose, rosy cheeks, chiseled lips, square jaw. The British forensic team that created the original reconstruction had dazzling credentials, bringing together DNA analysis, CT scans, genealogical research, osteology, carbon dating, forensic art, digital reconstruction, and stereolithography.
But the head reconstructed by British experts irritated Madeleine, who stared at its twin with distaste, not because she found decapitated heads to be creepy, but because this one looked far too soft, almost friendly, and far too generic for the character she imagined she had once been married to. His eyes should be more penetrating, his skin sallower, his cheeks hollower. He should look like the highly skilled fighter he was. Perhaps there should be just the faintest suggestion of surprise, either at becoming king at all or at dying in the ignominious way he did. Despite the British team’s dazzling credentials, Madeleine was sure that under her leadership her team could do better.
By the time the brainstorming session ended and Madeleine had sketched a new face for the King, Richard III’s face had morphed into a far more saturnine and devious image than the British experts imagined.
Though every one of Madeleine’s staff was practically a genius in a particular discipline, and though each person was proud of being an independent thinker, not one could have articulated how they’d been brought around to share their boss’s exact vision while thinking it was their own. Her stories of
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