Ravenspur: Rise of the Tudors Read Free

better choice when we had the chance.’ He took heart from the earl’s silence, feeling that the young man was at least not yelling curses and threats.
    ‘Edward of York is away in the north, my lord, far from his armies and palaces. And now it is too late for him!’ Jasper went on proudly, making his voice ring out for all ears. ‘Warwick is returned to England! With a vast host raised in Kent and Sussex, aye, and France. Men such as he have even kings bend close to listen when they speak. They are a different breed to you and me, my lord. Look you, Earl Warwick will bring Henry of Lancaster from the Tower to rule again.
There
is your rightful king – and he is my half-brother! Now, I would like to take my nephew to London, my lord. I ask you to pass him into my care, in good faith and in trust of your mercy. I will repay your father’s investment in him, though it be all I have.’
    While they had spoken, torches and shuttered lamps had appeared along the walls, seeming to snatch away the last of the day’s light. Lit by a flickering gold, William Herbert waited only an instant when the entreaty came to an end.
    ‘No,’ he called down. ‘There’s my answer. No, Tudor. You’ll have nothing from my hand.’ The earl was enjoying his power over the ragged man at his gate. ‘Though I might have my men take your coins from you, if that was not one of your lies. Are you not a brigand on my road? How many have you robbed and murdered to gather so much coin, Tudor? You Welsh hedge-lords are all thieves, it’s well known.’
    ‘Are you so much a
fool
, boy?’ Jasper Tudor roared up at the younger man, making him splutter in outrage. ‘I have told you the tide has turned! I came to you with an open hand, with a fair offer. Yet you bleat at me and threaten me still, from behind the safety of your walls? Is that your couragethen, in the stone under your hands? If you will not give up my nephew, then open your ears, boy! I will put you under the cold ground if you harm him in any way. Do you understand me? Deep under the earth.’ Though he spoke in apparent rage, Jasper Tudor shot a glance to the fourteen-year-old nephew watching him from the battlements further down the wall. He held his nephew’s gaze until he sensed William Herbert craning round to see what had caught his attention. The face vanished. Jasper could only hope his message had been understood.
    ‘Serjeant Thomas!’ the young Earl of Pembroke called in imperious tones. ‘Take half a dozen men and ride down this brigand on my road. He has not shown sufficient respect to a king’s earl. Be thou
ungentle
with this Welsh bastard. Spring a little blood from him, then fetch him back to me for punishment.’
    Jasper cursed under his breath as great thumps and cracks sounded within the castle gatehouse, along with the rattle of enormous chains. Soldiers raced up to the walls on all sides to check the environs for any force in hiding. Some of them carried crossbows and Jasper Tudor could feel their cold gazes crawling over him. It did not matter that one or two might have been his own men, from years before. They had a new master. He shook his head in anger, wheeling his horse and digging in his heels so that the animal bunched and lunged down the open road. No bolts sprang after him into the darkness. They wanted him alive.
    Leaning out as far as he dared between the stones, Henry Tudor had stared at the rider, thin and defiant before the gatehouse of Pembroke, sitting like a beggar on a dark horse and yet daring to challenge the new earl. The black-haired boy had no memory of his uncle and would not have beenable to pick him from a crowd if William Herbert hadn’t called him Tudor. All he knew was that Uncle Jasper had fought for King Henry, for Lancaster, in towns so distant they were just names.
    Henry had drunk in the sight of his blood relative, risking a fall to hear every word, gripping the rough stones he knew so well. He had been born in Pembroke,