Revenge Read Free Page B

patch of woodland half a mile south of the town, “when the Yorkists are gone, I will go in search of my kin on the battlefield.”
    “You can’t mean it,” said Henry, glancing nervously over his armoured shoulder. The din of battle was getting closer. Trumpet-blasts and throbbing drums mingled with the shouts of men, the neighing of horses and the clatter of harness and weapons.
    “I do,” James replied firmly, “my mind is set. I cannot abandon them. God would never forgive me.”
    Or my mother , he thought. The notion of returning home to Heydon Court and informing Dame Anne, the stern matriarch of the Bolton clan, that he had left his father and brother to their fate, was more than enough to pour a little steel into his spine.
    Henry’s broad face was a mask of indecision, and he seemed torn between a desire to flee and the preservation of his own interests. “To the woods, then,” he said at last.
    They rode to the trees and waited there, crouching in wet undergrowth while dark clouds billowed across the sky. The sound of Yorkist troops plundering Market Drayton carried on long into the night. Predictably, the soldiers broke into the taverns and wine-shops first, and very soon became uncontrollably drunk.
    When some hours had passed, and the noise had lessened somewhat, Henry touched James’ arm.
    “Time to go,” he mouthed. Moving as quietly as possible, they untethered their horses and stole out from under the trees.
    “Stay close to me,” whispered Henry as he mounted his destrier. “I will guard you, if I can.”
    James nodded and clambered stiffly aboard his pony. As they set off east towards the battlefield, he heard the shrill cry of a kite circling far overhead.
    There will be more of those carrion-eaters hereabouts, he thought, but whose flesh will they be picking at? No flesh of mine. Please God, no flesh of mine.
     
    3.
     
    Heydon Court, Staffordshire
     
    Mary Bolton raced up the steps onto the parapet of the outer wall. The sentry, a one-eyed veteran named Nicholas Mauley, pointed to the sad little party emerging from the misted fields south of the house.
    She saw her eldest brother, Richard, slung like a peddler’s pack over the saddle-bow of a grey pony. The sight of him, grey-faced and insensible, his torso swathed in bloodstained bandages, made the breath catch in her throat.
    Her second brother James, the chaplain of Cromford, led the pony on foot. She heard her mother storming into the courtyard below and ordering her steward to unfasten the gates.
    There was another man with them, a knight in soiled harness and mounted on a weary, plodding destrier. At first she thought he was her father, which was some comfort, but then she saw the sigil on his surcoat: not the hawk of Bolton, but the leaping stag of their neighbour, Henry of Sedgley.
    She coloured. Henry had often been at Heydon Court in recent times, making eyes at her and feigning interest in talk of farming and rent-rolls with her father. Mary was fond of him, though careful not to encourage his advances. She was already betrothed to another of their neighbours, a gentleman named John Huntley.
    “Where is Father?” Mary cried. “Why is he not with them?”
    Mauley, who had followed her onto the walkway, said gravely that he knew not, and that she had better go down. The burly old soldier was a calming, dependable presence. Shaken as she was, Mary allowed him to take her arm and help her down the steps.
    Her brothers and Henry passed through the gates and into the yard, where Dame Anne received them at the head of a crowd of servants. The third and youngest of Mary’s brothers, Martin, just six years old, clung tightly to his mother’s skirts, his face pale as fresh milk as he gazed at the soiled and bloodstained figure slung over the back of the pony.
    Ever the practical mistress of the household, Dame Anne did not scream or faint at the sight of Richard so close to death, but instructed two of the grooms to carry him into