Strongbow Read Free

love your little sister enough to make up to her for not having a father’s love, Richard,’ she told me. Her voice was no more than a whisper.
    I grabbed her hand and held it tight. It was very cold. ‘How can I do that, Mother?’
    ‘With all your heart, Richard. With all your heart.’
    Shortly after my baby sister was christened Basilia, my mother died. I don’t know what killed her.
    Perhaps it was just a lack of flowers.
    Life was harder for me after that. I had to practise fighting all the time. Father assigned me a training master who taught me to use the sword and ride a horse. At first I didn’t like horses. I was put onto a giant black animal with huge legs, and the ground was so far away my mouth went dry. When the horse started to move I couldn’t make it stop and I cried out.
    The training master took me off the horse and beat me with a strap. Then he put me back in the saddle. I didn’t cry out again.
    In time, I learned to ride. I think the horse felt sorry for me. But as soon as we became friends, it was taken away and I was given another one, bigger, harder to ride, and the training went on.
    At night I crept into bed, aching all over.
    Sometimes I went first to the nursery where my baby sister lived. It helped to visit her before I went to sleep. It helped to hold her in my arms – while her nurse watched and frowned, afraid I’d drop her.
    ‘Basilia,’ I whispered, ‘I’m sore and tired and afraid. But I can’t tell anybody. Except you.’
    She smelled sweet, the way babies do, and she always smiled at me and waved her little hands. She was as gentle as our mother had been. She might not understand my words, but she knew I loved her.
    I loved her with all my heart. Basilia was my friend, my safe place.
    By the time I was fourteen I had hands as hard as cured leather. I was nothing but muscle and bone, and the muscles were hard, too. I went to bed afraid and woke up afraid. At night I was afraid the Welsh would attack us while we slept, and in the morning I was afraid of the training master.
    When I was fifteen, my father took me to my first battle.
    We were trying to sneak up on a company of Welshmen in a deep,narrow valley near the border. Great dark pine trees marched like soldiers up the slopes on either side. In my memory I can still smell them. Their smell was sweet, like the smoke coming from the enemy’s cooking fire.
    They didn’t know we were closing in on them. My father was in the lead, on his horse, with the rest of us on foot following him. When his scouts told him the Welsh were half a mile away, he dismounted and walked with us.
    ‘Will there be a big battle?’ I asked him. My heart was beating very fast.
    ‘I hope so.’ His voice was cold and grim. ‘It’s time you learned about battle.’
    There were two score of us, I think – forty men or so. But suddenly I felt alone. I tried to move closer to my father. He shrugged his shoulder as if he wanted to shake me off. ‘Don’t crowd me,’ he said. ‘I need space around me to use my weapons.’
    I dropped back a step, but he turned around and I could feel him glaring at me, even if I couldn’t see his face. I couldn’t see anyone’s face. We all wore heavy iron helmets that covered our noses and cheekbones and had slits like arrowslits for our eyes.
    ‘Stay in the front line!’ my father barked at me. His voice echoed inside his helmet. ‘Don’t fall back like a coward! And whatever happens, Richard, follow my banner!’
    We began making our way among the trees. Sometimes I couldn’t see the banner, or the man who was carrying it for Father. I was afraid Father would yell at me for losing sight of it.
    It was hot inside the helmet, though the day was cold. Sweat ran down my forehead and into my eyes, making them sting. But I couldn’t take off the helmet to wipe it away.
    Then, through the slits, I had my first sight of the enemy. The wild Welsh. They were sitting around a campfire, and a deer was roasting on