The Dragon and the Rose Read Free Page B

Edward landed in Yorkshire.
    Jasper fled to Wales to raise an army, taking Henry and Margaret with him. They did not ride fast enough. Just before Chepstow, Henry turned to the thunder of hooves, becoming alarmed when he saw an unfamiliar look of indecision on his uncle's face. The party following them were enemies! Henry's eyes flew to his mother, but Margaret's face had blanched and her hands held tight to the reins. Their horses were tired and there was no safe haven.
    Henry shook with mingled fear and rage. That anyone should seek to harm him was incredible. In the fourteen years of his life, he had known only kindness. Even Lord Herbert, who had scared him at first, proved to be kind and protective. Over the pounding of his heart he could hear Jasper calling orders. The men-at-arms formed ranks, and he pulled into line with them. After that, all was confusion—a pounding of hooves, shouts mingled with screams and groans, the bright flash of steel, and spurts and streaks of red.
    Later, three men lay still in the road. A riderless horse careened wildly with one shoulder dyed an unnatural color, but, in the distance, the horses' rumps waddled as the attackers fled. Henry laughed aloud at the sight. It was the final ignominy of defeat, that one should appear comical. Yet a hasty glance backward showed those three still forms. Death was not comical. The three looked lonely and unprotected on the open road.
    At Chepstow they were admitted only after Jasper swore they would purchase horses and pass on. Events became vignettes set into periods of numbness for Henry. He was wakened once by his mother's fervent embrace. He heard Jasper snarl at her in an unnaturally gruff voice.
    "But, Jasper, he is hurt." Margaret was weeping as he had never seen her.
    Henry looked down at himself and saw his right hand and arm colored an ugly red-brown. The ease of his own laugh, the naturalness of his voice, surprised him. "Nay, the blood is not mine."
    "Harry, Harry, I am proud of you." Jasper's voice was, too loud. He clapped him on the shoulder so hard that Henry staggered. "You are a man blooded this day."
    Later, his mother's cry broke into his half sleep once again.
    "No, Jasper, not that—you had it from the king!" His uncle was seated at a table counting coins with a worried frown, stripping the rings from his fingers. He had raised his hands to unhook the heavy gold collar of S's, when Margaret cried out. Now she pulled off her own rings and whispered breathlessly, "Take them, take them. What need will I have for jewels now?"
    When there were fresh horses, they rode on. Henry prided himself on being a horseman. He could ride the longest, hardest hunt with the best, but this was different. When the horses were tired, they dismounted, changed their saddles to other mounts and rode again. Henry reeled, looped the reins about his left wrist and clung to the pommel with his free hand. Through eyes almost blind with fatigue, he preserved one clear picture: his mother cradled in Jasper's arms, her cheek marked by the cruel mail shirt, weeping, weeping; and above her bent head, his uncle's face twisted with fear.
    The weight of that fear lightened when they were willingly received at Pembroke. Margaret and Henry passed some quiet days there while Jasper rode out to rally his countrymen. Henry now slept in the great bed that had been his father's when in Jasper's castle, but he did not sleep peacefully. There was an airless, waiting quality to the quiet that boded ill. Henry lay in the great bed and trembled. Evil was corning, and he was afraid.
    After the battle at Barnet on April 14, where Henry VI was again made captive, the days passed like the wains of the peasants, slowly and with creaks and groans as accompaniment. The news of the battle of Tewkesbury reached them through a messenger from Margaret's husband. The queen had been taken; the prince, Henry VI's heir, was dead. The Lancastrian cause lay dead, too, murdered along with sixteen