The Rose of York Read Free Page A

his knuckles raw, near frozen. But it wasn’t the cold that chilled him. It was his mother’s loss of composure. He didn’t really understand the struggles between York and Lancaster for the throne of England, but he knew that the way his father had died had changed the rules.
    “Make haste, Dickon,” Warwick shouted, his voice ringing out of the darkness ahead. “ She’s not far behind, I warrant.”
    Richard didn’t want to hurt Galahad by digging in his spurs, but it wouldn’t be good for Galahad, either, if the Queen caught him. Nurse had said that the queen would chop him up and feed him to her hounds because he was a Yorkist horse.
    Galahad plunged ahead. Richard whipped his head around to steal a terrified glance behind him. There was no sign of the queen, only a sea of bobbing torches and his cousin’s bodyguard of eighty strong in their jackets of Neville scarlet bearing Warwick’s badge of the Bear and Ragged Staff, their taut faces illuminated in the flames, their breath frosting the night.
    Only when he was neck-to-neck with George did Richard dare slow Galahad again. He always felt better with George. George had all the answers and knew no fear.
    “Will we make it, George?” Richard rasped, nearly choking on splatters of frozen mud kicked up by the horse’s galloping hoofs.
    “To Sandwich, aye…”
    “And Burgundy?”
    “Depends,” George panted, “on our cousin Warwick.”
 
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Chapter 2
     
    “Descending thro’ the dismal night—a night
In which the bounds of Heaven and earth were lost…”
     
     
    The storm struck without warning.
    In the bow below the high deck and still higher forecastle of Warwick’s Grace a Dieu , where he and George had been ordered to stay, Richard huddled between a chest nailed to the floor and a barrel of wine lashed to the wall. No one had told him, but he knew with sudden clarity, that dragons lived in the sea, and they’d all risen at once, thousands of them, to churn the waters up from the depths and drown the sky. He clutched the iron latch tight and dug his fingernails into his palm to keep himself from screaming. His stomach heaved one way and his head another, and terror pumped his heart so hard it banged in his chest like a wild bird caged. Nor did it help that the air was foul and smelled of tar, sewage and sweat. He wanted to retch. He wanted Nurse to hold him and comfort him. He wanted to shriek and kick the walls as Galahad was doing in his corner stall nearby, and like the other horses at the stern of the vessel. But if he did, George would never let him hear the end of it. He held his breath and bit down until his teeth hurt. How he admired George! Even storms and dragons couldn’t frighten him. He had tied himself to the port railing with a strong hemp rope, which let him move around without danger of being swept overboard, so that he could watch the churning sea. Gripping a timber post, he peered out through slits in the gilded trelliswork that decorated the bowsprit on the port and starboard sides.
    “Holy Saint Michael and the Angels!” cried George, throwing Richard a glance as he cowered in the shadow of the lantern that swayed from a beam in the ceiling. “The seas are white, Dickon— white ! White as the milk Nurse makes us drink.” Even in the dim light, Richard could see the wonder in his eyes. He couldn’t be sure, but he didn’t think a white sea was a good sign. Seas were not supposed to be white.
    “Are we going to sink, George?”
    “The Grace a Dieu can’t sink, you dullard! Look at all the decks it has, and all the carvings.”
    “Really?”
    “Dickon, don’t you know anything? Cousin Warwick never takes half measures. This is the best ship in the world—and the biggest. A hundred feet long, for Christ sake, with three masts instead of two, and sides five feet thick, and sails of the most costly Genoa linen gold can…”
    A great wave cut George off. Water crashed over the poop with the sound of a