Wars of the Roses: Bloodline: Book 3 (The Wars of the Roses) Read Free Page A

occupation, to demand redress for a grudge, openly or on the sly. Somehow, those they offended were meant to play along, to duck and weave as best they could until the natural order was restored and they were found beaten senseless, or perhaps with fingers or ears cropped short.
    There was something about getting older that had stolen away Derry’s patience with that sort of game. He knew if Somerset sent a couple of rough lads to liven him up a little, his reply would be to cut the duke’s throat one night. If Derry Brewer had learned anything in the years of war, it was that dukes and earls died as easily as commoners.
    That thought brought a vision of Somerset’s father, cut down in the street at St Albans. The old duke had been a lion. They’d had to break him, because he would not yield.
    ‘God keep you, old son,’ Derry muttered. ‘Damn it. All
right
, for you, he’s safe from me. Just keep the preening bugger out of my way, though, would you?’ He raised his eyes to the sky and breathed deeply, hoping the soul of his old friend could hear him.
    Derry could smell char and ash on the air, touching him in the back of the throat like a waxed finger. Their outriders made new lines of smoke and pain rise ahead of them, dragging joints and salted heads from barns, or proddingforth live bulls to be slaughtered in the road. At the end of each day, the queen’s column would reach the furthest points of the sweeps ahead. They’d have marched eighteen or twenty miles, and for the sight of a flapping capon to be cooked and gnawed to the split bones, they’d be blind to a few more manors or villages burned, with all sins hidden in flames and soot. Fifteen thousand men had to eat, Derry knew that, or the queen’s army would dwindle away on the road, deserting and dying in the green ditches. Still, it sat hard with him.
    The spymaster glowered as he rode along, reaching down to pat the neck of Retribution, the first and only horse he had ever owned. The elderly animal turned its head to peer up at him, looking for a carrot. Derry showed his empty hands and Retribution lost interest. Ahead, the queen and her son rode with a dozen lords, still stiff with pride, though it had been weeks since the fall of York at Wakefield. The sweep to the south was no great rush to vengeance, but a measured movement of forces, with letters borne away to supporters and enemies every morning. London lay ahead and Margaret did not want her husband quietly murdered as she approached.
    Getting the king back alive would be no easy task, Derry was certain of that much. Earl Warwick had lost his father at Sandal Castle. As the land was still frozen and the nights long, Warwick would still be about as raw with grief as York’s own son, Edward. Two angry young men had lost their fathers in the same battle – and King Henry’s fate lay in their hands.
    Derry shuddered, remembering York’s cry at the moment of his execution: that all they had done was unleash the sons. He shook his head, wiping cold snotfrom where it had dribbled on to his top lip and set hard. The old guard was passing from the world, one by one. Those left to stand in their places were not so fine a breed, as far as Derry Brewer could tell. The best men were all in the ground.
    A gusting wind battered the sides of the tent as Warwick faced his two brothers, raising his cup.
    ‘To our father,’ he said.
    John Neville and Bishop George Neville echoed the words and drank, though the wine was cold and the day colder. Warwick closed his eyes in brief prayer for his father’s soul. All around them, the wind snapped and fluttered the canvas, making it seem as if they were assailed on all sides, the very centre of the gale.
    ‘What sort of a madman goes to war in winter, eh?’ Warwick said. ‘This wine is poor stuff, but the rest is all drunk. At least it gives me joy to be with you two great louts, with no
pretence
. I
miss
the old man.’
    He had intended to continue, but a sudden