Rosamund Read Online Free PDF

sheep markets in the nearby town. She had a keen eye for horseflesh, and had even begun to breed animals for later sale.
    Rosamund also took an interest in her great flocks of sheep. Unlike many farms that sold their raw wool to brokers, Friarsgate kept theirs. After the animals were sheared, the wool was washed, dried, combed, and carded twice in order to make the wool extra fine, and hence more valuable in the marketplaces of York and London. Next the wool was dyed. There was a lovely golden brown, a fine red, and a green, but Friarsgate wool was known for an exquisite blue color that no one else seemed capable of duplicating. It was unique to Rosamund’s estate, and highly prized. As mistress of Friarsgate the formula for Friarsgate Blue was entrusted to Rosamund by her uncle Edmund. It was his gift to her upon hertenth birthday, when he told her that she was old enough to know. But it was important that the secret remain with her alone, until she felt it could be passed on to the next heir, or heiress, to Friarsgate.
    Rosamund nodded somberly, understanding the importance of what Edmund was imparting to her. “I may share my knowledge with no one?” she asked quietly.
    “No one,” Edmund repeated.
    “How do we get our colors so clear and bright, uncle?” she asked him. “I have seen other wools, and they are not at all as fine as ours are. How is it done? Is it the formula for the dyes?”
    Edmund chuckled. “We set the colors with sheep urine, lass,” he told her, grinning. “That is the secret of the blue color, too. It is darker in the dye vat, but once we move it into the pee, it turns that fabled color so highly prized.”
    Rosamund laughed, too. It was so simple, and an absolutely delicious secret. She wished briefly that she might share the secret with Hugh, but she knew she would not.
    Once the wool was dyed it was distributed among the cottages to be spun on the looms kept in a separate room in each weaver’s home. This kept the wool from being impregnated by smoke, or food odors, or heat, which might turn the delicate colors. The long strands of the wool were woven into an extra-fine cloth that was highly prized and greatly sought after. The shorter bits were turned to a fine felt.
    Rosamund learned all of the processes, and she was very proud of her knowledge. Hugh and Edmund were proud of her, too. The child who they both treasured was growing into a young woman whose passion for knowledge could not be quenched. It disturbed them that they had nothing more to teach her.
    The winter before her thirteenth birthday Hugh Cabot fell ill with an ague. He was slow to recover. It was that spring that Henry Bolton chose to pay a visit to Friarsgate. It was the first he had made in several years. He was accompanied by his eldest son, five-year-old Henry. The oddly coincidental timing of his visit made Rosamund suspicious that she had a spy among her servants.
    “Find out,” she curtly instructed her uncle Edmund.
    Henry Bolton eyed his niece critically. She was tall, and no longer had a childish look about her. “How old are you now, girl?” he demanded, noting how her blue wool gown with its long tight sleeves clung to newly budding breasts. She was ripening, he considered nervously.
    “You are most welcome to Friarsgate, uncle, ” Rosamund swept him a rather elegant curtsy. “I shall be thirteen in a few weeks.” She waved her hand gracefully. “Come into the hall for some refreshment.” Then, turning, she led the way, her blue skirts swinging behind her as she walked. “And how is my aunt?” she inquired politely. “Doll, bring wine for my uncle and cider for his little lad,” she ordered a serving woman.
    “I am to be your husband, girl!” the little boy announced loudly. He was small, Rosamund thought, for a child of five. He had his mother’s blond hair and bovine look. There was nothing, she thought, that was Bolton about him, but perhaps the set of his jaw, reminded her strongly of