The Rose of York: Love & War Read Online Free PDF Page A

hour of Sext, nine-year-old Richard ascended the steep slope to Middleham Castle’s east gate. His cavalcade of knights followed, horse hoofs clattering and harness bells jingling. For three hundred years this northern castle, which the Earl of Warwick favoured above his many others, had dominated the rolling hills and meadows of Wensleydale. Richard had expected an imposing grey fortress, not the pearly jewel-box framed against the azure sky, and he stared, as wonderstruck as when he first crossed the River Trent.
    His journey from London had unfolded a North that was like a song. There was music in the rustle of aspen leaves, the rushing of rivers, the thundering of waterfalls. Winds swept the endless moors and dales with a loud roaring in the ears, bending low wildflowers, heather and flowering may. Even birds sang a fiercer note in the North and wheeled with wilder freedom.
    He drew a deep breath and inhaled the scented air of May. He had feared leaving London, for London was familiar and safe, but now he didn’t care to see London ever again with its crowded streets and evil smells. As his brother Edward had said—King Edward the Fourth (he would never get used to thinking of him as King )—Middleham Castle lay in the loveliest part of England, Wensleydale: the heart of North Yorkshire near the Rivers Ure and Cover.
    Richard squinted expectantly into the sun. Pennants fluttered from the turrets but Warwick’s Bear and Ragged Staff was merely a splash of scarlet and gold in the distance. His herald galloped ahead to trumpet his approach. In spite of his excitement he was seized with fright. What if he disappointed his cousin? He held no hint of another Edward, and Warwick would be shocked at how little he’d grown since Burgundy. To worsen matters, a spring shower had soiled his grey velvet doublet and his boots were caked with mud from the journey. He looked like a stray cat.
    Richard flushed with shame, remembering how disgusted Warwick had been with him on that night two years ago when they’d fled for Burgundy. A snivelling coward , he’d called him. Warwick was right. Only cowards were afraid, and since Ludlow and the storm at sea, his own shadow could send him trembling like custard pudding. He hated being afraid. It was as though he’d been born with a piece missing—a hole in his gut where his courage should be. If only he hadn’t asked to come. If only Edward hadn’t agreed to send him! But Edward had agreed, and heartily so. With a slap on the back that nearly felled him, Edward had declared it was time he left Nurse and his sister Meg to be with men, lest the constant companionship of women weaken his character.
    Richard glanced up at the captain of his guard anxiously.
    “Did you know,” said Sir John Howard, his broad face creasing into one of his easy smiles, “that it was right here, in your royal cousin Warwick’s household, that King Edward learned to be a great knight? And so shall you, m’lord.” He was a powerful warrior and one of Edward’s most favoured knights, a jolly man with a wavy mane that the years had darkened from yolk to amber and dusted with silver. Richard thought of him as Sir Friendly Lion.
    But his words brought no comfort. Though Edward had knighted him on his return from Burgundy, Richard didn’t feel like a knight. He couldn’t wield a sword, and if he didn’t grow, he might never manage it. Then he’d never sit at the Round Table that Edward had promised him he’d bring back. Tightening his hold on the reins of his palfrey, and chewing his lip as he did when he was nervous, he returned his gaze to the castle.
    They were less than a bow shot away. Kingmaker , people called his cousin Warwick, for it was Warwick’s support that had made Edward king. Kingmaker , too, because Warwick was richer and lived more like a king than Edward, who was always fretting about money, for Edward had many debts from the war he’d waged to win the throne from Henry of