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

Channel to marry king Henry. At thirty, Margaret was still slim and clear-skinned, with long, brown hair bound into a single tress with red ribbon. With the rarity of just one pregnancy, she was no broken-backed old dray-mare like so many of her age. She had not lost the slender-muscled waist that made her lithe. For one who had known such pain and loss, Margaret had aged well, to any eye. Yet Derry saw with the experience of sixteen years at her side. There was a hardness in her, and he did not know whether to regret or rejoice in it. The loss of innocence was a powerful thing, especially to a woman. Yet what came after was always better cloth, for all the single red stains. Derry knew women hid such things each month. Perhaps that was the heart of women’s secrets and their inner lives. They had to hide blood – and they understood it.

3
     
    Derry Brewer felt the spiced wine warm his stomach and chest, easing some of his aches. The knight facing him nodded slowly and leaned back on his stool, fully aware of the importance of the news. They sat in the corner of a heaving taproom, with standing soldiers pressing in on all sides. The tavern was already down to foul beer and dregs, while hopeful men still looked in from the road.
    Derry had chosen the public inn for his meeting, knowing his noble masters understood little of his work. It did not appear to occur to them that a man might ride from one army to another and pass on absolutely vital information. Derry leaned back against the corner of oak boards, looking at Sir Arthur Lovelace, certainly his most prideful informant. Under Derry’s scrutiny, the little man smoothed down an ornate moustache that drooped over his lips and must have made every mouthful of food at least one part hair. They had met after the battle of Sandal, when Lovelace had been one of a hundred downcast knights and captains Derry had taken aside. He’d given a few coins to those who had none and a few words of advice to anyone who would listen. It helped that the spymaster was a retainer of King Henry. No one could doubt Brewer’s loyalty – or question the rightness of his cause, not after that victory.
    As a result of Derry’s encouragement, more than a few of York’s soldiers had been persuaded to loiter at Sheffieldfor the queen’s army, joining the very men they had been fighting against. It might have seemed madness, if men didn’t need to eat and to be paid. When it turned out they would not be paid, perhaps it was revealed as madness after all. Hundreds in that army had helped to sack towns loyal to York, just to fill their own bellies and pouches.
    Lovelace wore no colours, no surcoat or painted armour that would have had him marked and perhaps reported as he came through the camp. He’d been given a password and he knew to ask for Derry Brewer. That would have been enough to get him past inquisitive guards, but the truth was he’d come to the heart of Queen Margaret’s army without being challenged even once. On another day, it would have galled Derry Brewer and had him calling out the army captains to explain once
again
the importance of keeping spies and assassins from where they might do untold damage.
    Lovelace leaned forward, his voice an excited murmur. Derry could smell the man’s sweat as heat came off him almost as a glow. The knight had ridden hard to reach the king’s spymaster with what he knew.
    ‘What I have told you is
vital
, Master Brewer, do you understand? I have delivered Warwick to you, plucked and greased and tied in cords – all ready for the turning spit.’
    ‘The Sailor,’ Derry said absently as he thought. Warwick had been Captain of Calais for years at a time and was said to love the sea and the ships that sailed it. Lovelace had agreed not to use the names of important men, but of course the knight kept forgetting. At such times, Derry preferred to act as if his worst enemy was standing at his shoulder, ready to pass on whatever he could