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

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    The inn was growing less friendly as soldiers drank itdry. In the heave and crush, a red-haired stranger suddenly fell across their small table, lurching at Derry and saving himself with both arms held before him. The man gave a great shout of laughter. He was turning to complain to whoever had pushed him when he felt the line of cold metal Derry held across his throat and his voice choked off.
    ‘Careful there, son,’ Derry murmured in his ear. ‘On your way.’
    He gave the soldier a push and watched carefully as he vanished back into the crowd, eyes wide. Just an accident, then. Not one of those ‘accidents’ that are so tragic but ultimately the will of God, and what bad luck to have fallen on the blade, and Brewer’s in the cold, cold ground and we must go on with our happy lives, recalling him often and with fondness …
    ‘Brewer?’ Lovelace said, snapping his fingers in the air.
    Derry blinked irritably at him.
    ‘What is it? You’ve passed on your news – and if you’re telling the truth, it’s useful to me.’
    Lovelace leaned closer still, so that Derry could smell onions on his breath.
    ‘I did not betray “The Sailor” for nothing, Master Brewer. When you and I met at that tavern in Sheffield, you were very free with silver coins and promises.’ Lovelace took a deep breath, his voice trembling with hope. ‘I recall you mentioned the Earldom of Kent, as yet vacant, with no loyal man there to pass on taxes and tithes to the king. You told me then that even such a fine, sweet plum as that might be the reward for a man who delivered Warwick.’
    ‘I see,’ Derry replied. He waited just for devilment, as if he had not understood. In part it was because the foolishknight had used Warwick’s name yet again, even though they were so crowded about that men loomed over them and one had nearly ended up in Derry’s lap.
    ‘And I have done so!’ Lovelace said, growing red and swelling slightly about the neck and face. ‘Are your promises mere straws, then?’
    ‘I warned you to come to this camp with no banner, no surcoat or painted shield to be remembered. You walked through ten thousand men to reach this inn. Did even one of them take you by the arm and demand to know who you were?’
    Lovelace shook his head, unnerved by the intensity of the spymaster’s words.
    ‘And good knight, did it cross your mind that if you could come to me, I might have men wandering the camp you left behind? That I might have a number of fellows in the south, all carrying water and polishing armour – just watching and counting and remembering all the while? What, did you think I was blind without your eyes?’
    Derry watched the hope drain out of the knight in front of him, so that Lovelace sagged in his seat. To be made an earl, a king’s companion, well, it would have been an impossible fantasy for a common soldier, or even a knight with a manor house and a few tenant farms. Yet in times of war, stranger things had happened. Derry imagined Lovelace had a wife and children somewhere, all depending on his pay, his wits and perhaps a little luck.
    Poverty was a hard master. Derry regarded the crestfallen knight more closely, seeing the wear on his coat. He wondered if the straggling beard was just the result of not having coin to have it trimmed. Derry sighed to himself. When he’d been young, he’d have stood then,patted Lovelace on the shoulder and left him there to be beaten and robbed on his way out, or whatever might befall him.
    Instead, infuriatingly, Derry knew age had softened his hardest edges, so that he had begun to see and hear the pain of others – and hardly ever laugh at it any more. Perhaps it was time to retire. His three younger men were all ready to fight it out if he failed to come home one night. In theory, none of them knew the names of the others, but he would bet the last coin in his purse that they’d all found out. One good way to dodge a blow is to kill the man holding the