Ravenspur: Rise of the Tudors Read Online Free Page B

rescued a little owl, watchful and still.

2
    Warwick’s mouth tightened in worry. King Henry stood before the London crowd, looking across the city from the height of the Tower walls. There was a cold wind up there and Warwick repressed a wince at how frail the king had become. Henry of Lancaster had been broken, emptied by the years of his life. Though the king had been dressed that morning in fine embroidered cloth and a thick cloak, Warwick knew the poor fellow was just bones underneath. In fact, the cloak seemed to weigh the king down, so that he was more hunched and bowed than ever. Henry shivered constantly, his hands shaking as if he had an ague or an old man’s palsy. When the cloak fell back to his elbow, it revealed no swell of muscle but a forearm of uniform width, just twin flattish bones, sheathed in skin and veins.
    Standing by Warwick and the king, Derry Brewer stared down at the heaving crowd. Like the king himself, the spymaster was not the man he had been. He walked with the aid of a stick and peered at the world from just one, gleaming eye. The scars that had replaced the other were hidden by a strip of boiled leather. In turn, that had rubbed away Brewer’s hair as it moulded itself to his scalp, so that it creaked and shifted against bare skin. Warwick shuddered to look at the pair of them and Brewer sensed it, turning his head and catching the edge of a younger man’s disgust.
    ‘We make a fine sight, don’t we, son?’ Brewer said softly. ‘Me with one eye ruined, one leg that don’t work and so many scars I feel like I’m wrapped in cloth, the way they pull. Idon’t complain though, have you noticed? No, I’m like a rock, me, like St Peter. Perhaps I’ll change my name to remind people. Here stands Peter Brewer – and on this rock I will rebuild my kingdom.’
    The king’s spymaster chuckled sourly to himself.
    ‘And King Harry Sextus here, still about as unmarked as a newborn lamb. No! I recall one. He took a wound up on the hill at St Albans, do you remember that, my lord?’
    Warwick nodded slowly, knowing Brewer was prodding at him for old times.
    ‘You do?’ Derry said, his voice hardening. ‘You
should
, seeing as it was your order – and your archers that made the shot. You were the enemy then, Richard Neville, Earl of bleeding Warwick. I remember you.’ He shook his head in irritation, recalling a better year than the one he knew lay ahead, with every day begun in pain.
    ‘Beyond that scratch, I don’t believe King Henry has taken another scar, not in all the years I have known him. Is that not strange to think upon? A king wounded only once, but the arrow was yours – and it broke him, I’ll tell you now. He was cracked all over like an old jug, woken from his stupor, but weak and frail, barely able to stand in his armour. That arrow of yours was like dropping that jug on to a stone floor.’ To Warwick’s discomfort, the king’s spymaster touched his hand to his missing eye, scratching an itch or rubbing away a shine of tears, it was impossible to tell. Brewer went on in sudden anger, gesturing at the crowd.
    ‘Oh, these cheering people! They make such a bloody noise! Yet they are calling out to an empty man. I tell you, Richard, I would rather have all my scars and one good eye than lose my wits. Eh?’
    Warwick nodded in response, wary of the man’s bright gaze.
    ‘Perhaps you and King Henry make one man between you,’ he said. ‘Your wits and his form.’
    Derry Brewer blinked at him.
    ‘What’s that? You saying I’m not a man? That I’m less than a man?’
    ‘No … I meant it lightly, Master Brewer.’
    ‘Oh yes? I’m willing to give you a turn right now, if you think you’re more a man than me. I’ll knock you
out
, son. I have a few tricks yet.’
    ‘Of course you have,’ Warwick said. ‘I meant no insult.’ He could feel his cheeks growing warm and of course Derry Brewer noticed that as well.
    ‘Don’t be afraid, my lord, I wouldn’t hurt