The Rose of York: Love & War by Sandra Worth Read Free Book Online Page A

offered.
    In spite of his heaviness, John smiled. In some ways the little lord who thought himself a man still retained the innocence of childhood. “Aye, like Sir Galahad, and all King Arthur’s men who burned to right the wrongs in their path.” He picked up another pebble and threw it over the cliff, noting that Richard copied him. “Sometimes I think first-borns are like gaudy peacocks, and we younger sons like dowdy wrens. No matter what they do, the world will applaud and admire, and no matter what we do, the world will as likely forget us.”
    “So we’re useless?” demanded Richard. In his royal blue tunic, with his sun-bronzed face and tawny-gold hair, John looked anything but a dowdy wren.
    “Nay, fair cousin. No man is useless who betters the lot of others. We can never turn our feathers to flame and jewel colour like our older brothers. But if we’re true knights, and let honour and conscience guide our lives, we’ll face God without shame when the time comes, and that is the best any man can do.”
    Richard burst out passionately, “But what if you can’t be a knight?”
    “You’re a knight already. A Knight of the Bath, knighted by the King himself on his coronation day.”
    Richard averted his face. Hungering for a win, he’d trained hard for his first mock tournament, rising long before the castle stirred and stealing away to the woods to practise his tiltyard routine in rain and cold. Winning would have helped him shoulder the memory that had haunted him since Ludlow: that, scared witless, he had wet himself like a babe. A year later, Edward had dubbed him knight and had handed him his golden spurs. The solemn pride of the ceremony had made him dream of redemption, of erasing his shame. The old archbishop’s words still echoed in his heart: A knight must throw down his gauntlet to the Devil and fight for right against the servants of sin. Whether you win or lose matters not, only whether you follow the quest. Remember that virtue always prevails.
    “I’m not a real knight,” said Richard. “’Tis hopeless.”
    John rested a hand on Richard’s shoulder. “Nothing is ever hopeless, Dickon. You fought well. An accident threw you— you tripped on a rock and fell, is all. ’Tis only your first year in training. Power comes from speed and leverage, and can be taught. It’s heart that makes the difference. And that you have.”
    Richard knitted his brows together. “‘Heart’?”
    “Resolve, Dickon. Have you never seen a mother wren defend her nest against a cat? Or a wounded boar attack a man in armour? It’s will that gives them strength to drive off the enemy.” John gave him an irresistible smile. “You’re as fierce and determined as a boar. Before you’re through, you’ll throw a man twice your size.”
    “Do you really think so, Cousin John?”
    “I do. Never look back on your failures, Dickon. It matters little how we begin, provided we are resolved to go on well— and end well. ’Tis not what you were that matters. ’Tis what you will become.”
    Richard had a wonderful thought. Maybe courage was contagious and he would be like John one day! “You’re as a brother to me,” he blurted.
    “Aye, we’re much alike, we four Nevilles and you four Plantagenets,” John laughed. “We’ve two Georges and two Richards among us, and all are fair except for you and Thomas…” Again his dead brother Thomas had slipped into his speech as if he still lived, and suddenly all joy left him. “Much alike… We share the same blood and our lives seem to take the same turns. Four brothers are made three, and our fathers dead on the same day, struck down by the same accursed hand: the Frenchwoman who calls herself our queen.”
    Gone was John’s smile. His eyes were dark with emotion and a muscle quivered at his jaw. Aye , Richard thought, blood and loss unites us .
    “Knights of yore exchanged rings and mingled blood to seal their bond,” Richard said. “My fair cousin of