Read The Rose of York: Love & War for Free Online

stood awkwardly in their midst as if he’d lost his way. Suddenly, she wanted to make him feel better. Forgetting her manners for the first time in her seven years, she said, “I have a pet squirrel. He eats marchpane out of my hand. Would you care to see, my lord?”
    Richard was startled by the breach of etiquette, but even more by the sound of her voice, which was as sweet as the song of the lark on the morning air.
    The Earl of Warwick swung around at the interruption.
    “Very much, my lady,” Richard replied hastily, before Warwick could censure Anne. “If your gracious lord father permits?” He looked up innocently.
    Warwick knitted his thick eyebrows together, obviously torn between his desire to be a gracious host and the need to reprimand his daughter. “Is the Duke not tired from his journey and in need of refreshment? We have a table prepared.” He motioned to the dais, which was laden with silver trenchers, fruit and wine.
    In as firm and grown-up a voice as he could manage, Richard replied, “My lord, I am not very hungry or tired, although I’ve been riding a long time. I’d enjoy meeting the squirrel.”
    Anne grabbed Richard’s hand with excitement.
    “Nay, lady,” said the great Warwick sternly. “I believe your friend lives on the moors…”
    Anne’s smile faded. She looked up at her father with anxious violet eyes.
    “Therefore,” the Earl of Warwick continued, “it will be necessary to change your dress.”
    With a shriek of delight, Anne pulled Richard by the hand and out of the hall.
     
    ~*~
     
    Later that afternoon, wearing the crimson and royal blue colours of the House of York, Richard was escorted to the tiltyard by the Master of Henchmen and introduced to Warwick’s thirteen other apprentices in knighthood. They all came from noble families whose names Richard recognised, and they were all much taller. Richard’s discomfort grew as he joined them around a table outfitted with a variety of vicious weapons, terrifying in spite of their blunted ends. Panic flooded him. He wanted to run back to London.
    “Have you chosen your weapon yet?” inquired a rusty-haired boy, whom Richard knew to be Robert Percy. Richard shook his head. A Percy was a strange sight in a Neville household, since the Percys and the Nevilles were bitter enemies, but the fellow, whose load of freckles reminded Richard of himself when he’d caught the pox, no doubt came from a branch estranged from the main line. Such a thing was not uncommon. Warwick himself had an irreconcilable feud with his cousin, Sir Humphrey Neville, a staunch Lancastrian and even stauncher foe.
    “I suggest the battleaxe,” whispered another boy who bore the emblem of a hound on his breast. This was Francis Lovell, whom Richard knew to be fatherless, like him. He had a swath of wavy dark hair that fell over his forehead, and deep brown eyes that reminded Richard of a troubadour. The boy added, “Since it’s your first time, ’tis a bit easier than the mace.”
    Richard nodded his thanks. The troubadour moved ahead in line with a jerky gait. Richard was stunned. He had a club foot! How could he even think of making knight? Admiration and a sense of kinship flooded him. They were both reaching for the same dream against great odds, and they were both outsiders. Except Francis wore his difference like a badge in plain sight, and his own lay hidden, a secret fear that stirred in the murky waters of his mind and which he suppressed by force of will. It was at night, when he lost control over his thoughts, that his demon emerged to haunt his dreams and accuse him of being a bastard.
    As far back as Richard could remember, he’d suspected he was no Plantagenet. In a family of blonds, he was dark. His brothers were all young lions: large-boned and self-confident. He was short, puny, unsure of himself, and ill at ease in a world in which he found no true place. Yet his problems paled next to the troubadour’s, for they were in his head