Wars of the Roses: Bloodline: Book 3 (The Wars of the Roses) by Conn Iggulden Page A

Warwick’s brother John added. ‘To have her seen as she truly is? I would the whole country could know her as we do. As an honourless, faithless whore.’
    Warwick winced slightly. It was not that he didn’t agree with every word, but his younger brother was as brash and bluff in his way as Edward of York. There were times when neither man seemed to understand subtlety, as if a loud voice and a strong right arm were all a man needed. Warwick thought then of Derry Brewer and wondered if he still lived.
    ‘John,’ Warwick said, then added the title for a formal matter, ‘Lord Montagu – perhaps you should oversee the hand-gun training for your men. There is a new batch of eighty come in and I have no experts yet to teach the others. They are still too slow to load after a shot.’
    He saw his brother’s eyebrows rise in interest, the younger man intrigued by the extraordinary weapons coming out of the city. Warwick had spent silver in a vast torrent, with half the forges and foundries of London working all hours to supply his men. The results were still causing awe each morning as carts arrived by the dozen, often with some new contrivance of blades or black powder. Every day before dawn, ranks of his new ‘gunners’ trooped out with long weapons of iron and wood over their shoulders. They stood in ranks, pouring in heavy-grained powder, ramming home a ball, or pellets of lead, and then blocking the muzzle with a plug of wool to stop it all rolling back out. They were learning as they went, and God knew the weapons didn’t have anything like the range of a longbow. Warwick’s redcoat archers had been amongst the first to volunteer to try the guns, but by the end of the first day, to a man they had handed them all back and returned to their old weapons. It was the time between shots that had worried them, compared with stroking out arrows breath by breath. Yet Warwick had hopes for the guns as a defensive tool, to break a massed attack, say, or to unhorse a group of officers. He saw potential for them, used at exactly the right moment. The roar of sound they made was simply astonishing at close range. His first test-firing rank had dropped their own guns and bolted for cover at the thunder and fog. For that alone, he thought they might have a place on the field of war.
    John, Lord Montagu, touched his hand to his forelock. Warwick dipped his head in response, wishing he could feel the same excitement he saw in his brother. He had a stronger bond to John since their father’s death, that was undeniable. As affection for their uncle drained away, so the friendship between Richard, John and Bishop George Neville grew more firmly rooted. They had common cause, after all.
    Warwick and Norfolk turned almost together as a horn sounded behind them, high on the hill of St Albans. Norfolk twisted his head to favour a sharper ear, then stiffened as the bell of St Peter’s Church began to toll across the town.
    ‘What does that mean?’ John Neville asked his uncle, not yet experienced enough to understand the shock in the others. Fauconberg shook his head, speechless. It was Warwick who answered, crushing down his own panic to speak calmly.
    ‘It is an attack. The bell would not sound for anything else. John, your men are closest. Send a dozen knights and a hundred of your lads to check the town. I have just a few archers up by the abbey – wounded men, recovering from strains or broken bones. Go, John! The bell won’t have been rung for nothing. They’re coming. Until we know numbers and positions, I’m blind down here.’
    Warwick looked bleak for a moment as John raced away. He had spent a month building a great palisade of spikes and guns and men across the north road – and the bastards had come from behind him. He felt his face burn as Norfolk and his uncle waited for orders.
    ‘Gentlemen, return to your positions,’ Warwick said. ‘I’ll send word as I hear.’
    To his irritation, his uncle nudged his horse