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

close and clapped him on the shoulder. There were tears in the older man’s eyes, gleaming.
    ‘For your father, Richard,’ Fauconberg said. ‘We won’t fail.’

5
     
    The massed ranks of the queen’s army raced uphill towards the great abbey. Derry saw no hesitation in Somerset or Percy when it came to using the advantage his reports and spies had provided. The men were alive with excitement, shrugging off weariness at the chance to charge up behind an enemy army, to fall on them like a hawk stooping to crush some small animal into the ground. Many of them had punched another man without warning at some point in their lives, when some rogue or merchant had not been expecting a blow. There might have been little honour in it, but surprise was one of the great factors of war and counted almost as much as strength of arms. Derry found his own heart pounding as he rode Retribution along a street. He looked out on the rising sun and saw Warwick’s great camp below, in three huge squares across the north road.
    The men around him did not pause to take in the view. Their task was to tear out the heels of the rearmost battle of men, standing under the banners of Lord Montagu. Those soldiers would be the weakest in supplies and quality; every man there knew it. The left battle would often be the last to engage, if they fought at all. For the men streaming down towards them through the shocked and empty streets of St Albans, that body of soldiers looked like the limping stag left behind by the herd.
    Derry had no particular desire to follow them down.His work ended when the fighting began, as far as he was concerned. He had brought Somerset and Earl Percy to the right spot. It was up to them to drive the knife home. He considered making a sketch of the great squares of men stretching away from St Albans, at least the ditches and main groups, but thought better of it as panicky voices began roaring somewhere close, echoing back from the walls of the abbey.
    ‘Watch it there, you clumsy sod! There!’ Derry heard, turning his horse on a tight rein to listen and find the source. He did not know the voice.
    ‘Archers! ’Ware archers!’ another yelled, higher, more afraid.
    Derry swallowed nervously, suddenly sensing he was a nice target for any bowman who came across him. He hunched down in the saddle, ready to kick with his heels and risk bolting.
    A side door creaked open in the abbey, revealing a thick mop of dark hair and deathly white skin, darting out and looking around. The sight of Derry Brewer staring did not seem to worry the man and he gave a low whistle. As Derry watched, a dozen others came out, some hobbling and limping, but carrying unsheathed knives and strung yew bows. Each one had some part of him stitched or bound in blood-stained cloth. They looked feverish: red-faced and eye-bright beyond even strong emotion. When they looked up at Derry Brewer, he quailed. It was already too late to run, he realized. A man who ran from archers needed to start when he was half a mile away, not twenty yards or so.
    Derry understood that Abbot Whethamstede had allowed wounded men into the abbey for the monks totreat and heal. There were always accidents when men and fire and iron blades came together. With his mind spinning, Derry recalled how his old friend William de la Pole used to say that ‘Stupidity’ was the fifth horseman of the Apocalypse, from the Book of St John of Patmos. Without Latin or Greek, Derry had never been able to read the passage, to see if he’d been telling the truth. Under the gaze of enemy soldiers, he had the feeling he might be meeting that horseman, with its braying laughter. He shuddered.
    The group of injured men had come to an end, just thirteen of them, with eight archers, though one of those had lost an eye and surely much of his accuracy. Derry’s mind tended to focus on small things when he was afraid. The simple fact of it was that these men would kill him in a heartbeat if they knew