Brothers' Fury (Bleeding Land Trilogy 2) Read Online Free Page A

and with a click of his tongue he turned Hector around and walked him south away from the Forest of Bowland, looking up at the pale, grey-hazed sun and looking forward to getting himself in front of a roaring fire in Longridge village.
    Tom Rivers had found more comfort than he would have dared hope for in The Leaping Lord. He had been back in Southwark some seven weeks now, drawn south to London because he knew not where else to go and wanted to be at the least far away from Shear House and the ruins of his former life. London was buzzing, her people still jubilant after their victory at Turnham Green where twenty-four thousand soldiers and townsfolk – men and women – had stood side by side to defend the road into London. Together this huge if unusual army had mustered on Chelsea Fields and marched westwards to deny their king entry to the city.
    ‘What a sight it was. A vision I shall never forget,’ Ruth Gell had told Tom the night he had come to the Lord. At first she had not recognized him – later she admitted to assuming him to be a beggar – but then she had looked properly into his eyes and she had gasped in shock, seeing through the unkempt hair and beard – and the scars – to the young man she had knownbefore the war. There had been no available rooms and Tom had shared Ruth’s bed as in old times.
    Her eyes had shone as she recounted the tale. ‘All the proud ensigns of the Trained Bands danced in the wind and we stood there shoulder to shoulder with fighting men,’ she had told him, ‘men who had stood against the King at Kineton Fight. And hundreds more were scattered amongst the gardens and orchards and waiting in narrow lanes beside the Thames. And we were prepared to fight, too!’ she had announced, as though daring him to dispute it.
    He had not disputed it. ‘We knew that devil Prince Rupert and his cavalry couldn’t hurt us in the streets,’ she had said, ‘and you know what His Majesty’s men did? They watched us. They watched us eat and they watched us pray and damn their eyes but they did not know what to do.’ The ghost of a smile had lit her eyes. ‘It wouldn’t look good, would it, the King sending his soldiers against so many ordinary folk? And we knew it. You should have seen it, Tom. It was like a miracle.’
    Ruth had shrugged, accepting that he would never know how it had felt to be among them on that glorious day. ‘By evening it was all over. His Majesty and all his haughty lot buggered off.’ Her plump lips had curled then, like a cat settling into its basket. ‘We danced and sang and drank until we fell over. Oh but you should have been there, my handsome man. You should have seen us.’
    Tom had listened, barely saying a word, barely even stirring other than an occasional nod to usher her on with the story, and Ruth had obliged, washing the dirt of the road from his skin and tracing callused fingers over scars and the puckered flesh of wounds that had not been there when she had last known his body by candlelight. Only in the early hours of the morning, when Tom had been vaguely aware of his limbs slackening, his body surrendering at last against Ruth and her lumpy bed, had she murmured that she had thought he was dead.
    ‘Some of your friends were here,’ she said, her voice barelyabove a whisper, as though she was compelled to tell him but hoped he would not hear. She pushed his long hair behind his right ear, fingertips brushing his cheekbones and the taut ridge of his brows. ‘Matthew Penn and Will Trencher. They’ve been in a few times. They said you were killed at Kineton Fight.’ Tom felt some small lifting of his soul’s burden at the mention of his friends. ‘They miss you, Tom. Never said as much of course, but I could see it in their faces. You men can’t hide things like that. Matthew said you fought like a demon. That you weren’t afraid of anything.’
    ‘I was afraid,’ Tom heard himself mumble.
    ‘One of the others saw you ride into the