The Rose of York Read Online Free Page A

lashed at him, loosening his grip as the ship heaved. He stared at the white-streaked seas yawning below, and screamed, loud and long. The ship rolled again, threatening to shake him into the depths, and he would have been swept away in the next wave, had it not been for Warwick.
    Warwick was descending the ratlines when Galahad burst from below. He saw what was happening, understood there was only a slim chance to save Richard from certain death, and knew that if he took that chance, it might well cost him his own life. In the span of a single falling grain of sand, he made his decision. He grabbed the end of a dangling rope, swung from the ratlines to the capstan, reached down and snatched Richard up by the arm. The ship rolled again and the rope swung out over the sea. With the great lantern on the ship’s stern burning fiercely in the darkness, they hung over the surging waves while the wind whipped at them and the rain hammered. Then the ship rolled back on another wave and they moved over the planking of the aftercastle. Hands reached up, seized them, and pulled them down.
    As if Galahad’s life had appeased the dragons of the sea, the storm then subsided and the ship steadied. Warwick himself carried Richard below into the cabin and made sure he was secure.
    “That was a damn foolhardy thing you did, Dickon,” he said, not unkindly.
    Richard bowed his head so Warwick wouldn’t see how his lip trembled. For, all at once, he felt overcome with grief and despair. His father and Edmund were gone. Now, Galahad, too. He would never hear his whinny of greeting again; never feel his warm breath on his cheek. A choking sensation tightened his throat. He wanted to cry, but he didn’t. He had to be strong, as his father would have wished.
    “May I play my lute?” he asked, not looking up lest brave Warwick should see the cowardly tears in his eyes.
    Warwick snapped back the heavy brass locks on the coffer behind him, opened the lid, and took out the lute.
    “The men would like that,” Warwick said.
    Hugging his lute to his breast, Richard strummed the chords, sending a soft ripple of song into the harsh night, for Galahad.
     
    ~*~
     
    Bruges was an alien place. Richard wanted to go home more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. Sometimes the longing was so acute, it churned in his stomach like a hunk of sour cheese. He felt guilty. He didn’t mean to be ungrateful. A rich English merchant with ink-stained fingers by the name of William Caxton had taken them into his home, and Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy had shown them around his palace, which was filled with wondrous marvels. George had enjoyed it greatly, but a bare castle in England would have made Richard happier. He was lonely in Bruges. He missed his sister Meg, and Nurse, and his mother, but most of all, his brother Edward, who had stayed behind to fight Henry of Lancaster’s fearful queen, Marguerite. He didn’t think he could bear it if Edward died, too.
    Richard pushed his Latin assignment away, leaned his chin on his arm, and gazed out the window. Snow was falling, and along the canals that ran through the city by the score, people were rushing by, bent against the wind. He yearned for the curving Thames, which was wide, and blue, and lined with shiny pebbles that could be collected by wading in a short distance when the tide went out. Canals didn’t have tides.
    Twit-whoo, twit-whoo!
    Richard gave a shiver. “George,” he whispered. “George, an owl just whooped.”
    “I know,” replied George, who was busy examining his outfit in the mirror, a gift from Philip the Good.
    “But it’s only noon. Does that mean woe? Does it mean Marguerite has killed Edward?”
    George arranged his green velvet hat on his golden curls at a jaunty angle, adjusted the black feather, and looked at him. “Dickon, you worry too much. Remember last night, when you saw a star fall from the sky? You thought it meant the death of one we loved, but you were