Read Online The Uncrowned Queen by Posie Graeme-evans - Free Book Online

to them if I granted what you ask?”
    Edward’s bargaining position was weak, he knew, yet while he had lost his throne, he was still a knight. Knighthood, even in these rapacious times, still warranted some obligations—when convenient. “Governor, these are good men made turbulent by violent times. The Frenchman who leads them is a brave man and bears an honorable name. His only foolishness is to have trusted Louis of France. One king has cheated him of his place in the world. This king would restore it.”
    The sieur de Gruuthuse bowed. Edward, as gravely, bowed in return. They were old friends, these two. Lodewijk de Gruuthuse—commonly called Louis—had been Burgundian ambassador in England several times over the last twenty years and had known the earl of March, as Edward once had been, since he was a little boy. He’d liked him then, and continued to like him as a man, exiled king or not, though Edward’s current situation posed morethan a few problems for him—and burdened him with a secret he could not share with his guest. For his part, Edward was greatly heartened that Louis was governor of Holland and therefore so close to Charles of Burgundy, his brother-in-law. Aristocrats in England had often sneered at the elegant Louis: he might look like a noble, they said, yet he’d made his extraordinary fortune from brewing beer. He’d bought his nobility, rather than earned it on the field of combat. Yet Edward, always interested in trade and merchants and their intriguing creativity, had felt Louis de Gruuthuse had a great deal to teach him about the world. Unlike so many English nobles, Louis did not despise learning for its own sake; he collected books and pictures, and his house in Brugge was more splendid, warmer, and more luxurious than most English palaces. He lived as opulently as a king and Edward, during his various visits to that great trading city, had learned much of civilized living from the man. He’d cultivated tastes that he’d taken back with him to London and that showed in the eventual adornment of his many houses and his own person. Now these two old friends found themselves sparring over the fate of a ragtag band of French and Flemish outlaws.
    â€œMy lord, this man and his followers would augment your own personal guard with distinction, I feel certain of that. They have provided me with their service, at some cost to themselves, and I wish to reward them for it by making their lives useful again.” Edward grimaced slightly as he spoke. The wound on his left forearm ached. It was a reminder of the minor mêlée he and his followers had been involved in during the early hours of this morning. The little Frenchman had shown great courage in that same fight.
    Julian de Plassy and his men had agreed to provide an escort for the English to the Gevangenpoort, the outer gate of the Binnenhof, to increase their chances of reaching the sieur de Gruuthuse safely. But Louis’s men had happened on the English and their escort only two leagues outside the walls of the town. Mistaking them all for outlaws in the half-light, they had fallen on the party.
    It was brief but hard fighting, in which Julian de Plassy, Lord Hastings, and Edward had found themselves hand to hand againstLouis de Gruuthuse’s men. Then Edward had shouted, in English, “A York, a York, to me, to me,” upon which the baffled Flemish guard had faltered and the English had pressed their advantage into what threatened to become a rout, until the captain of the Flemings had called out in French, “Lord King? We are your friends.” Strange words to use, Edward thought now, when surrounded by groaning, bleeding men.
    Now Edward sat in the private chambers of Louis de Gruuthuse, newly bathed, perfumed, and dressed in borrowed clothes according to his station—a sweeping black damasked gown belted with a gem-heavy girdle and worn over part-colored hose, one