Read Online Wars of the Roses: Bloodline: Book 3 (The Wars of the Roses) by Conn Iggulden - Free Book Online

which side he was on.
    ‘You lads are not to fight,’ he said suddenly. ‘You’ve been told to rest and heal. What good are you wounded?’
    ‘More good than killed in our beds,’ one of them snapped, suspicious. ‘Who are you?’
    ‘Master Peter Ambrose. I am an aide to my lord Norfolk,’ Derry said indignantly. ‘I have some knowledge of the physic and I was sent to observe the Gentle Brothers in their work, perhaps to learn a balm or an unguent.’
    He stopped himself, knowing that liars ramble. His heart was trying to shrink in his chest as he realized he’d made himself useful to such men. Still, they would have no desire to see him dead if he might help with their wounds and dressings.
    ‘You’ll come with us, then, down the hill,’ the same man said, glowering at him.
    He carried a yew bow lightly in his right hand, rocking it at the balance point. The man’s thumb rubbed the woodback and forth and Derry could see a whiter patch there, from years of the same motion. The archer was ready for him to run, he was suddenly certain. To turn away would mean an arrow in his back. They stared at each other coldly.
    ‘Down, Brewer!’ came a voice from his right.
    Derry dropped from the saddle, risking his neck by simply going limp and sliding off like a dead man. He heard Retribution snort and used the animal’s bulk as cover while he wormed swiftly away on his elbows, tense with expectation of an arrow pinning him to the earth. Thumps and cries diminished behind him, cut short in savagery. Derry kept going, head down, until he heard footsteps running up behind him, loping along with a young man’s easy balance.
    Unseen, Derry slid a dagger from his coat, drawing his legs under him and coming up ready to launch himself. He was slow, he could feel it. Movement that in his youth had been cat-fast had become clumsy, thick-bodied and just
slow
. For one who had once revelled in his strength and agility, the self-awareness was hugely depressing.
    The soldier who stood over him held up both hands, one with a bloodied hatchet in it. He was disgustingly young and visibly amused by Derry’s dusty, puffing anger.
    ‘Easy there, Master Brewer! We’re pax, or whatever you say. Same side.’
    Derry looked past him to where a heaped group of bodies wore new quills fletched in good white feathers. One or two still moved, their legs shifting on the flagstones as if they were trying to rise. Somerset’s archers were among them already, cutting out the shafts with ruthless efficiency. Each arrow had been the labour of an expert hand and was far too valuable to be left behind. Derry felta twinge of regret for those wounded men. Sometimes, whether a man lived or died was down to luck. He did not know if that realization made him value his own life more or less. If death could come because you chose the wrong door leading out into the sun, perhaps there was no sense to any of it – just the fifth horseman. He shrugged to himself, putting such thoughts aside. One thing about his life that he did enjoy – there was always someone he wanted to die before him. No matter what else happened, Derry Brewer wanted to die
last
. That was the path to happiness, right there – to outlive every last one of the bastards.
    His horse, Retribution, had lost a bit of hide. An arrow had torn a stretch of his haunch and still hung from a strip of skin, snagged and dripping bright blood. With a wince, Derry worked it free, patting the torn skin back into place and soothing the animal with his voice. At least there were no flies in winter to settle on wounds.
    More ranks of archers and swordsmen marched past him, joining the throng heading downhill to the squares of men below. He could hear the crash of arms and high-called orders at the foot of the hill, where he’d once stared down at Richard of York’s much smaller army. Derry could hear Warwick’s drummers rattling death at the queen’s men, at that moment and six years before, the