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Chapters (55)
  1. Cover
  2. About the Book
  3. About the Author
  4. Kingmaker: Winter Pilgrims
  5. Dedication
  6. Though the Lancastrian Claim comes from Edward III’s THIRD son, it relies on a) possession and b) that the crown can not pass through a woman – Philippa Mormer – so must fall to the next male in line. The Yorkist Claim relies on their descent from Edward III’s SECOND son, and says it can pass through Philippa. The Tudor Claim ignores the fact of passing through a woman – Lady Margaret Beaufort – or that John, Earl of Somerset, was born illegimate.
  7. Factions in the Wars of the Roses
  8. Prologue
  9. PART ONE
  10. 1
  11. 2
  12. 3
  13. 4
  14. PART TWO
  15. 5
  16. 6
  17. 7
  18. 8
  19. 9
  20. 10
  21. 11
  22. 12
  23. 13
  24. PART THREE
  25. 14
  26. 15
  27. 16
  28. 17
  29. 18
  30. 19
  31. PART FOUR
  32. 20
  33. 21
  34. 22
  35. 23
  36. PART FIVE
  37. 24
  38. 25
  39. 26
  40. 27
  41. 28
  42. 29
  43. 30
  44. 31
  45. PART SIX
  46. 32
  47. 33
  48. PART SEVEN
  49. 34
  50. 35
  51. 36
  52. 37
  53. 38
  54. 39
  55. Acknowledgements

‘He’s with Kit, aboard some damned carrack that has been cruelly knocked up, with that old pirate as a master, but she sailed on the same tide and should be off the coast now. That friend of yours is a born surgeon, Thomas, but my lord of Warwick is sending his own man over, a physician, and just as soon as Richard is settled, he shall have the best attention money can buy.’

Thomas smiles to think of Katherine. He glances down towards the dock where her ship should be arriving. There are more horsemen coming up from the ships now and it takes him a moment to realise he is looking at a man in a bishop’s headgear among them. When he sees him Thomas instantly turns his back on Sir John and disappears into the crowds.

‘Thomas?’ he hears Geoffrey call. ‘Where are you going?’

It is not the Bishop he fears, but the man riding the pony behind him: the cleric Lamn.

15

KATHERINE IS STANDING at the ship’s rail when the Mary nudges against the dock at Sandwich for the second time in four days. The ship is now patched with bloodstained sailcloth and her timbers are scorched and studded with broken arrows.

‘Stand by,’ her master calls, and the Genoese cook, now promoted to sailor, throws a line for the boys on the dockside. Katherine returns to the waist where Richard lies face down, loosely tied to a softwood plank. He is asleep.

When she peers up over the ship’s rail she sees Thomas and Geoffrey waiting on the dockside, and she feels the warmth of relief. Both are alive. The state of the carrack had given her cause to fear the worst, but now here they are, shoulders hunched against the rain, waiting with a carter and an ox.

Thomas looks older, strained somehow, and she sees the burned houses, the smashed windows, the pitted stones.

‘Was it bad?’ she asks when she is ashore.

‘Nothing we haven’t seen before,’ Geoffrey answers for him. ‘Though we missed you. Johnson’s gone, dead, and the other Thomas, too, God keep their souls. The rest are fine though. How’s himself?’ He nods at Richard.

‘I think he is through the worst of it,’ she says. Richard still looks terrible. His face is fallen in and his skin tinged with a feverish rosiness around his eyes and mouth. She doesn’t tell them how bad it has been, how close she’s come to calling a priest.

They lift him up on his plank and together they carry him down the gangway on to the dockside. He groans as they load him on to the cart. Geoffrey sits with the carter while Thomas and Katherine walk behind.

‘Lamn is here,’ he tells her.