Verwandte Artikel zu Margaret of Anjou (Wars of the Roses, 2)

Margaret of Anjou (Wars of the Roses, 2) - Hardcover

Iggulden, Conn

 
9780399165375: Margaret of Anjou (Wars of the Roses, 2)
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0399165371 ISBN 13: 9780399165375
Verlag: Putnam Pub Group, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

The brilliant retelling of the Wars of the Roses continues with Margaret of Anjou, the second gripping novel in the new series from historical fiction master Conn Iggulden.

As Traitors Advance...A Queen Defends

It is 1454 and for over a year King Henry VI has remained all but exiled in Windsor Castle, struck down by his illness, his eyes vacant, his mind a blank. His fiercely loyal wife and Queen, Margaret of Anjou, safeguards her husband’s interests, hoping that her son Edward will one day come to know his father.

With each month that Henry is all but absent as king, Richard, the Duke of York, Protector of the Realm, extends his influence throughout the kingdom. The Trinity—Richard and the earls of Salisbury and Warwick—are a formidable trio, and together they seek to break the support of those who would raise their colors and their armies in the name of Henry and his Queen.

But when the king unexpectedly recovers his senses and returns to London to reclaim his throne, the balance of power is once again plunged into turmoil. The clash of the Houses of Lancaster and York may be the beginning of a war that can tear England apart . . .

Following on from Stormbird, Margaret of Anjou is the second epic installment in master storyteller Conn Iggulden’s new Wars of the Roses series. Fans of Game of Thrones and The Tudors will be gripped from the word “go.”
 

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Conn Iggulden is one of the most successful authors of historical fiction writing today. FollowingStormbird, Margaret of Anjou is the second book in his superb new series set during the Wars of the Roses, a remarkable period of British history. His previous two series, on Julius Caesar and on the Mongol Khans of Central Asia, describe the founding of the greatest empires of their day and were number-one bestsellers. Iggulden lives in Hertfordshire with his wife and children.

Conn Iggulden is one of the most successful authors of historical fiction writing today. Following Stormbird, Margaret of Anjou is the second book in his superb new series set during the Wars of the Roses, a remarkable period of British history. His previous two series, on Julius Caesar and on the Mongol Khans of Central Asia, describe the founding of the greatest empires of their day and were number-one bestsellers. Iggulden lives in Hertfordshire with his wife and children.

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Part One

LATE SUMMER 1454

People crushed by law have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws.
-Edmund Burke

Chapter 1

With the light still cold and gray, the castle came alive. Horses were brought from their stalls and  rubbed down; dogs barked and fought with each other, kicked out of the way by those who found them in their path. Hundreds of young men were busy gathering tack and weapons, rushing around the main yard with armfuls of equipment.

In the great tower, Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, stared out of the window to the bustling sward all around his fortress. The castle stones were warm in the August heat, but the old man wore a cloak and mantle of fur around his shoulders even so, clutched tight to his chest. He was still both tall and broad, though age had bowed him down. His sixth decade had brought aches and creaking joints that made all movement painful and his temper short.

The earl glowered through the leaded glass. The town was waking. The world was rising with the sun and he was ready to act, after so long biding his time. He watched as armored knights assembled, their servants passing out shields that had been painted black, or covered in sackcloth bound with twine. The Percy colors of blue and yellow were nowhere in evidence, hidden from view so that the soldiers waiting for his order had a somber look. For a time, they would be gray men, hedge knights without house or family. Men without honor, when honor was a chain to bind them.

The old man sniffed, rubbing hard at his nose. The ruse would fool no one, but when the killing was over, he would still be able to claim no Percy knight or archer had been part of it. Most importantly of all, those who might have cried out against him would be cold in the ground.
As he stood there, deep in thought, he heard his son approach, the young  man’s spurred heels clicking and rattling on the wooden floor. The earl looked around, feeling his old heart thump with anticipation.

“God give you good day,” Thomas Percy said, bowing. He too allowed his gaze to stray through the window, down to the bustle of the castle grounds below. Thomas raised an eyebrow in silent question and his father grunted, irritated at the footsteps of servants all around.

“Come with me.” Without waiting for a reply, the earl swept along the corridor, the force of his authority pulling Thomas along behind him. He reached a doorway to his private chambers and almost dragged his son inside, slamming the door behind them. As Thomas stood and watched, the old man strode jerkily through the rooms, banging doors back and forth as he went. His suspicion showed in the deepening purple of his face, the skin made darker still by a stain of broken veins that stretched right across his cheeks and nose. The earl could never be pale, with that marbling. If it had been earned in strong spirits from over the Scottish border, it suited his mood well enough. Age had not mellowed the old man, though it had dried and hardened him.
Satisfied they were alone, the earl came back to his son, still waiting patiently with his back to the door. Thomas Percy, Baron Egremont, stood no taller than his father once had, though without the stoop of age he could see over the old man’s head. At thirty-two, Thomas was in the prime of his manhood, his hair black and his forearms thick with sinew and muscle earned over six thousand days of training. As he stood there, he seemed almost to glow with health and strength, his ruddy skin unmarked by scar or disease. Despite the years between them, both men bore the Percy nose, that great wedge that could be seen in dozens of crofts and villages all around Alnwick.

“There, we are private,” the earl said at last. “She has her ears everywhere, your mother. I cannot even talk to my own son without her people reporting every word.”

“What news, then?” his son replied. “I saw the men, gathering swords and bows. Is it the border?”

“Not today. Those damned Scots are quiet, though I don’t doubt the Douglas is forever sniffing round my lands. They’ll come in winter when they starve, to try and steal my cows. And we’ll send them running when they do.”

His son hid his impatience, knowing well that his father could rant about the “cunning Douglas” for an hour if he was given the chance.

“The  men though, father. They  have covered  the  colors.  Who threatens us who must be taken by hedge knights?”

His father stood close to him, reaching out and hooking a bony hand over the lip of the leather breastplate to draw him in.

“Your mother’s  Nevilles,  boy, always and forever the Nevilles. Wherever I turn in my distress, there they are, in my path!” Earl Percy raised his other hand  as he spoke, holding it up with the fingers joined like a beak. He jabbed the air with it, close by his son’s face. “Standing in such numbers they can never be counted. Married into every noble line! Into every house! I have the damned Scots clawing away at my flank, raiding England, burning villages in my own land. If I did not stand against them, if I let but one season pass without killing the young men they send to test me, they would come south like a dam  bursting. Where would England be then, without Percy arms to serve her? But the Nevilles care nothing for all that. No, they throw their weight and wealth to York, that pup. He rises, held aloft by Neville hands, while titles and estates of ours are stolen away.”

“Warden of the West March,” his son muttered wearily. He had heard his father’s complaints many times before.

Earl Percy’s glare intensified.

“One of many. A title that should have been your brother’s, with fifteen hundred  pounds a year, until that Neville, Salisbury, was given it. I have swallowed that, boy. I have swallowed him being made chancellor while my king dreams and sleeps and France was lost. I have swallowed so much from them that I find I am stuffed full.”

The old man had drawn his son so close their faces almost touched. He kissed Thomas brief ly on the cheek, letting him go. From long habit, he checked the room around them once more, though they were alone.

“You have good Percy blood in you, Thomas. It will drive your mother’s out in time, as I will drive out the Nevilles upon the land. They have been given to me, Thomas, do you understand? By the grace of God, I have been handed a chance to take back all they have stolen. If I were twenty years younger, I would take Windstrike and ride them down myself, but . . . those days are behind.” The old man’s eyes were almost feverish as he stared up at his son. “You must be my right arm in this, Thomas. You must be my sword and flail.”

“You honor me,” Thomas  murmured, his  voice  breaking.  As  a mere second son, he had grown to his prime with little of the old man’s affection. His elder brother, Henry, was away with a thousand men across the border of Scotland, there to raid and burn and weaken the savage clans. Thomas thought of him and knew Henry’s absence was the true reason his father had taken him aside. There was no one else to send. Though the knowledge made him bitter, he could not resist the chance to show his worth to the one man he allowed to judge him.
“Henry has the best of our fighting cocks,” his father said, echoing his thoughts. “And I...

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Verlag
Putnam Pub Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2015
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0399165371
ISBN 13 
9780399165375
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
414
Kontakt zum Hersteller
G.P. Putnam's Sons
https://www.penguin.com/putnam/

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