Richard III by Stuart Hill

Author:Stuart Hill [Hill, Stuart]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781407147086
Publisher: Scholastic UK

CHAPTER SIX

We kept up a brisk pace as De Castile had said we would. The weather had been bright for the last few days and the roads were dry, so there was no mud to slow us down. We made a stirring sight as we trotted by with our brightly coloured banners and glittering armour, but the faces of the peasants working in the fields showed nothing but fear. Armoured soldiers on the road could only mean war and all the horror that brought with it. No one cheered; in a civil war I’d learned that the ordinary people of the land tried not to choose sides, in case the one they gave their support to lost.

De Castile talked almost all the time. He talked about the weather and how it might affect the battle; he talked about the crops in the fields and the prospects for a good harvest; he even talked about music and dancing and the latest fashions coming up from London. Suddenly I realized that our veteran commander, who’d fought in more campaigns than I could even guess at, was nervous, and talking constantly was his way of keeping his nerves under control!

When at last De Castile decided to canter back along the line to check that all was well, I nudged Francis. “I thought he’d never go!”

Francis nodded. “If words were arrows all the Lancastrians would be slaughtered by now.”

“You know why of course?”

“Nerves,” my friend answered, taking me by surprise.

Somehow I never expected big, powerful Francis to have much time for thinking or to care that much about what was happening around him. Never judge anyone by how they look.

“My father said you should never trust a man who isn’t nervous before a fight, because he’s either stupid or knows something he’s not telling you,” Francis went on.

“Knows something he’s not telling you? Like what?” I asked.

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