Trinity by Conn Iggulden

butcher a young groom and his servants. Well? Give me the truth of it, boy. I am weary of waiting.’
    ‘Salisbury had his own guard with him. Two hundred or more of his best men, sixty archers among them. We killed and cut two-thirds of them, more, but Neville escaped, with his son and the Cromwell bride.’
    The old man crossed the room in jerky steps, standing to look up at his son in grim appraisal.
    ‘You come back to Alnwick with nothing? If I had sent your brother Henry, do you think he would be standing there with the same sulky looks, telling me he failed?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ Thomas snapped, his voice hoarse with rising anger. ‘Salisbury had his best men. They gave a good account of themselves and still we murdered more than half of them before they could get away. I don’t think Henry could have done any more than that!’
    His voice had grown louder as he replied and the old man reached out suddenly and smacked him hard across the face. For just a heartbeat, Thomas flinched, the instincts and memories of childhood overwhelming him. In another moment, he felt rage and shame at his own reaction. He dropped his hand to his sword, suddenly determined to draw and cut his father in two.
    Earl Percy’s hand gripped his, a claw that held him still.
    ‘Oh rule thyself!’ Percy snapped. ‘Control thy choler, you impudent boy! You failed, though you might have won . I knew the risk, when I sent you out. The Neville is cunning and I did not think he would die easily. Yet it was worth the lives you lost to try, do you understand? It was worth the chance I took, with my men and my son, for the gains you might have had.’
    Thomas tensed his arm to draw once again. He felt the old man’s strength waver and knew he was stronger, that he could draw and cut if he wanted and there was nothing his father could do to stop it. The knowledge was so surprising, he let his hand fall away.
    His father grunted in satisfaction.
    ‘Master that temper, Thomas, before it masters you. It was ever a Percy failing, though we can bind it well enough.’
    Thomas saw a glint of metal amongst his father’s cloaks. His eyes widened at the thought that there had been a dagger there, hidden so quickly he would never be certain. He stepped back and Earl Percy tilted his head, watching him with amusement.
    ‘I cannot take a step back, Thomas. Not one. You failed, because the Neville is suspicious and wary – and right to be! It doesn’t matter. I planned for this, as well. Your mother is in a convent, bound to holy orders. I asked the Abbess to impose a vow of silence on her, but the old bitch said it was not their way. She will come to regret that, I think!’
    To Thomas’s surprise, the old man chuckled and shook his head.
    ‘Still, it is well that she is away from me, before I killed her, or she took a dagger to me while I slept. Fire and oil, boy, your mother and me, each made worse by the other.’ He saw the confusion in his son and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Now open your ears. You struck and you missed the heart of the Neville clan. They’ll be coming for us, this year or next spring. Everything I have made, everything I have gathered to the Percy name is in danger now. Yet I would rather go to my grave knowing I had thrown and failed than not dared to throw, do you understand? We will go to war with the Nevilles, with York if we have to, that Plantagenet snake curled up so tight around the king and his son! No Percy weighs the odds, or counts the numbers when we raise banners. I welcome it, Thomas. I welcome the chance to take the field one last time. What good are these old joints to me if I cannot ride against my enemies? When they come, we’ll meet them in King Henry’s name. We’ll stand with a dozen earls and dukes more loyal to King Henry than his damned York Protector, married to a Neville. Do you understand? I gambled to finish it in a day, but one poor throw does not mean the end, Thomas. It means the