The Red Rose

Below is an extract from my current WIP (Work in Progress), plus an image of the cover.

‘Ahead of us, to the north-east, the rugged silhouette of St Michael’s Mount loomed above the wine-dark ocean. In the harsh light of dawn, when men are at their lowest ebb, it looked even more impregnable. A fortified monastery perched high on a crag, situated on a steep-sided island off the Cornish coast. It was linked to the mainland via a narrow causeway across the sands, completely submerged at high tide.

This was our target. We had arrived within sight of the Mount the previous night, and anchored off the coast until dawn, when I intended to storm it. My little fleet of six ships was not spotted, thank God. As dawn broke, no alarm bells sounded from the monastery tower, no watchfires blazed along the clifftops. The coast guard was every bit as slack and idle as I hoped. After all, what threat was there, in such a remote part of the kingdom?

Men stirred all around me. There could be no delay, no tarrying. We must strike, now, before the advantage was lost, or else turn about and sail away.

To where? I had already made one half-cocked landing in Essex, on the other side of England. The local gentry failed to rise, while my rival Humphrey Bourchier, Earl of Essex, kept a sharp watch on the coasts. I might have known the cunning old goat would never be caught unawares. My band of pirates had barely set foot on English soil when the Yorkists swooped down upon us, horse and foot and cannon. We were forced to flee back to the ships, scrambling aboard with a hail of arrows and gun-shot whistling about our ears.

After that debacle, I was determined to strike elsewhere, and seize a strongpoint on the other side of the kingdom. The alternative was to go slinking back to France, like a beaten cur, and admit defeat to King Louis. The French were already suspicious of me, and had proved most reluctant to give me a few men and ships to land in England. I desperately needed a victory, no matter how trifling, to persuade the Spider-King he was not tipping money down a latrine.’

This is The Red Rose, the third in a series of novellas set during the Wars of the Roses, based on the adventures of John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford. More to come…

You can pre-order The Red Rose on Amazon US and Amazon UK, release 5 April.