Queen by Right by Anne Easter Smith

fighting the Scots, and as there was no one sitting at her other side, she had leisure to watch the servants hand out baskets of bread and jugs of ale. Those at the bottom of the table received the coarsest brown rye bread. Further up the table, round white cocket was served. Ralph’s officers and squires enjoyed good wheat wastele. She broke a piece of her own pain demain , made with the finest white flour, and wondered how different it was from the others.
    Cecily heard the adults discussing the politics at court. She recognized the names of the king’s uncles—John of Bedford and Humphrey of Gloucester—but why anyone cared about their wives she could not fathom. She deduced that the elder uncle, Duke John, had pleased everyone with his wife from Burgundy, but Duke Humphrey had angered the King’s council with his choice. She stifled a yawn, focused on the delicate flavor of the swan’s meat she wasnibbling, and wondered if her mother’s monstrous, heart-shaped headdress would fall off her nodding and shaking head.
    “Humphrey seeks his own piece of Europe through his wife, ’tis all. He has never been content with the role of mere Protector. He wanted to be Regent with Bedford and was slighted when King Harry chose Bedford alone to control his son,” Richard told his mother. He then called for more wine.
    “May we have music, please?” Cecily asked her big brother during a pause. “I would dearly love to show you what my dancing master taught us all recently. We have not had music since the betrothal feast. May we, Richard? Mother?” she pleaded.
    Richard deferred to his mother, who nodded to the steward and asked him to prepare the room for dancing. Four musicians appeared in the minstrels’ gallery, and Cecily sent instructions for them to strike up a saltarello . The timbrel player started the rhythm of the lively Italian dance, and the others joined with the melody. Cecily looked down the line and tried to catch Dickon’s eye, hoping that he would invite her to dance. They had learned the steps together, and he was a fair enough dancer, she had concluded. Instead, Richard Neville rose and bowed over her hand, a twinkle in his blue eyes.
    “Will you do me the honor, Lady Cecily,” he murmured. “His grace of York can lead our lady mother out, n’est-ce pas , York?”
    Dickon almost fell off the bench. Hating to be the center of attention, he had been relieved when Neville had offered to dance with Cecily, and with Nan gone, he preferred to sit back and watch. Joan observed with amusement the different expressions flit across the young man’s face as he climbed awkwardly over the back of the bench, trying not to stand on the long toes of his hose-shoes. Finally he managed a graceful bow and offered her his arm.
    “Have no fear, your grace,” she assured him. “You will not have to lift me. I am too old to perform the leaps of this dance, so we shall be more sedate, you and I.”
    The rest of the household stood on either side of the hall as the oldest and the youngest of the Beaufort Nevilles demonstrated their prowess in the dance. Cecily was exuberant in her little leaps on the first beat of every bar, but her brother was more circumspect with his and simply enjoyed this unaccustomed entertainment after months of soldiering on the Marches. He tried to picture the earnest Dickon and his impetuous sister as husband and wife, and had to smile. “Perhaps these two will make a match of it,” he thought, “they are so young yet.”
    And then he prayed, for his little sister’s sake, that York would never attempt to assert his Mortimer right to the throne and put Cecily in any danger.
    I T WAS F RIDAY , the only day of the week Cecily looked forward to during those months when summer turned to autumn. On that day each week, Ralph took her hunting with his sons, and Dickon usually rode along. She was learning that at this time of year, when the male deer began the rut, the archer’s task was much