and four for a boy,
“Five for silver, six for gold,
“Seven for a secret never to be told,” she chanted. “Let’s imagine there are five more birds coming to join them, Dickon!”
Richard was moved to laugh out loud, and Cecily stared at him in surprise. His face had lost its grave expression, she noticed, and what erupted from him sounded more like a horse’s neigh than a man’s laugh. But it made her want tolaugh as well, because she had always thought that he was altogether too serious. So she joined in, happy that she was pleasing him.
“Ay, I shall like being his wife,” she repeated to herself.
And unbeknownst to Cecily, Richard’s thoughts were running along the same line as he caught his betrothed’s hand and took it to his lips.
“We should catch up with the others,” he said, and clicked his tongue to make his palfrey quicken its pace. “We have fallen a long way behind.”
They urged their horses into a canter and followed a path that Cecily knew led into the forest, a dark place where the shade of the famous oaks was like night and raised the hairs on the neck of even the most stalwart huntsman. Cecily was used to it, and Richard admired her fearlessness as she wended her way through the trees and found Stockley Beck, a spring-fed stream teaming with salmon. The main hunting party was waiting for the stragglers on the other side of the beck, and George and Edward began chiding Dickon for leading their sister astray. Cecily was furious, but Dickon merely smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
“Your sister is often better company than you are, George,” he said, pulling a heavy glove from his saddlebag and preparing to receive his lanner from one of the falconers. This compliment made Cecily cock a snook at her favorite brother behind Ralph’s back.
That night, snuggled in bed next to a gently snoring Rowena, Cecily thanked the Blessed Virgin and St. Sybellina, protectress of all orphans, for sending Dickon to her at Raby.
“H UMPHREY S TAFFORD AND I were wed last week,” Anne wrote in October, “and so now I am a countess.”
Cecily was basking in the late autumn sun on an exedra in Raby’s neat herb garden, where she had gone to read her sister’s first letter to her since leaving Raby in the spring. Cecily peered at the untidy script, wondering why Anne’s impeccably neat embroidery efforts did not translate onto paper. “For the wedding day, the dowager countess gave me red cloth of gold for a new gown, and a hundred guests came for the feast. I have never tasted anything as delicious as the roasted fawn that was taken in the hunt the day before. The eels from the river here are the largest and best I have seen or eaten. And much to my wonder, I saw a pie placed before us that, when cut open, ten blackbirds flew out—alive and singing. The master cook would not tell me how, saying it is a secret recipe. But I will know!”
Cecily was impressed, and she vowed to ask Raby’s master cook if he could attempt such magic.
“As I am certain Father has told you,” Anne continued, “Humphrey now sits in the regency council with him, and he is one of the most important people at court.”
Nay, Nan, Cecily thought, you are mistaken. Father has not thought to mention it.
“I miss the gentle countryside at Raby. Here there is naught but wild high hills, good for nothing but sheep, and many rivers, the biggest of which flows below the castle and town. Humphrey likes to fish all the time.”
Cecily paused and gazed at a thrush singing blithely on a brick wall. Aye, poor Nan must be most unhappy if she needed to tell me that. She pictured her sister at her window high up in the castle above a sheer drop into a swiftly flowing river, watching her new husband, equipped with rod and creel, ride off with his squires. “But when he is here, he is all duty to me and denies me nothing, although, in truth, he looks on me as though I were a child, even though I am now his wife in all
“Five for silver, six for gold,
“Seven for a secret never to be told,” she chanted. “Let’s imagine there are five more birds coming to join them, Dickon!”
Richard was moved to laugh out loud, and Cecily stared at him in surprise. His face had lost its grave expression, she noticed, and what erupted from him sounded more like a horse’s neigh than a man’s laugh. But it made her want tolaugh as well, because she had always thought that he was altogether too serious. So she joined in, happy that she was pleasing him.
“Ay, I shall like being his wife,” she repeated to herself.
And unbeknownst to Cecily, Richard’s thoughts were running along the same line as he caught his betrothed’s hand and took it to his lips.
“We should catch up with the others,” he said, and clicked his tongue to make his palfrey quicken its pace. “We have fallen a long way behind.”
They urged their horses into a canter and followed a path that Cecily knew led into the forest, a dark place where the shade of the famous oaks was like night and raised the hairs on the neck of even the most stalwart huntsman. Cecily was used to it, and Richard admired her fearlessness as she wended her way through the trees and found Stockley Beck, a spring-fed stream teaming with salmon. The main hunting party was waiting for the stragglers on the other side of the beck, and George and Edward began chiding Dickon for leading their sister astray. Cecily was furious, but Dickon merely smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
“Your sister is often better company than you are, George,” he said, pulling a heavy glove from his saddlebag and preparing to receive his lanner from one of the falconers. This compliment made Cecily cock a snook at her favorite brother behind Ralph’s back.
That night, snuggled in bed next to a gently snoring Rowena, Cecily thanked the Blessed Virgin and St. Sybellina, protectress of all orphans, for sending Dickon to her at Raby.
“H UMPHREY S TAFFORD AND I were wed last week,” Anne wrote in October, “and so now I am a countess.”
Cecily was basking in the late autumn sun on an exedra in Raby’s neat herb garden, where she had gone to read her sister’s first letter to her since leaving Raby in the spring. Cecily peered at the untidy script, wondering why Anne’s impeccably neat embroidery efforts did not translate onto paper. “For the wedding day, the dowager countess gave me red cloth of gold for a new gown, and a hundred guests came for the feast. I have never tasted anything as delicious as the roasted fawn that was taken in the hunt the day before. The eels from the river here are the largest and best I have seen or eaten. And much to my wonder, I saw a pie placed before us that, when cut open, ten blackbirds flew out—alive and singing. The master cook would not tell me how, saying it is a secret recipe. But I will know!”
Cecily was impressed, and she vowed to ask Raby’s master cook if he could attempt such magic.
“As I am certain Father has told you,” Anne continued, “Humphrey now sits in the regency council with him, and he is one of the most important people at court.”
Nay, Nan, Cecily thought, you are mistaken. Father has not thought to mention it.
“I miss the gentle countryside at Raby. Here there is naught but wild high hills, good for nothing but sheep, and many rivers, the biggest of which flows below the castle and town. Humphrey likes to fish all the time.”
Cecily paused and gazed at a thrush singing blithely on a brick wall. Aye, poor Nan must be most unhappy if she needed to tell me that. She pictured her sister at her window high up in the castle above a sheer drop into a swiftly flowing river, watching her new husband, equipped with rod and creel, ride off with his squires. “But when he is here, he is all duty to me and denies me nothing, although, in truth, he looks on me as though I were a child, even though I am now his wife in all
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