“My dearest boys,” Cecily cried, bending down and embracing them both, “how we have missed you. Look how you have grown!”

“We missed you, too,” George told her, “but Ned has come to see us every day, has he not, Dickon?”

Dickon nodded happily. How glad he was his family was together again. “And he takes us fishing, and,” he told Cecily in whispered confidence, “he took us to a bear-baiting. I didn’t much care for it.”

“I should think not!” Cecily was appalled. “Edward, you and I need to have a conversation.” When Edward looked sheepish, Dickon flushed scarlet. Had he betrayed Ned? He gave his big brother a sidelong glance, but Ned was already smiling at his mother and offering her his arm.

“Come, Mother, let me show you your new home.” Cecily took his arm gladly, and when she reached out her hand to Dickon the boy’s joy was complete. He had been singled out by his mother for once, and he reveled in the gesture. He stole a glance at George to see if George might realize how it felt to be left out for a change, but Dickon’s small victory was lost on George, who was wrapped in his much-missed sister’s warm embrace.

Disappointed but not daunted, Dickon held tight to his Mother’s hand and tucked the precious moment into his heart.

The atmosphere at Falstoff’s Place in those first two weeks of September was as charged as in an audience awaiting the first lines of a play, and the boys and their sister were left to their own devices as messengers and other visitors from London, Westminster and farther afield came and went in rapid succession. Ned had set up the York headquarters at the house, and even my lord of Warwick had crossed the bridge to confer with him. Dickon was a little afraid of his cousin, but the earl was always quick to tousle the boy’s hair and ask if his archery was improving.

“Am I still to go to Cousin Richard’s household for military training?” Dickon dared to ask his mother once. “Father talked about it. And even the earl himself talked about it at Ludlow to me and to Captain Troll…”

He shut his mouth quickly before naming the faithless commander. He still could not understand how the man could have betrayed his father or his impressive cousin of Warwick. He, Dickon, would be proud to fight for this superior knight—after his father and Ned, to be sure.

Dickon’s knightly training was low on Cecily’s list of priorities, and she brushed the question off with a “wait until your Father comes home” response. But she was curious about the boy’s enthusiasm. “Are you sure you are ready to be a soldier, Dickon. What about your nightmares?”