Romilly’s delighted gasp made her stepmother smile. She had been allowed to help her father in training three of the fine blacks from the Lanart estates, and they were all among the finest horses to grace the stables at Falconsward. If her father agreed that she might have one of those horses – she thought with delight and pleasure of racing over the hills on one of the spirited blacks, with Preciosa on her arm, and gave Luciella a spontaneous hug that startled the older woman. “Oh, thank you, thank you, stepmother!”
“It is a pleasure to see you looking so much like a lady,” Luciella said, smiling at the pretty picture Romilly made in the green habit. ‘Take it off now, my dear, so it can be stitched. No, Dara,” she added to the sewing-woman who was fitting Mallina’s habit over her full young breasts, “Not so tight in the tunic there, it is unseemly for so young a girl.”
Mallina sulked, “Why must all my dresses be cut like a child’s tunic? I have already more of a woman’s figure than Romilly!”
“You certainly have,” Romilly said, “If you grow much more in the tits, you can hire out for a wet-nurse.” She looked critically at Mallina’s swelling body, and the younger girl snarled, “A woman’s habit is wasted on you, you could wear a pair of Darren’s old britches! You’d rather run around looking like a stableboy, in a man’s old leathers, like one of the Sisterhood of the Sword-”
“Come, come,” said Luciella peacefully, “Don’t make fun of your sister’s figure, Romilly, she is growing faster than you, that is all. And you be quiet too, Mallina; Romilly is grown, now, and your father has given strict orders that she is not to ride astride in boots and breeches any more, but is to have a proper lady’s habit and a lady’s saddle for Midsummer, when the people from High Crags will be coming here for hawking and hunting, and perhaps Aldaran of Scathfell with his sons and daughters, and some of the people from Storn Heights.”
Mallina squealed with pleasure – the twin daughters of Scathfell were her closest friends, and during the winter, heavy snowfalls had separated Falconsward from Scathfell or from High Crags. Romilly felt no such pleasure – Jessamy and Jeralda were about her own age, but they were like Mallina, plump and soft, an insult to any horse that carried them, much more concerned with the fit of their riding-habits and the ornaments of saddle and reins than in the well-being of the horses they rode, or their own riding-skill. The oldest son at High Crags was about Ruyven’s age and had been his dearest friend; he treated Romilly and even Darren as silly children. And the folk from Storn were all grown, and most of them married some with children.
Well, perhaps she would have a chance to ride with her father, and with Darren who would be home from Nevarsin, and to fly Preciosa; it would not be too bad, even if, while there were guests, she must wear a lady’s riding-habit and use a lady’s saddle instead of the boots and breeches more suitable for hunting; the guests would only be here for a few days and then she could go back to her sensible boy’s clothes for riding; she was willing to dress up properly to meet her parents’ guests. She had learned, as a matter of course, to manage proper riding-skirts and a lady’s saddle when there were guests, and to please her stepmother.
She was humming when she returned to her room to change her dress for riding; perhaps she would take Rael with her when she went to exercise Preciosa to the lure, the long line whirled around her head with scraps of meat and feathers to train and exercise a hawk. But when she searched behind her door for the old boots and breeches she always wore for riding – they were an ancient pair of Ruyven’s – they could not be found.
She clapped her hands to summon the maid who waited on the children, but it was old Gwennis who came.
“What is this, Nurse? Where are my riding-breeches?”