"Walk," said the Duke.
Robin whistled again, different notes.
"Trot."
Again.
"That's the Gallop. No, wait, that's not the Gallop. Do it again." Robin did it again. The Duke sat very still on the mounting block. "That's the Rally," he said, in a different voice. "Where did he learn that? Of course. Of course he did." He saw Frances, and stood up. "Miss Blakeney. Good morning. Your nephew has been teaching my grooms the regimental calls. Seddon there is in a state of open admiration."
A grizzled man in a leather apron, holding a bay cob by the head, touched his forelock to her and grinned.
"Papa used to whistle them for me in bed," said Robin, pleased, coming over. "He said if I could whistle all the calls I could be a trumpeter, and trumpeters ride a grey horse at the front and nobody shoots them because it would be bad manners. Is that true?"
"No," said the Duke. "But it's a very good thing to believe at six. Go and ask Seddon to show you the foal in the end box. Go on."
Robin went, at a run. The Duke watched him go, and turned to her. "I want to show you something, if you will let me. In the muniment room. I've been through my father's papers this morning, the ones from Oxford. There aren't many. But there's one thing I don't understand, and I think you are the person who might."
The muniment room was in the base of the old tower, at the north-east corner of the house, a vaulted chamber with an iron door and walls lined with deed boxes, japanned black, lettered in white: HALVERGATE MANOR, REEDHAM, THURNE CUM ASHBY, ACLE MARSHES, LONDON HOUSE, SETTLEMENTS. There was a table under the one barred window, and on the table, laid out on a sheet of blotting paper, a little packet of letters tied with faded tape, a commonplace book bound in green vellum, and a reading glass with a horn handle.