Chapter 5: Sending You Off a Thousand Miles
Spring 1966. Regulus was five years old.
Five, in the Black household, meant the beginning of formal education.
Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at three in the afternoon, Walburga held Family Honor lessons in the small study.
An enormous Black family tapestry hung on the wall, stretching from ceiling to floor, a thousand years of marriage alliances rendered in gold and silver thread on dark fabric.
Monday: genealogy.
"Look here," Walburga said, pointing her slender ebony pointer at the top of the tapestry. "Linfred Black, a twelfth-century healer and the acknowledged founder of our family..."
Regulus sat in a hardwood chair, hands on his knees, eyes tracking the pointer's movement.
"Regulus, repeat what I just said." Walburga's voice pulled him back.
"From 1578 to 1623, the Black family intermarried with the Rosier family four times and the Fawley family three times, interspersed with unions with the Crouch and Travers families, forming a stable alliance network." Regulus answered fluidly.