"Happy birthday to me, " I said to the ripening chestnut tree in the front yard, not yet knowing that the gifts I would receive that day would make me agree to return, reluctantly and to protect sacred secrets, to the grief-breathing place of childhood, to the Seaboro River.
Four years later Henry VII didn't spare any costs when his queen, Elizabeth of York, was escorted up the river by a company of barges adorned with red, flame-breathing dragons.