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Page 136
Nonetheless, Alinor refrained from warning her men or even from telling her maid to begin packing.
Her reward was not long delayed. On the third morning, when she presented herself in the Queen's bedchamber, Queen Alinor sent all away except her long-time personal servants.
"Tell me again Alinor, how old are you?"
"I am well past sixteen, Madam."
The Queen smiled. "I said I knew Lord Rannulf. I am sorry I did not know him still better. I would have liked to learn how he taught you such discretion."
"Discretion, Madam? He would have laughed to hear you. He always said I had no discretion at all."
"Yet not one word of all the news you have written for me has reached a single ear. I call that high discretion. I wish my clerks were all as trustworthy."
"Holding my tongue was not discretion, Madam," Alinor replied laughing. "That was self-interest. I was never lacking in that. I knew if I blabbed your news, soon I would not hear it myself. I was sure you were testing me. But it can make no difference whether it is a test or not. I know that my service will end as soon as I forget my duty to be silent."
"I am well pleased, Alinor, very well pleased. I find it most convenient to have a female scribe about me. Thus, I will ask you to change your living quarters and join my ladies. It will be a little dull for you, I am afraid, to be in the company of older ladies, but as I told you before, the bitter comes with the better. If I wish to call you in the night, you must be near."
"Yes, Madam. I will miss Isobel of Clare, but for the rest, I do not care."
"Isobel of Clare," the Queen murmured, looking sharply at Alinor. First her lips tightened, but then she laughed aloud. "I should have known! Alinor, why did you stick your finger into Isobel's pie?"
"Because Simon was worried about his friend William. He was not gaining strength as he should, and

 
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