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able. Still, she had not meant to laugh, for that condoned sin and it was neither pious nor proper. |
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"I am glad you take it so lightly," Simon said, not sounding glad at all. "For a maid of some seventeen years, it seems to me you know overmuch of such matters." |
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"How could I not?" Alinor choked, "when Beorn is forever telling me that this man and that have fallen out over some whore and he has given this or that punishment." |
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"You punish your men for whoring?" Simon exclaimed. |
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That set Alinor off laughing again. "I might as well punish them for breathing. No, for fighting among themselves But, Simon, I do not really take it lightly in that it seems to me you are not usually given to overindulgence in wine andand such other pleasures." |
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"Pleasures! There has been little enough pleasure. I There is the hospice, and I have not said, really, what I wanted to say. Alinor" |
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This time the eyes Simon turned upon her held what she desired. Alinor reached across and touched his gauntleted hand. "There will be much feasting tonight. We will find a moment." |
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In that assurance Alinor had not been correct. Although the hospice, a monastery that Richard had taken over to house his sister and mother in safety, was sufficiently large for the whole party there was far less chance for mingling than in an English keep. The women were quartered in the monks' cells. Alinor wondered what the good brothers would do when they returned to cleanse their beds of the contamination of female occupancy. She wished also that they had bothered to cleanse them of the six-legged occupants that infested them so freely. Richard had taken over the Abbott's house, and the gentlemen were placed in the guest houses and the lay brothers' quarters. The refectory served as Great Hall, but because it was not cen- |
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