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Page 218
her munificence. "Go now and have your hurt seen to and rest," she ordered. "On the day after tomorrow, come you here to me. There will be letters to carry back to my lord."
As soon as Cedric was gone, Alinor unwrapped the parcel. Her eyes scanned the brief lines Simon had written and her lips twisted with amusement. He was well, the men were well, the campaign went well; he hoped she and the King and Queen were also well. She raised her eyes exasperatedly to the roof above and thanked God she had the foresight to send Beorn, who was both intelligent and trusty, with instructions to report everything that happened. Then she looked at the sealed letter to the Queen and had to repress a flicker of jealousy. Perhaps Simon had saved his news for her. Quickly, before the notion could come back and infect her thoughts or expression, she hurried down the hall to the passage that led to Edward the Confessor's house. The Queen had established herself in the Painted Chamber there, leaving the White Hall, which was newer and more commodious, for Richard, who had returned only two days past from a progress which had taken him north to Geddington and west to Warwick.
Alinor was glad of an excuse to intrude upon the Queen. Directly after Richard's coronation, she had been much in demand, writing one letter after another to friends and relatives of the Queen to describe the lavish spectaclewhich, to her indignation, none of the Court ladies had been permitted to attend. Afflicted by a sudden spurt of religious fanaticism and sexual perversion, Richard had ordered that no women or Jews should be present at the coronation itself or the feast celebrating it.
That had been the cause of another spate of letter-writing of a more serious nature. Thinking from the order that the King's favor was about to be withdrawn from the hated tribe of Israel who practiced the neces-

 
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