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Page 470
took her hands in his own and kissed them. She permitted the attention passively, then freed one hand and laid it on Simon's head.
"Dear boy," she said softly, "if you must, you must." The hand trembled on his hair. "I have tried to keep you safe, but you will not thank me for that. And you are not a boy, Simon. WellWellGod has foreknowledge and each man must meet his own fate in his own way. Go then. God keep you."
That was the most peculiar dismissal Simon had ever had. The Queen had sent him off to tourney and to war hundreds of times. Sometimes she had been affectionate, sometimes troubled. Most often she had told him briskly to have a care for himself. But to say she had tried to keep him safe, to speak of God's foreknowledge This was no scheme of any of Simon's personal enemies nor of any man who wanted him out of the way to have Alinor. There was only one person in England from whom the Queen might say she tried to keep him safe or whom she would be reluctant to opposeJohn.
Although it was already late in the day, Simon summoned his troop, armed himself, and rode off. There were two ways to Iford. One was the direct route; the other entailed a detour of some thirty miles and led through Roselynde. Simon rode through the night and arrived with the dawn at the great stone walls. He recognized the intensity of the fear he had felt only by the enormity of his relief when the drawbridge rattled down promptly. What had terrified him to the point that he blanked it from his mind was that John held Alinor hostage within and would not open to him.
Simon's relief was short lived. Brother Philip cut short his orisons to bring him the letters Alinor had left. Simon read them with some difficulty. The light of the tapers that Brother Philip held wavered as if in a high wind from the shaking of his hands. What the old

 
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