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Page 216
the Hall so that even though it was ninety feet long and forty wide, he had found his mistress without trouble. this was three times as large and full to bursting with fine-garbed ladies and gentlemen. How was he to find his lady?
"Well, churl, what do you here? What do you want?"
The sharp treble brought Cedric's eyes from the shadowed immensity down to about waist level. A little page sneered up at him. The man-at-arms bowed humbly, his age, his experience, the scars of honorable wounds all nothing before the fact that the sneering slip was a gentleman born.
"I bear messages from Sir Simon Lemagne in Wales to the Queen and to Lady Alinor of Roslynde," he answered in his uncertain French.
"Go" the child had begun haughtily, when a beringed hand caught him a sharp crack on the side of the head.
"Cedric! Did you find him?"
The man-at-arms knelt. "Yes, lady."
Alinor turned on the startled page. "When a man of mine comes seeking me, do you bring him to me with all haste. I alone will tell my men to stop or go, to wait by the fire or in the rain, as I know their desserts to be. And you had better learn to use more civility to those who deserve it by their own good behavior or I will lay open the other side of your head. Now begone."
Cedric's head came up proudly. He would die for her, so he would. His lady used a man by his good service and she cared nothing for whether he was born in a shepherd's hut or a high house.
"Come," Alinor said next, totally unaware of her man's interpretation of her action. "Take off that sodden cloak and warm yourself by the fire while you give me the news."
She examined him carefully when the cloak hung over his arm, commenting on a bloody spot on his

 
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