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full-throated roar that Alinor should stop talking like a fool, Simon choked on the words. In fact, she was not talking like a fool. She was askingin a highly uncivil mannera very reasonable question. The idea that she was capable of raising so subtle a questionshe whose blush of innocence mantled her cheek so readilyfurther infuriated Simon.
"You are responsible for nothing during the lifetime of your grandfather," he snarled, "so let us have no more idiot babbling about straw babies and wet nurses."
"You mean that I must account to you for every Mass I paid for my grandfather's soul that was not ordered in his will? That I must explain to you why I purchased samite for mourning rather than another cloth?" Alinor shrieked.
"Of course not," Simon bellowed back.
He was aware again of movement in the Great Hall beyond the window embrasure, but eyes and mind fixed on Alinor did not attempt to determine what that movement was. And, even in the midst of a violent argument, Simon felt no need to guard himself against personal attack. This would have occurred to him as very strange, had he time to stop to think about it. In the course of his labors as justiciar for the King, Simon bore as many scars from attempted assassination as from pitched battles. He simply knew that could not happen here. Rage there could be in this keep, but not treachery. Simon wore no armor, and nothing but his eating knife hung at his belt.
"Then when does my accountability start?" Alinor hissed. "Name a time. Tell me when I must begin to explain why I ordered four pair of shoes instead of two."
"It is none of my affair if you ordered four hundred pair of shoes," Simon roared. He was aware that something was wrong, that this argument was somehow missing an essential point, but he was too angry to

 
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