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Page 255
his usefulness to me, you may deal with him in any way you choose. You know, Alinor, what is impossible to avoid must be forgiven. And now, since I can do no more for you, you may go."
It was a dismissal that called for no more than a curtsy and departure, which was fortunate because Alinor could not have squeezed a syllable past her lips to save her life. Doubtless the Queen knew that, she realized, as she sat down beside the fire again and began to ply her needle. What had been said was clear enough. The implications attached had deprived Alinor of speech. Turning the words over and over in her mind, applying an emphasis here or there, pulling the sentences and phrases apart, changed nothing.
There was no doubt in Alinor's mind that the Queen knew she loved Simon and, probably, that Simon loved her. Was confession what brought the light to Simon's eyes? In addition it was clear that the Queen would not help them to marry. Alinor felt no resentment about that. She understood that the Queen dared not add even a feather to the burden of disagreement between herself and her son.
There had been more, however. That raised brow, the knowing quirk of lipAlinor recalled the tales of the Queen's youth: How her first husband had literally to pluck her from the bed of her own uncle; how even after that he had been willing to be reconciled, but the Queen had spat upon the floor in the Pope's presence and sneered, "What have I got after ten years of marriagetwo daughters"; how everyone had counted days and weeks upon their fingers when the Queen's eldest son, who had died in infancy, had been born, and how it was whispered that the child was not Henry's but some low-born troubadour's.
Alinor's needle flew. Color mantled her cheek, died, returned even more burning. No, the founder of the Courts of Love, those celebrations of polite adultery, would not be shocked at an illicit love affair. The

 
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