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will see me naked. It is the only clean cloth about me. I am all muddied from crawling about through hedges, and I must have something to bind you with." |
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"Bind me? Tush! I have fought half a day with worse hurts. It is naught but a slit in my skin. Do not trouble yourself. A leech shall see to me when we return to the Queen." |
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Alinor had had wide experience of the wounds of war and the filthy leeches that attended the wounded men in the year during which her liegemen had fought, sometimes bitterly, to keep her safe. Perhaps the leeches who served the Court were wiser and cleaner, but Alinor was not about to chance Simon's well-being on such a hope. She met his eyes. |
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"You are mine, to me," she said fiercely, "and none but I shall see to you." Then seeing how startled he looked, Alinor smiled and told him what she would say to others to convince them that she did no more than her duty. "I have tended Sir Andre and Sir Giles and Sir John and many others when they were hurt for my sake. Shall I do less for you who are the warden set over me? Would you have men say that I hate you and wish you ill?" |
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Simon looked away and Alinor went back to cutting up her shift. It was reasonable enough, he thought, but that passionate "You are mine, to me" disturbed him. Then he remembered when he had heard Alinor say that before, and he began to laugh. God pity the man or woman who tried to interfere with Alinor's inordinately powerful sense of possession; Simon understood that he now belonged to herjust like her castles, her lands, her vassals, and her serfs. For any and all of these she would work and fight. In a sense she loved them all. Doubtless in that sense she loved him too. It was safe to let tend him. |
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By the time Ian and Beorn and the men returned, Alinor's work was also done. She had removed Simon's belt, lifted his hauberk and undergarments, tsked over |
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