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to tell me that freedom makes men more honest? That they pay their stones of fish or give their pennies or their service more willingly?"
"Even that may be, but I was not thinking of rents or corvee. They watch this coast by day and by night from land and from sea as no army could ever watch it. Perhaps a single child in a single boat might escape their notice, but little else."
"Yet you say the reavers have come ashore to burn and loot."
"It happens," Sir Andre admitted, "but not often. Far more often my men and I lie waiting for them. They come ashore, but they do not put back to sea. The fisherfolk are then richer by another boat and we in the castle by whatever was in the boat."
"You protect them and theyfor their own safety and profitprotect you," the deep voice mused. Then Simon shook his head. "It works until some fancied slight angers them."
Sir Andre shrugged. "Oh, it is not all faith upon our part. My men patrol the coast close to the keep, and furtheras you sawthere are watchtowers. I spoke of it because I could see you thought the defenses thin. For many yearsas long as there has been no sharp threat of warit has been sufficient."
It might well be so, Simon thought, but he was cautious by long experience and reluctant to agree to what he had not tested himself. "You have been here many years?" he asked, turning the conversation without seeming too obviously to avoid approval.
"Oh no. My keep is in the north, at Donnington. My son holds it now. After my Mary died, I was glad enough to leave it to him and come to serve my lord, who was growing feeble. Toward the end he was forgetful too. It was Lady Alinor mostly who showed me the way of things in these parts."
"But she is little more than a child!"
Sir Andre looked hard into Simon's face. "Not so

 
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