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Page 406
Prince Llewelyn from Kicva, greetings. I hope you are well as I am. So, too, now is Rhiannon, or she soon will be. If it is possible that she and Simon be brought together quickly, that would be best, as it is not impossible that he will be driven to do something foolish by her silliness. Even if he does not, the more time she has to consider what she has done will make her ill at ease and increase the awkwardness of the reconciliation. Thus, if a reason can be found to send her where Simon is, find it. Written this last day of October at Angharad's Hall.
Later, when one of the hunters came in, Kicva gave him the letter and told him to take it to Prince Llewelyn at Builth as fast as he could go.
Rhiannon fled from the hall out across the courtyard. The night air was cold and bit her fire-warmed flesh. Instinctively she turned toward the stable where the big bodies of the horses warmed the air. But horses were too restless for her mood. There were six half-grown lambs penned in a corner. Rhiannon did not know the reason they were penned there rather than out on the pasture, but she ran in among them, grateful for the warmth of their fleece and the placidity of their natures. They would not react, as the horses would, to her inner turmoil.
Hate herself! Was her mother mad? Rhiannon clung to her fury and to her sense of hurt as tightly as she could. To let go of the rage would open the way to an everlasting prison. All her life she had been free to work or to play, to dress as she liked, to say what she wanted to whomever she wished to speak. Was she to yield this freedom? Was she always to need to think whether what she said, did, dressed would affect others? How dare Kicva say she knew why Rhiannon hated herself? Was that freedom not the life Kicva had chosen for herself?
But had she chosen it? Did Kicva have any more freedom of choice than Rhiannon herself had? The question sent chills up and down Rhiannon as she

 
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