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Page 368
"Not I," Simon said, grinning. "That is Lady Rhiannon's skill."
Simon called another command and shadows began to drop from the trees and slide out of the brush. A long bird call trilled into the distance. Bassett watched with hard eyes, accepting the fact that he had ridden into a trap and his troop could have taken heavy losses without ever having even seen their enemies. It was something to remember. But what startled him most was when Rhiannon came through the trees, her skirt looped up to mid-thigh for running and her hand on Ymlladd's neck. Unbound, the other horses followed, all silent except for the sound of their hooves on the earth. Gilbert Bassett's mouth dropped open.
"This is my betrothed wife, Lady Rhiannon uerch Llewelyn," Simon said.
Lovely as she was, Rhiannon scarcely looked like an elegant, high-bred lady. However, she came forward, gave Ymlladd's rein to Simon, and extended her hand in regal greeting without the slightest self-consciousness about her naked legs or the leaves and twigs in her hair, which she had not yet wimpled for riding. Bassett swallowed. When she moved away from them, the horses began to nod and blow with nervousness, and the men led them away. He recalled that Simon had said Lady Rhiannon had kept the horses quiet, but he had thought that some kind of private joke.
"Sir Gilbert?" Rhiannon said, in a perfectly normal, pleasant voice, marked by a faint puzzlement at his immobility.
Recalled to himself, Bassett bowed over Rhiannon's hand with grace, and then what Simon had said penetrated his shock and assumed greater importance than the behavior of some horses. "Uerch Llewelyn?" he echoed. "Are you daughter to the Lord of Gwynedd? But Iah, a natural daughter."
Rhiannon inclined her head.
"And betrothed to Simon de Vipont?"

 
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