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Page 284
Rhiannon burst out laughing while Simon explained Math to the others. There was only the most halfhearted protest from Geoffrey and Ian, but Gilliane did not join the others in their smiles and laughing objections.
"But Simon is perfectly right," Gilliane said seriously. "Henry is just like a cat. I never thought of it before, but it is so. He loves to be praised. He enjoys being strokedwhen it is convenient for him. He loves to be kindwhen it does not inconvenience him. He is quite clever about anything he desires and is deaf, dumb, and blind to anything he regards as unpleasant. And he can be quite vicious when he is displeased, even to those he loves."
Gilliane's serious analysis drew another round of laughter, but it was of enormous help to Rhiannon when she met Henry the next afternoon. Since she did not feel the same repugnance over a broken truce as did the others, her understanding of the king and her fear of making a misstep with him were, respectively, enhanced and reduced. To her eyes, the suggestion Gilliane had made was confirmed by sight of Henry. There was something catlike in the way he lounged against the cushions of his chairan inordinate love of physical comfortand in the rather blank stare of his blue eyes, to which the drooping lid of one eye gave a measure of slyness.
By the time Rhiannon reached his chair of state, the king was no longer lounging. A pool of silence had moved with her and her escortsIan to her right and Simon to her leftas they came up the long room toward Henry. She wore the black dress and the jeweled mesh to hold back her hair, which hung loose to her knees, and she walked the long passage between the staring courtiers with the grace of a doe and the proud bearing of a queen.
"My lord king," Ian said formally when they reached Henry and Rhiannon sank into a deep curtsy, "in

 
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