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Page 442
packed together. Then Simon called to mind the stone storage sheds where bins of grain and roots were kept in Roselynde. If Abergavenny had them too. . . . He started off again and Rhiannon followed, with Math at her heels like a dog.
Even starved as they both were for each other, the crowded conditions and organized bedlam of the courtyards began to quell their desire. If Simon had not already been so tired, he would have suggested that they ride to his mother's keep at Clyro. He began to consider the idea seriously while they struggled across the bailey, but the sheds were there. He chose the nearest, even though it was small and low-roofed, and prepared to break the lockonly the door was not locked; it opened easily to Simon's pull.
The odor of sheepskins in the shed was too strong to be pleasant, yet both Simon's and Rhiannon's eyes lighted and their smiles were unstrained and full of remembered gladness. The shed had been left open so that anyone who was cold could take a fleece. They were too large to steal easily and of little value in any case. Simon laughed and jammed the door shut. Whoever was cold would have to wait until tomorrow or find some other source of warmth.
It was black as pitch inside, but when they tripped over a skin they fell soft on a pile of fleeces and lay kissing. The shed walls were thick so that only a muted noise drifted in through the air vents under the roof. They were separated from the crush and excitement in the bailey outside, and the feel and smell of the sheepskinsnot so overpowering now that they were accustomed to itcarried them back in memory to the open hills and the shepherd's quiet hut.
They began to undress each other, fumbling and laughing in the dark, but the tension and passion of the raid were still in them. Simon's teeth left bruises on Rhiannon's breasts, and her nails scored his back and buttocks. She was so arousedby abstinence, by

 
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