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Page 249
together was a natural thing. This had to mean marriage. Simon was far too wise to bring this to her attention yet. Let her mire herself in the quicksand farther. Then he would think of some good, pride-salving reasonand he would have her.
She stroked his head idly as he kissed her neck, not aroused by his caress because they had just finished making love a little while before; also, her attention was on a serious subject. Simon did not feel rejected. He was quite accustomed to women who regarded sex just as men dida great joy and pleasure but only when more important matters did not supervene. He rolled to his back again, agreed with what she had said, and contemplated with extreme satisfaction the small forest glade in which they lay.
There was, of course, no way for them to be together inside the hall. Simon slept in the common room with all the men, and Rhiannon slept in the women's quarters, so they had not yet made love in a bed. There were plenty of other places, though, even when it rained, like the shepherd's hut where they had spent all of the preceding afternoon. The fleeces, with their sweet, oily odor, had made a softer bed than Simon's cloak over a heap of pine needles, but he still preferred the open, whether it was the hay-scented hillside in the sun or this odorous, mysterious hollow under the great, silent trees.
"How long will I have to make a friendship with the king if I can manage to do so?" Rhiannon asked after a few minutes of contemplative silence.
"The conference is called for the Sunday after Michaelmas. If anything is to be accomplished, it must be before then, of course, but" He jerked upright. "I have been too much bemused by your sweetness, Rhiannon. The truth is that we have very little time indeedif we are not already too late. Winchester would have begun at once to rave of the depredations of the Welsh and the need to bring us to

 
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