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Page 252
from Llewelyn this morning, together with a gift for Henry and letters for you and me. Llewelyn is very eager for you to go to Roselynde with all speed. You had better read your letter and decide whether matters are so urgent that you should leave as soon as packing can be finished, or whether you can stay until morning."
Simon was cracking the seal as she spoke, and his eyes skimmed over greetings and formalities down into the meat of the message. In a few minutes he looked up. "There is no order here for me, only an explanation of some matters in the contracts and a message to my father, but if you are willing, Rhiannon, I would like to go as soon as you can be ready. I have a feeling that your father would not have sent the contracts here if he did not think that even one day might be of importance. If time were not so of the essence, he would have bade us come to him."
"So do I think also," Kicva said gravely.
"Then I am ready now," Rhiannon stated.
"At least put on your riding boots, beloved," Simon suggested with a grin.
Rhiannon wrinkled her nose at him for his teasing, but did not delay to reply to it. She went to attend to her own packing, and Kicva began to assemble Simon's belongings while he returned to the countyard to tell his men to bring in the horses and collect their gear. They ate an early meal and Simon donned his armor. But when Rhiannon was seeing to the loading of the pack animals, he went to say a private farewell to Kicva. He found her, for once, idle sitting empty-handed before her empty loom. Simon stopped short, staring in amazement.
To his memory it had always held a marvel of beauty, the leaf-green cloth with its, interlacing trees on which perched a myriad of birds, all glittering so that they seemed to be in constant motion. He did not remember until that moment that the loom had been empty when

 
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