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dying down as well. The defeated were thoroughly cowed, and there was very little left to fight over. As the last of the wagons and packtrains rolled out of the camp, Gilbert Bassett rode back and ordered his men to begin an ordered retreat that would prevent any attack to recover the loot. The Welsh were already gone. Organization was not a strong point of their fighting style. |
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For half an hour more, Simon, Philip Bassett, and their men held the land between the keep and the camp. A final blast of horns told them that all the allied forces were out. Then they turned and galloped away. They assumed that as soon as they were gone, those in the keep would rush down and try to organize a counterattack, but no one was worried. The men were so demoralized that they would not respond well to orders, and there was hardly a weapon or a piece of armor left in the camp. The garrison of the keep had been somewhat mauled already, and they were far inferior in numbers to the rearguard Gilbert Bassett had set up. |
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The rearguard action was maintained all the way to Abergavenny, but no one expected it to be necessary, and it was not. Having fought hard twice and having had an energetic gallop with a proper load on him, the black stallion had settled into a model of obedience. Naturally, the moment Simon's mind was free of the need to concentrate on keeping alive, it turned to Rhiannon. First, equally naturally, he was so consumed by outrage that he gasped for breath and felt as if he would burst. |
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What the devil had she meant when she said she had come to find him in the tent of an officer of an enemy camp? Idiot woman, imagine wandering around in the middle of a battle looking for a cat! And how dare she scream aloud that she would marry him where and when he desired and make that an afterthought to demanding a bow? |
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