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Page 215
or Caernavon. Hardly had he passed Abergavenny and plunged into the valley that ran west of Ysgytyd Fawr, however, than a messenger came leaping down the flank of the hill and hailed him. Prince Llewelyn was at Builth, he said, and bade him come there with his news. Simon was overjoyed.
It was rather late when they arrived at Builth, but Llewelyn was awake and waiting for him. News of the "surrender" of Usk had flown over the mountains and up the valleys by relays of swift runners, and the prince had guessed that Simon would not linger after Richard was gone. Although he had been in the saddle for hours, Simon gladly went to his overlord. He was eager to know what Llewelyn would make of the terms of the truce. Beside that, the sooner he had told the prince everything he knew, guessed, and even hoped, the sooner he would be free to go to Rhiannon.
Since the truce had been proposed, Simon's thoughts had turned from the arts of war to the arts of love. He had gone over and over that last day's happenings, from finding Rhiannon in the woods to the final, soft "Fare thee well." Unfortunately, the events showed him no clear path. He was puzzled and hurt by Rhiannon's doubt of him and of herself. In some ways Simon was very innocent despite his many sexual liaisons. Simplistically, he accounted all the women who yielded to him as bad. He acknowledged that, in many cases, their husbands did not deserve chaste or loving wives. Nonetheless, the woman who violated her vows was at faultthe Church said so, men said so, it must be so.
It was very easy for Simon to be positive on this subject. His mother had never violated her vows, nor had his sister Joanna, nor his sister-by-marriage, Gillianeand the latter two were both superbly beautiful and he knew had been importuned by men in high places. He did not connect the behavior of the wives with the very obvious devotion of the husbands, although he knew that Ian, Geoffrey, and Adam had never taken a

 
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