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Page 334
Alinor said, "Send a maid with itand with a note, if you wish. The men will be busy reading over the contract. You will have to read it over, too, but that may be at your leisure since I wrote it. You may be sure your interests and those of your children are safeguarded."
Sybelle nodded acceptance, only asking, "Where have you put us?"
"In the south tower." Alinor smiled. "You will be more private there. Edith will wait upon you, and you may keep her and her daughter, Adele. The girl is not trained yet, but Edith knows her work."
Sybelle nodded again and went out into the antechamber, where she found Alinor's writing desk and penned a few lines to explain the gown to Walter. Then Rhiannon came up, followed by maids and menservants carrying the bath and hot and cold water to fill it.
"Why," Sybelle moaned, as she shivered before she stepped into the tub, "does this whole family marry in winter?"
"Because the nights are longer," Alinor said with a wicked chuckle. "You will have compensation for shivering now by being well warmed later."
A similar exchange, although in different words, passed between Walter and Simon about an hour later in the main chamber of the south tower, where Walter was also bathing before the fire. He actually had more reason to complain, since the fire, although as large as the hearth could hold, had only been laid when his party arrived and had not yet really warmed the room, whereas that in Alinor's apartment burnt night and day all year. Under the circumstances, Walter's ablutions were brief, no more than a dip to satisfy the need for ritual cleansing. Sybelle, he thought, as Adam and Simon vigorously rubbed him dry, would not care. She had made no objection to his unwashed condition in Clyro or Knight's Tower.
The thought was as warming as the friction generated by the cloths Adam and Simon wielded, and more comforting. He had been somewhat dismayed by their reaction to the magnificent gray gown and the note he had found when they arrived in the tower room. Both had regarded the garment with awe, and then had looked at him with almost equal aweand awe was not a common state to either Simon or Adam. Apparently there was a greater significance in the gift than the value,

 
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