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Page 283
Chapter 21
Fatigue had kept Walter and Sybelle from discussing the ambush they had escaped after they had found the huts of the woodcutters and helped themselves to food and shelter. There was no complaint from their startled hosts, for Walter paid liberally for what they received. This was less owing to generosity than it was a form of insurance, since he did not wish to set guards that night and need to check on them himself for fear they had fallen asleep. With money in hand to replace whatever food for the humans and fodder for the horses were consumed and extra as a reward, there was no likelihood that the woodcutters would take the desperate chance of attempting robbery or that they would betray the presence of the party to a possibly unfriendly local lord.
The next morning, however, while they were eating the coarse but filling barley gruel provided for their breakfasts, Sybelle voiced her suspicion that the men who had attacked them were Sir Heribert's minions.
"I thought the same," Walter admitted, "when I showed my shield and they seemed to recognize it and still pursued, but it cannot be."
He then explained his reasoning: how Sir Heribert could not have had time to organize an ambush, that it must have been a mistake, some local quarrel, perhaps, involving a minor vassal of the de Clares who had adopted the chevrons and colors of the family.
After a dissatisfied wrinkling of her nose, Sybelle sighed. "It might be so. Clifford is close by. I thought I knew all the relatives of Aunt IsobelI mean Richard's Mama, of course, not his sisterbut it is possible there were some black sheep that she did not recognize. And in these times when de Clare is so divided . . ."
"There are not enough of us to be divided, only poor little

 
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