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Page 300
feelings deeply hurt, and the present situation was not of that kind. It was not her business to tell Walter how to behave to a past mistress, so long as he did not love her or seek her bed.
As it was, Marie was with them when Richard approached and said, "So, Walter, what of this castellan of yours of whom you had such doubts?"
"The doubts remain," Walter replied. "Yet I have not a thread with which to spin them into cloth."
Richard frowned. "Can it be only because he was your brother's man?"
"My lord," Sybelle put in, "my castellan at Clyro felt the same about Sir Heribert, and he did not know Walter's brother." She did not mention her own feeling. Most men would regard that as irrelevant or even as a mark in Sir Heribert's favor.
"I never knew you to take a man you did not know in aversion," Richard said to Walter, also nodding at Sybelle to acknowledge what she had offered. "It can do no harm to be cautious. Where is this Sir Heribert now?"
"I asked him to remain at Clyro, and it seems he has done so because Sir Roland would have sent word if Heribert had gone. I said I would return there and that we would then go together to Knight's Tower."
Richard looked at Walter's arm, which was bound to his side again. His lips twisted into a grin. "You told me that the bone was healed, except too weak for jousting. More the fool I was to believe you."
"But it was a lance blow that broke it," Walter protested. "It was no set battle we were to fight. I did not expect to be charged by spearmen."
Richard's expression showed a strong doubt about Walter's defense, but he just shrugged. "Well, truth or not, you are crippled again, and I do not think it wise for you to be in the power of a man you do not trust when in such a condition. Write to Sir Heribert and tell him that you cannot come now but that you will meet him at Knight's Tower on the first day of January. You need not say that the whole army will be with you."
"I am not likely to do that," Walter assured him dryly. "And since I will be of no use to you as I am and my men have had some hard knocks, too, what I will do is send the

 
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