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wish to play at ducks and drakes with Sybelle's dowry, you would not have accepted my offer in the first place. Thus, what you give my wife does obligate me." |
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"Nonsense," Lady Alinor said sharply. "What Ian said was true. He and I do not need what we offer. It is better for you, who will have uses for it, to have it. From what you have said of your brother's governance, your lands may yield little for some years. It would be stupid for you to be in straitened circumstances, unable perhaps to put improvements into effect, while useless silver sat in my strongboxes." |
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Walter looked at the faces around him. All the Roselynde contingent smiled kindly; Richard laughed and said, "Do not be a fool. Lady Alinor is perfectly right." Thus adjured, he, too, smiled and nodded. |
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"Then we are all agreed," Lady Alinor said. "Clyro, the property at Braydon, and five thousand marks will be Sybelle's dowry. She will retain all rights; that is, Sir Roland, castellan of Clyro, will do her homage; she will give justice there and at Braydon; she will have absolute right of refusal on any use of the silver; and all these she may leave by will to whomsoever she chooses, not constrained by primogeniture or even by ties of blood. Do you so swear, Sir Walter?" |
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"I do so swear, provided that my honors of Foy, Thornbury, Barbury, Knight's Tower, and Goldcliff be mine alone, free of any claim by my wife. I do also swear that these my lands and honors will be heritable in male tail by sons legitimately conceived upon my wife, Sybelle of Roselynde, or, failing sons of my blood, heritable by daughters, legitimately conceived, and failing any living issue of our marriage that said lands and honors be heritable by my nephew, Richard, Earl of Gloucester." |
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Both Walter and Lady Alinor rose and exchanged the kiss of peace, and then each of the other members of the family repeated the process. The witnesses then took oath that they had heard and understood what was sworn, and everyone relaxed, smiling. The scribe at a small table to the side scribbled away, busily making copies of the rough agreement so that each of the parties might have one to be rewritten in fuller terms with the necessary legalities, but no one paid him any mind. As far as Walter and the others were concerned, they were finally committed and no legal document could bind them more firmly. |
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