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Roger will go straight to God's knee when God sees fit to call him to heaven." |
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"And Winchester will go straight to the devil," Alinor snapped. |
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Sadness filled Ian's eyes. "No," he sighed. "Despite all the trouble he has caused, Peter des Roches is not evil. There is no evil intent in him. God would not damn a man for lack of understanding." |
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"He was once your friend, and you will never cease to love him," Alinor said in an exasperated voice. "But Winchester has been no friend to this realm these two years past. It was he alone who set the notion into Henry's head that a king must be all-powerful and rule without the advice or consent of his barons, regardless of law or custom. And it was Winchester who deliberately forced Richard Marshal to rebel, thinking that if he could break the Earl of Pembroke, the rest of us would bow meekly and allow the king to have his own will in all things." |
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"But Winchester meant it to bring peace and order to the land," Ian pointed out soothingly. |
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"He meant it to bring the land resistless into his hand," Alinor snapped, and then, seeing the trouble in her husband's face, she jumped up, kissed him again, laughed, and went back to her seat. "Very well," she continued, "I will credit Winchester with good intentions. I will only wish him purgatory instead of hell, but I hope it is for as many aeons as he has caused us years of misery.'' |
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That made Ian laugh also. "Your notions of mercy, my love, chill my blood. But what I wished to make clear is that you need not fear that Winchester will cry anathema on us when we go to Builth for the wedding." |
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To Ian's surprise, his wife did not answer. Instead, she looked away to the doorway leading to the great hall of the keep. Ian also turned his head. Instantly, the trouble that had lingered in his eyes despite his laugh vanished into a warm smile of welcome to his eldest grandchild. He had long since stopped reminding himself that Sybelle's mother was his stepdaughter and not his own get. He knew Alinor remembered her first husband with love, but she did not resent Ian's calling Joanna his daughter and Sybelle his granddaughter. |
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Sybelle dropped a kiss on the top of her grandfather's head as she passed, but she made direct for Alinor, holding out a |
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