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Page 109
and Walter turned that way at once, but his eyes lingered on Sybelle for just a moment. She looked up when she heard his name; their glances metand the sourness went out of the notion that he was betrothed while she was not.
Oddly, Walter did not feel at the postponement of his meeting with Sybelle, nor did he, as he would have expected only a few minutes past when he entered the hall, feel relief. He was filled with a sense of well-being, of pleasant anticipation. Mostly, he told himself severely, that must be owing to a marked increase in his physical comport. Although he was somewhat irked by having his left arm bound to his body so that he could not move it, the resulting lessening of the pain in his shoulder was more than compensation. Also, his knee was nearly back to normal. Lady Joanna had bound some poultice over it that had seemed to suck out the ache during dine night. It was still stiff and protested if he bent it too far, but it was no longer a nagging misery.
Walter looked at Pembroke and smiled broadly. Apparently the Roselynde women had worked their magic on him, also. True, Richard's mouth and nose were still horribly scabbed and discolored, but the swelling was down almost to normal, and the earl was spooning some dark-colored mush into his mouth with relative ease and considerable avidity.
"Good," Richard mumbled, seeing Walter's eyes on the uninviting-looking slop.
The word was slurred, but it was at least intelligible. Walter thought it must still be uncomfortable for Pembroke to talk and probably he had been warned not to do it, but at least the earl could direct the conversation more quickly and easily than by writingand that must be a great relief. Meanwhile, Llewelyn had invited Walter to sit beside him and eat while he told the tale of the battle. By now, Walter had that down pat and spun it off quickly, although Llewelyn did ask a number of sharp questions. Some Walter was able to answer from his own observations; others he could only satisfy with information obtained from Gilbert Bassett. The last few questions concerned Walter's own part in the battle, and when those were answered, Prince Llewelyn laughed and shook his head.
"That is not quite the way I heard it," he said. "I was given to understand that you were the hero of the day."

 
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