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Page 391
they realized that news of their attack on Hay would get to Clyro or to Clifford before they could get in. I will wait a little while and then send out to Clyro for more men to be sure they do not make any attempt on us while we are fording the river." He paused, staring at Sybelle and asked once more in no gentle voice, "What are you doing here?"
She had looked first at the trail of blood on his left side, but it was dark and drying already. The wound he had taken was no great matter. She lifted her eyes to his face and smiled mischievously. "Saving the life of an idiot?" she suggested.
Walter's mouth hardened with temper, and he stepped toward her, but Sybelle did not quail. She laughed softly, only there was no challenge in the laugh or in the expression. Her eyes showed only trust that he was not a man to punish others for his own mistakes. Walter burst out laughing, too, strode over to her and caught her, into a hard embrace.
"Saving the life of an idiot," he agreed. "Did you know this was a trap set by that nasty bitch?"
For a moment Sybelle leaned her head against her husband's shoulder. "No," she admitted. "But when you said I must trust you, I knew I must. And then I asked myself what kind of injury you could have done her and put that together with the debt you hated. . . ." She pushed out of his arms and looked up into his face anxiously. "Oh, Walter, if she is with child, you must not hate the babe. It is bad enough to be born a bastard, like Papa was, but to be hated also is too terrible. I will take the child and love it. I swear I will. That was what I followed you to say."
He pulled her back into his arms. "Dearling, dearling, you are so sweet and good. There is no child. Look at her. It was just the bait to draw me, for she knew I would come to her for no other reason. What would I want with her when I have you?"
"But why did she want you dead?" Sybelle shuddered and clutched at her husband. "If she desired you, she might want me dead, but why you?"
Walter looked down at Marie who was sobbing louder and louder, working up into full-throated wails. His mailed hand seized her shoulder and the fingers gripped so that she shrieked with pain. "I never saw the face of the man who fought me, but you called him Heribert. How did you come to know my late castellan, Sir Heribert?"

 
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