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Show before her; gasping and redfaced, his legs spraddled below his green and white nightshift, fists on his hips. "Bespeak me not of restraint!" He stamped his feet in annoyance, turned away from her scornfully, tore open the sleeping room cupboard, and began forthwith to dress himself without assistance for the first time in his life. He pulled on his leather leggings viciously. "And run the Hold I shall and as it pleases me!" he screamed back at her over his shoulder. He jerked his nightshift over his head. "And restraint I shall not have! He grimaced and threw the shift across the room. "These besotted Yeofolk need a whiphand o'er them, by the Holy Saints, and now they shall have it!" He yanked on a soft suede jerkin, dyed a bright yellow and hung with fringe, breathing in gasps and his lips near blue. "Start I now, woman, start. . .start I now... to do this t h i n g . . . to run this Hold..." He tore open a pair of soft boots made of scarlet leather, and thrust his feet into them roughly, lacing them up any which way. The spectacle of Armand taking such responsibility upon his shoulders had momentarily staggered Dr'Anya, although the prospect of a man finally coming of age in his particular time of life might have given any wight pause. He was by that time as bald as a sheepfold, had a large, soft stomach, and his small mouth was permanently set in a petulant crimp. His yellowed and bloodshot eyes, moreover, warned of high blood pressure and a ruined liver. "Fair sir, enrage yourself n o t . . . , " began Dr'Anya, but Armand, trailing laces and the sour fumes of Tartary whiskey was already stamping out of the room in a fury and was of no mind to listen to the good Dr'Anya. 118 |