Both answers could fit; ‘ermine’ if E=10 & ‘raiment’ if E=9. On simple counting, the latter is more likely so it’s going to need a try to see which works.
Fortunately, it was very easy to eliminate 'ermine' as a possibility as there's an 8-letter position ending in X crossing what would be ermine. This would have required an 8-letter word -N----NX, so ermine was out. (I guess Alphapuzzle setters don't have blue blood ...)
MusicalN, you have to be quite an early bird to tackle the first sighting of the Alpha Puzzle clue! The good news/bad news is that there are usually several more requests throughout the day.