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Page 134
pected Lady Alinor's discontent was a result of her own impatient nature that must be up and doing at every moment. Joanna knew that she, herselfred hair or no red hairwas much slower in action, more content to watch and dream. In moments of total exasperation, her mother had occasionally called her a beautiful cow, but that was not true. Cows, as far as anyone can tell, can exist with perfectly blank minds, ruminating only on the contents of their several stomachs. Joanna, who was also willing to ruminate, needed something more interesting to contemplate.
The first path her thoughts found led, naturally enough, to Geoffrey. For some reason, a frequent mental repetition of the events of their parting did not bore Joanna at all. Unfortunately, the pattern of thought did not end there. After parting came the future, and, for Geoffrey, the future was war. Mostly, Joanna wondered how he was managing the men and how the supplies were holding out. Once in a while, however, she thought of battle, and then a panic seized upon her and shook her as a terrier shakes a rat. She fought off the fear, trying to smother it, trying to run away from it, trying to soothe herself with assurances that Geoffrey was only one young man out of many, many young men all equally personable.
That assurance, strangely enough, seemed to increase rather than subdue the fear. In desperation, Joanna did her best to put Geoffrey out of her mind entirely. There was no dearth of men at court, even though so many had ridden with the king. There were the older men, like Oxford, who wished to be near the scene of action although they were no longer physically involved. There were those who were charged with the routine of government, who remained in a safe place that was still conveniently close to transmit necessary information to the king, and there were the queen's gentlemen who were responsible for her safety and that of her children. Joanna flirted with them all.
In a sense, she was careful. She never moved far from Lady Ela, except to dance. She never danced more than

 
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