< previous page page_244 next page >

Page 244
war were new and ready. Moreover, he had taken good care that word of his readiness should be spread abroad. If she wished to come to oversee what was done, Lady Joanna would be most welcome, Sir Peter concluded, but if she could not come she could rest assured that he would send her news as soon as he heard it himself and he would defend the castle and the lands faithfully.
There was no need for Joanna to wait for more uncertain rumors to be passed on by Sir Peter. Geoffrey came storming into her London house five days later. He had ridden down from the north at breakneck speed only to find Joanna missing from Roselynde. None of the servants could tell him where she had gone (a precaution she had taken to prevent Geoffrey from learning of her trip that backfired badly) but all knew that a messenger from Wales had come. Unfortunately, Geoffrey did not ask whether the messenger had come before or after Joanna had left the keep and no one thought to pass along that piece of information. Sir Guy returned from hunting barely in time to prevent Geoffrey from setting out to follow Joanna to Wales. Having first convinced Geoffrey not to murder him for allowing Joanna to go off alone on such a venture, he then assured the young lord that Joanna was safe in London. Sir Guy expected that Geoffrey would rest there that night and was resolving in his mind some tactful, if untruthful, explanations for Joanna's trip. He then realized that Geoffrey did not intend to demand any further explanations from him; he was bent upon obtaining the rest of his information direct.
Reasonably enough, Geoffrey was gaunt and holloweyed and somewhat out of temper when he arrived in London long after compline. Joanna was not exactly pleased to see him either, but she got up from her bed, put on a night robe, greeted him with composure, and invited him upstairs.
"What the devil are you doing in London? What the devil was in that message from Clyro?" Geoffrey snarled as soon as they were in the relative privacy of the solar. "Have you not heard that Wales is risen?"

 
< previous page page_244 next page >