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Page 100
smiling, Isabella gestured at a boy who was close by to carry the message. The boy, young and uncertain, had spilled the whole tale, and Salisbury, having bitten back the comment that sprang to his tongue concerning the queen's ancestry and character, then told the page to ride out to the camp and tell Geoffrey that his lady was come.
Half an hour later, the child was back in tears. He could not come near Lord Geoffrey, he explained. The lord and some friends were making merry, very merry. He had been afraid to intrude on their pleasure, and it did not sound to him as if the party would soon end. Salisbury looked with blank amazement at the trembling child, opening his mouth to blast him for such stupidity. Messages did not wait upon the end of pleasuring. Then he recalled to himself where the boy had been trained. Messagesand sometimes matters of far graver import than this boy carriedcertainly did wait on the end of pleasuring in this court. With a resounding oath, Salisbury dismissed the frightened page, telling him to hold his tongue if he did not want it cut out, and strode off to the stables. So delicate and innocent a lady as Joanna must not be offended with such information nor must she be hurt by the absence of her betrothed husband at the dancing that evening.
Tostig of Hemel, Geoffrey's master-at-arms, caught the reins of Salisbury's horse as the earl swung off his mount a few yards from Geoffrey's tent. "My lord" he cried urgently.
Salisbury thrust him aside ungently with an irritable grunt.
"But" Tostig offered, following him a few steps.
Then he shrugged and fell back as Salisbury glared at him. He had tried. The father and son were on the best of terms and there was no serious wrong in what Lord Geoffrey was doing. It would not be the first time a father had learned his son was a man in all ways. He watched Salisbury duck under the tent flap, grinned and retreated.
"Get out of there and get dressed," the earl roared.
Geoffrey rose off the whore and onto his feet in as neat a

 
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