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Page 201
"Shall I smile and thank the man who calls my wife a whore?"
"No man will say aught to youand you know it," Salisbury muttered, his color high. "Do you think I would have endured such talk? It is the women."
"It is the queen!" Geoffrey exclaimed.
"I did not desire that you go about challenging husbands, sons, and brothers to silence tongues over which they have no control," Salisbury said, ignoring his son's passionate remark.
"But what am I to do?" Geoffrey cried.
Ela laughed again, a more natural giggle this time. "Nothing. Your father is quite right. The men will not say a word nor, for that matter, look a look. As for the women, I would leave them to Joanna."
Geoffrey sat silent, his nostrils pinched with fury and his mobile mouth set hard. Salisbury lifted and dropped his hands resignedly. If one's son were a spiritless clod, that would bring no joy. If he had spirit, it was natural that he would not accept an affront tamely. One must take the bitter with the better. There was one thing, however, that Salisbury had to make clear.
"It was not the king who objected to your summoning," Salisbury said. "I knew you would feel this way so I struck your name from the list of those to be called. I told the king I did so because I did not want you to take part in the tourney that will celebrate Alexander's knighting."
"What?" Geoffrey gasped. "Are you implying you think I cannot hold my own in a court tourney?"
"Do not be such a fool," Salisbury groaned, passing his hand over his face. "Your reputation is well enough established in war as well as in tourney. Besides, it is nothing to do with you. If anyone looked a coward, I did, acting like a hen with one chick."
"Do you expect me to refuse to fight?" Geoffrey asked coldly.
"Will you get down off that high horse," Salisbury snapped irritably. "Of course you will fight now that

 
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