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Page 535
formation that Adam had arrived safe and well in time to enjoy the assault upon and reconquest of Rochester. Now, he said, they were encamped near London doing nothing.
After that, Geoffrey did not write again, although Joanna sent a messenger when she was settled in Roselynde. She could only assume that Adam had been unable to conceal his reason for appearing where he had not been invited. Geoffrey was probably so furious at her interference that he thought silence preferable to what he would be driven to say if he took pen in hand to write.
This did not grieve Joanna much. It gave her something interesting to think about. She could plan ways of assuaging Geoffrey's anger and, on the whole, it was better to think of him in a rage than heavy with unspoken and unspeakable misery. She had plenty of time for thought. December passed and then January. Alinor wrote that Ian's lands in the northwest were quiet, but that they had heard the king was in the northeast burning and pillaging. She did not know the truth for as yet they had only rumor from a few common serfs who swore they had escaped after everyone else was dead. Of course, runaway serfs would say anything, but Alinor was afraid there was truth in this. Joanna did not pay much attention to that. She assumed Geoffrey was with his father and she knew there was no fighting around London.
Besides, Joanna had some disquieting rumors of her own to worry about. Soon after she arrived in Roselynde, she learned from a merchant who docked ship in the harbor that the rebels had appealed to Philip and Louis to invade England and depose John. Thus far it seemed that Philip was disinclined to listen. The king of France had a clear memory of the reaction to a threat of invasion in 1212. It was said also that Philip realized that John had become something special to the popea jewel in his crown, like a prodigal returned to the fold. If Philip moved to invade England, papal anathemas would soon be flying around his head. However, Louis felt differently; he was certainly interested.
As late as February, Louis had done no more about this interest than send a small contingent of knights who soon became a laughingstock. They sat in the rebel stronghold of

 
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