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case, Lady Giles would probably have sense enough to send to her husband for help if she were threatened.
"The second messenger must go to Lady Ela at Salisbury. She did not intend to go to Whitechurch, I know. She will contrive a way to send me advice, I am sure."
This time it was Beorn who made no comment on his thoughts. He felt Lady Ela with her aches and her tremblings and her complainings was a frail reed to lean upon, but he knew his mistress often wrote and spoke to her. Perhaps she asked her lord for help. Beorn felt some reassurance. Lord Salisbury was a strong defending wall for anyone in trouble.
"The third must be a hard and trusty man. He will need to ride night and day, changing horses as needful, and he will need to be clever. He must find his way to Whitechurch and there, in secret, go to Lord Geoffrey or to the earl of Salisbury and carry news of this summoning. If it is thought that I should be taken by force on the wayit is a long road to Whitechurchmy lord and his father must know to seek me if I do not arrive."
"Seek you? But they are poised for war. Lady, it is better not to go."
"Do you doubt Lord Geoffrey will draw his men from the war to seek me? He will do it. And when he goes to tell the king what he does and why, whoever holds me will quickly give me up, for Geoffrey's withdrawal will mean the end of the Welsh campaign."
Probably she was right, Beorn thought. The young lord could not keep his eyes from her, and he had wakened Beorn not long after matins the morning he left to harangue him for an hour on the need to guard his mistress better. Beorn chuckled softly and then sighed. He did not need the warning, but there was little he could do. Lord Geoffrey was raving something about last year when Lady Joanna fell in climbing the cliff. How could I have prevented her? Beorn wondered. Quiet as she seems, she is as much a devil as Lady Alinor.
"Now for your part," Joanna continued, "choose out

 
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