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Page 198
lack for news of it. Vesci would be quick enough to bear the ill tidings. Then it would be all to do over again. Geoffrey could have wept for weariness.
"There-is no one else," he sighed softly, reminding himself. Then, patting Ela's shoulder, he said, "This trouble will soon be past. Papa wrote that the army John intends to take to France will be gathered as soon as the ceremonies of knighting are over. The king will be too busy then to be offensive, and after that"
Ela's sobs had stopped and she was staring at Geoffrey with pale, angry eyes. "Do you offer that as comfort?" she asked in a strangled voice. "Do you promise me war to ease my heart?"
I have done it again, Geoffrey thought, exasperated with himself for forgetting Joanna's fury when he spoke well of the coming war with France. Never, never will I learn that whatever men love women hateexcept one thing only. "Now Ela," he murmured, "you know it will be long before it comes to fighting, and it may never do so. I only meant that marshaling of the army and the business of its transportation will keep John too occupied to allow him time to think of petty slights."
Anger and fear gave way, reluctantly, to amusement in Lady Ela's face. She sighed but could not help smiling. "You meant no such thing. You are just like your father. No matter how little your looks accord, inside you are a mirror of him. For all these years that I have wept and pleaded and died with fear, he still comes to me anew each time, smiling, to tell me of battle." Ela's smile faded. "It is all you love, both of you, to kill and maim and burn."
"I do not love that," Geoffrey protested. "No man, unless he be mad, loves to hurt another, and certainly not my father who, if he has a fault, is too tenderhearted. I love the conflict, Ela, the striking at me that I must ward away and the skill of striking back and striking home." He shrugged. "I do not think of the blood and pain, neither of my opponent's nor of mine.''
"That comes later, for wives to think of," Ela said drily, but in a moment she smiled again.

 
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