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Page 246
"Did you not" Joanna began and then bit her tongue on the rest of the sentence as she saw Geoffrey wince.
"Am I a traitor to my oath of fealty?" he muttered. "I spoke out and said I thought the matter was more serious, but I would not say why I believed it. I could not betray Owain, could I?" He put a hand to his face. "I will go mad, Joanna. I am being torn in two.''
Not for men, nor yet to keep her from riding into Waleswhich he must have known she was too sensible to doGeoffrey had come to her for comfort, to have a hurt healed. Joanna went to him at once to offer the insidious solace of loving attention. "Sit down," she murmured, avoiding the topic, and began to unlace his mail hood. She went for a cloth while he pushed the hood back and when she handed it to him wiped the streaming sweat from his face and rubbed at his hair.
"What am I to do?" He looked at the cloth in his hands as if he had never seen such a thing before and had no idea of what he was doing with it. "I cannot go into Wales and burn it again. I cannot, Joanna. When my father and the king said I always saw black in Wales, I held my tongue and told myself it was out of loyalty to Owain, but I fear"
"Let me take off that hauberk," Joanna urged.
"Do you understand what I am saying to yot;" Geoffrey asked sharply.
"Enough to know you are worried about nothing," Joanna remarked calmly. "It does not matter a hair or a pin what you told or did not tell the king. Since the army is summoned anyway, it cannot do any harm that you did not insist upon the danger in Wales. When the men are assembled, John has only to order them to march into Wales instead of taking ship for Poitiers."
Geoffrey looked blankly at his betrothed. "It is not a question of what harm might come," he said, his voice rising. "It is a question of my duty and honor. If John orders us into Wales, will I be able to do my duty, knowing it to be hopeless, knowing that the death and the burning will go on and on endlessly?"

 
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