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Page 279
"No, beloved," Alinor interrupted, looking at Sybelle. Alinor's eyes glowed momentarily with satisfaction. Sybelle, this golden daughter of Joanna's, would be a worthy Lady of Roselynde when it came her time. "Sybelle has seen the truth."
"But there is no sense in it," Adam protested.
"Yes, there is," Gilliane insisted, the steel ringing clear in the velvet voice. "Listen to this case: All the barons will sit still, glowering but doing nothing since their oaths prevent them from attacking the king unless he attacks them first. Yet, because he has broken his oath to Pembroke, very few will come to his call, all saying the king broke the truce and has no right to their service. But Winchester has long prepared for this. The country is full of mercenary troops, and more come every day."
Geoffrey nodded agreement. "Yes, Ian. I thought, like you at first, that Winchester's purpose was to humble the barons into submission. I fear it is worse. He intends to destroy us utterly. If Pembroke can be beaten by the mercenary troops alone, it will be the first note of the mort for us all. He is the strongest. The heart will go out of many and they will submit. The king will then be maneuvered into picking a quarrel with another strong baron. When he is beaten, only fewer and weaker men will remain."
"I see it too," Joanna hissed furiously. "But the king will not call a levy. He will ask, instead, for scutage, and out of this he will pay his mercenaries."
"And they will have no land, no interest in this realm," Alinor said. "They will do as the king orders without thought for what is best for the people." Alinor's voice was like a knell of doom. She had cared for the land and the people on it so long and so fiercely that she was like a tree with deep, wide-spreading roots buried in the soil of Roselynde.
"In the long distance, only the king will have power," Geoffrey pointed out bleakly. "Most will not see the

 
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