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Page 422
Valenciennes eliminated that hope. Philip turned back from Tournai and settled himself into an open plain near the village of Bouvines.
On the twenty-fourth of July, Salisbury, Dammartin, Ferrand, Otto and the chief men of each group met in person to discuss their next move. As his father's right hand, Geoffrey was present. He knew he would have nothing to say about what was decided, but he had no quarrel with that. He had no special knowledge or skill that could excuse the intrusion of his opinion into this high-level council of war, and these menat least Dammartin and his fatherwere experts. Geoffrey's business was to listen and to learn.
The first need was to arrange the men, and one of Ferrand's people described to them the countryside, in particular naming the strongholds in the area and indicating their sympathies. At one point Geoffrey was startled by the familiarity of a name.
"Baisieux?" he interrupted. "Is the lord there called Léon?"
"He was, but he is prisoner in England, my lord. The keep is held by two ladies, his mother and his wife. They will offer neither harm nor help because they will not open their gates at all, except to a force too strong for them to resist."
Geoffrey nodded and made a mental note to go and pay his respects to the ladies when the battle was over. He felt slightly guilty about Sir Léon, as if the fact that he had wounded him left a responsibility for his welfare. He had heard nothing about the man after he returned to England, but that was not surprising. The fact that, a full year later, he was still a prisoner meant that his womenfolk could not scrape together the ransom and that his overlord, Philip or whoever, would not pay for himor that the women did not want him back, of course. Whatever the cause, Geoffrey was curious about Sir Léon's fate and stopped Ferrand's man to get directions to Baisieux.
It did not take long to make the physical arrangements. The terrain was easy, flat and open, with a river behind the

 
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