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least the disaster would be apparent early and enable the battle to break up with little loss. Geoffrey chided himself for carping. On his part of the field there was one leader, and a good one. If the other battles failed, they might still turn the tide or they would be able to hold together and withdraw with honor. |
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The last idea brought a pang of anxiety, restating a question that had come to his mind earlier in the day. Geoffrey was not a vainglorious fool in military matters. He understood the value of strategic withdrawal from a'lost battle, and he knew his father did also, but he wondered if that knowledge could have any influence on Salisbury's behavior in this particular case. His father had been greatly distressed by the tone of John's last letter. Would Salisbury fight on in the face of certain defeat, hoping for a miracle with which to restore John's faith? |
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Eventually, Geoffrey slipped from his bed, lit a candle, drew on his surcoat in lieu of a bed robe, and sat down to soothe himself by writing to Joanna. He did not, of course, mention any of his doubts nor even much about the battle except to say it was useless to worry because it would be long over before she received the letter. Mostly it was a letter of love, of praise of her beauty and laments of how he missed her and desired her, of assurances of his fidelity, of comparison of her perfections to the failings of the women with whom he had been in company. |
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"I could almost hate you," he wrote, "for you have destroyed any hope of joy for me outside of yourself. You are like to the sun and have so dazzled and blinded my eyes that I can see nothing else even when I can no longer see you. You will not believe me, I suppose, or will laugh at me, but I have not even taken a whore in all these weeks of weary nights. Beloved, I am sick for you. My loins ache for you. Yet I cannot ease myself elsewhere. You blame me, I know, for love of war, but believe that I do not love it for parting us. Indeed, so does the need for you grow upon me that I fear it will unman me in the end and make me hate war only because it parts us." |
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