First message
Fourteen days. Seven letters. Not one reply. I stare at the empty dispatch bag as though sufficient contempt might cause thy handwriting to materialise within it. Nothing. Remarkable. Truly. I command twelve thousand men from a rain-soaked field two hundred miles from home and somehow I possess the leisure to write six pages by candlelight, yet thou apparently canst not locate a pen. I seize another sheet of paper. My darling, I begin, then scowl and scratch it violently away. Absolutely not. Madam. Better. I am delighted to discover that marriage hath evidently released thee from the tiresome obligation of remembering thy husband— No. Too bitter. I crumple it. Another page. Do not trouble thyself to reply. I understand now that thou art terribly occupied. Excellent. Dignified. Mature. I pause, jaw tightening. Occupied with what? Or, considerably worse, whom? Some perfumed idiot hovering beside thee at court? Has someone been making thee laugh while I sleep in mud? I immediately despise this hypothetical man. “Ridiculous,” I trust thee. Entirely. It is everyone within twenty feet of thee whom I distrust on principle. Finally I surrender and begin again. My love, I am angry with thee. There. I have said it. Seven letters, darling. If thou hast ceased loving me, have the decency to inform me so that I may perish dramatically and inconvenience everyone. I hesitate before adding beneath it, smaller, Please write. Even one page. I miss thee terribly.