Armand’s First Letter. Amelia’s First Letter.
15 June 1019
Veronica’s College, Edenford, Cumbria
Armand is free once more; but it will be two more weeks before Amelia receives word of Armand’s release. — Ed.
My dearest cousin Armand,
You are arrested! O my beloved cousin, I hope and pray that you are all right, that you have not been mistreated, and that Amelie and your daughters are well!
I have just received word of your arrest from Jack, that you have been arrested in Mont-Havre, indeed, that the Royalist forces have taken the city. At least there has been little bloodshed, though I fear that may have changed since Jack wrote me.
As you can see, I am writing from Edenford once again. It is too maddening! I did everything I could, used every ounce of my reputation as the heroine of the Battle of the Approaches, but I was unable to gain admittance to Lord Doncaster. I was assured time and again, always in the most insulting tones, that the pressure of current events meant His Lordship had no time me, and that I was not to worry “my pretty little head”!
His Lordship would not have used me so, I know, had I spoken with him; and should I gain his ear at a future time I will advise him in the strongest terms to better school his assistants, for I declare I very nearly reduced two of them to ash. Indeed, were it not that it would have resulted in the regrettable destruction of Number 9, I do believe I should have done so!
Though, truly, the pressure of current events on His Lordship must be very great.
The turmoil in Provençe continues, it seems, though we are receiving little enough news from over the Abyss. Trade with Provençe is at a standstill, as are the packets of the Courier’s Guild. I believe that there must be some degree of correspondence between His Majesty’s government and the warring parties in Provençe, but if so the people of Cumbria have not been made privy to the details.
We do know that the Provençese Navy has continued its blockade of the Approaches to Toulouse; but the latest reports say that although they still wear the uniforms of the Deuxième Republique, they are now flying the colors and wearing the badges of the Ancien Regime. From this it is clear that the Royalists have not been put down, and are still favored by the Navy.
What fighting there may be, whether blood runs in the streets as it did during the Troubles, none can say.
And so we have left Yorke, and the weather being warm have made several forays in our caravan to continue our survey of the ley lines of Cumbria. Our map is being filled in apace, at least within two days of Edenford and along our route to and from Yorke, but otherwise there is little new to report: we have not dared to venture far afield, not in such uncertain times as these.
Nor have I uncovered much of use concerning the ancient Iturians. Oh, indeed, the Cadwallian Library has documents we have not found elsewhere—and should I be concerned with ancient battles in places whose names have been utterly forgotten, or the rites of deities who held sway in the ignorance of those far gone days, I should perhaps be filled with delight.
It may perhaps please you to know that on the Kalends of Quintilis in a year whose reckoning we have lost, the goddess Beroea was granted a hecatomb of fine oxen in thanksgiving for the victory of Iturian troops over the Skithyons, the burning of which lasted for a day and a night; but I confess that I find these details, though colorful, utterly unedifying.
But we have seen nothing concerning magic, nothing concerning the extent of their empire save place names, nothing of how the empire was held together. We have found nothing against our thesis that the Old Lands were once one, both physically and politically; but we have as yet found nothing new to support it either.
Jérôme Lavigne, at least, is making best use of his time; he is attending lectures and symposiums, and reading thick books on Cumbrian magic. I should be doing the same, I suppose, but I am too unsettled.
Instead we make brief dashes into the countryside with our caravan and our devices; and we sit in the Library and read ancient tomes; and we sit in our rooms and drink tea and wait with little enough grace for the next wee bit of news.
I pray that you are well, and that the next wee bit of news will be of your good health and safety!
Your worried cousin,
Amelia
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Zymurgia House 