Armand’s First Letter. Amelia’s First Letter.

8 March 1020, 3 Madrigal Court

My dearest cousin Armand,

As I think on the news I have for you I veer from curiosity to fury and back again; indeed, I have done so several times merely while penning these words.

Let me set my news in context.

All through these past winter months, Maximilian and I have been yearning to take our caravan back out into the countryside to complete our charts of the ley lines of Cumbria. Or to continue them, rather; completing them will not be the work of a single season, and in our more thoughtful moments we have agreed that we will need to extend our survey into the wilds of Greater Britonia. But there is much yet to be done closer to home, and Spring, an early Spring, has been our shared dream since the first snows came.

That we have not squandered these months of curtailed activity, I need hardly assure you. We have spent most of them in Edenford, where we have continued to haunt the Cadwallian Library in pursuit of our historical studies. We made a brief visit to Edward and Jane in Wickshire for the Yule season; Mama and Papa joined us there, and Jack was much missed.

That was a bright and joy-filled time, and also noise-filled, for Edward and Jane’s offspring were much in evidence. I had met both of them before, of course; but at Christmas time they can hardly spend their days in the nursery, and little Georgie is so much bigger than I remember!

We also attempted a trip north to visit Maximilian’s people in Nexing Cross, but the weather turned colder than we anticipated. Our caravan is provided with every comfort—as you well know, having provided so many of them—but even so it must be driven, and poor Max nearly turned blue out on the box.

It has just occurred to me that as our caravan moves of itself and so requires no team to pull it, there is no reason for the driver to sit in the open air. There are no draft animals, and so no reins. The steersman’s station in your packets is enclosed, is it not? It seems that your caravans (for I am sure that ours is but the first of many) ought to be arranged on similar lines.

And then I received a letter than up-ended all our plans: a letter from Dr. Guisman, who is the head of L’École du Sorciers. As it was written in Provençese I will not give it in full; but it was both terse and stern, and requires me to return to Toulouse “if I wish to complete my course of study at L’École du Sorciers.” And worse: if I do not, the masters of L’École will see to it that I am banned from entering Provençe!

The letter included a note from Dr. Laguerre, written in a gentler though still severe tone. She reminds me that the strictures of L’École require that students must complete their studies or suffer the penalties, and must remain under the authority of the masters of the school until that time. She continues that the masters have met in council, and judged me innocent of willfully breaking the strictures, given the confused and chaotic circumstances that have obtained during my enrollment; but that I must return.

Not simply to avoid banishment—which she informs me is a requirement of L’École’s charter for all “sufficiently advanced students”, insisted upon by the then king of Provençe—but for the sake of my friends and family, and not least for the reputation of L’École.

I have received word from Jérôme Lavigne that he too has been summoned to L’École; though it seems he was not subject to quite so many dire warnings and dark cautions.

Though I suppose he has not set an enemy fleet afire.

And so here we are in Yorke, preparing for our return to Toulouse.

Our caravan has already been loaded on a freighter, its content quite thoroughly warded from light fingers by the wizardry of our dear Dr. Tillotson; he made a special trip from Edenford on our behalf, and presented me with a copy of his latest book, on the theory and practice of warding magic. (This is a skill I should greatly like to possess; Maximilian was not able to proceed so far in his studies before receiving his commission into the Hussars, and it would be of great use. But alas, there has been no time!)

Tomorrow morning we shall board a Courier’s Guild packet—one of yours, I might add—and by supper time tomorrow I shall have presented myself before Dr. Guisman and the other masters.

Your much upheaved cousin,

Amelia

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