Armand’s First Letter. Amelia’s First Letter.
17 September 1021, LÉcole du Sorciers
My dearest cousin Armand,
I am pleased to hear that all goes well with you and the entire family. Someday I must come and visit; I have spent far too little time with Amelie and your daughters, and indeed, I could wish your Anne-Marie was here now, for little Jane is slippery as an eel and can be out from underfoot and into trouble in a blink of an eye! She requires constant watching, and no little strategy to contain.
As you might surmise, Jane’s nurse Margaux has not proven to be quite the help we had looked for. She is gentle with Jane, and diligent with her concrete duties, but she is apt to fall into black reveries in which her attention lapses. I fear she broods over her lost child and the life she had before she came to us, but there is little I can do to help her. She will not speak of it, and though I have suggested that she might join me in the chapel at such times she simply shakes her head.
Maximilian also shakes his head when I speak of it. “She was greatly ill-used, and all in the service of Cumbria. I expect she will heal in time, and we owe it to her to give her that time.” Which is all very well, but no help to my research.
But if I wish Margaux were rather more of a help, she is still something of a help. She is at her best early in the day, and so we have fallen into a rhythm in which she looks after Jane in the mornings, keeps herself busy with other work around L’École in the afternoons, and puts Jane to bed at night. What dreads await her as she lies alone in the dark hours I hate to think.
I therefore pursue my studies until the noon meal, and spend my afternoons at sewing, writing letters, and other small tasks while Jane plays at my feet. (As I write these words she is sitting in a patch of sunlight, babbling at her rag doll.) So long as I keep the doors tightly shut and breakable things out of her reach we get on well enough—though I fear what shall happen when she is tall enough to reach the doorknobs.
I have been in further correspondence with the professors Tillotson, Gerhard, and Tescorio. All have agreed to participate in my survey; and I have asked them to give preference to those regions that look out upon the Middle Gulf. If my ideas are correct—if Ituria once filled a portion of the Gulf, but is now entirely lost—then we should find evidence in the form of partial ley lines that run out to the Gulf’s edge with have no matching Land on the other side of the Abyss.
Dr. Tillotson is wholly on-board, and indeed hopes to do some surveying of his own before the snows come. His enthusiasm is no surprise, as I have spoken with him regarding what Maximilian and I have begun to call the Fall of Ituria in public and the Breaking of the Lands in private. I value his efforts and his support, though as Provençe lies between Cumbria and the Gulf his results can shed no light on the location of Ituria.
Gerhard and Tescorio have undertaken to ask their students to follow the ley lines in their travels, but it is clear that the general direction of those travels will be determined by concerns of their own. Beggars cannot be choosers, I suppose, and their efforts will at least give us a foundation to build from, though I foresee many summers abroad when Jane is older.
In the meantime I continue with my studies. Dr. Tillotson has found me a scholar in ancient Cumbrian literature; but alas the fellow has been off on a walking tour these past months. I hope to hear from him shortly now that the term has started.
Your studious and rather distracted cousin,
Amelia
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Photo by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash
Zymurgia House 