[A letter to Aubrey Domergue]

[Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi]

Adar 8, IY 7787

Aubrey,

I understand that you have set out into the desert, or shall shortly set out into the desert, to seek the Chalice and the rejuvenation of the world in far-flung lands. I wish you well.

The test before us is a terrible one and the Oath that we have sworn is not lifted from our shoulders even if we should doff the Rose-cloak. This was true while you were in the colors, it was true while you strove in politics, and it is true now that you are gone afield. And you know as well as I that the words carved by our Grandmaster for the flower of her chivalry shall ring in our ears forevermore: "We the swift remember to ye the dead, all the red blood that beats in our hearts."

And we two have known so many of those honored dead, gone to the Martyrs' care over this past year, have we not?

I recall well our conversation in the Krak des Roses in Illul, where I contained unbecoming anger and envy of your station; confounded that you could not see yourself as a knight of the Rose. Well, you are errant now, as my poem marks you. For wherever you shall go the Cinquefoil Quest goes with you. And mayhap, if in far-flung places you shall find some sign, you shall bear word speedily back home and be welcomed with open arms.

It may be that this letter never reaches you, fated to gather dust as you trek far away, but you should know that through your trials I have ever believed that you possess a Cinquefoil heart. It shall be so wherever you may walk.

I shall pray to Kula that She keep you in good health.

Yours,

Sister Amélie

[Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi]

[A handwritten draft of a poem is enclosed, containing a few marks in editing.]

[Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi]

[The letter above is enclosed, without the poem, in what must have been the original first-draft manuscript. It's not the version that was sent. Instead, it's a difficult-to-read scrawl of that letter, with the occasional misspelling. The words, though, come through clear enough.]


Kanon Hray 10, IY 7788

Aubrey,

When last I wrote you a proper letter, it was in the days when you had doffed your cloak, and set out to distant sands. Some ten months ago you began that journey. I do not believe my original letter received you and so the manuscript copy that I kept is here enclosed.

I wrote to you of my envy. An unbecoming thing, no doubt, but to see you stand a leader among a burgeoning chivalry; how could you not then see in yourself that leader of questing knights? How could that heart which I knew burned with the desire to realize what the world ought to be not rise see in herself that solid worth I knew was there? Dark were those days, in the wake of the Red Hill.

And though our present days are fraught, I mark well how you have grown into your charge. O Lyrist, who serves not a ghost of what could have been, but a flowering chivalry. How have we not found the time to look upon our Cinquefoil Rose and see in it more than the cracks and blemishes! For even amid all the turmoil, we are closer, closer than we have ever been, to the realization of our Quest.

My first draft at this letter devolved at this point into meandering verse. And ere I do such a thing in this one, I will drive at my object:

You know me, I hope, as an honorable woman. I have ever striven to the advancement of the Cinquefoil Quest, our Rose, our Well.

And so, where there are doubts between my Sibylline and your Balladeers, let us write to one another of them, and see them resolved, that good order may be had within our Rose. Let us pose and answer questions, let us ask of one another what we need, and let us speak directly of what challenges we face. And you, working with yours, and I, working with mine, one by one they shall fall away.

This is my earnest wish. If it is yours, write me, and we will make our correspondence regular.

And if my previous letter found you in the dunes, I hope it brought you some strength while you were long afield.

Yours,

Sister Amélie