[Wids]

To the Earl of Arcata-on-Leinespere, Earl Garalder Cornall
From the Estate of Lord Aidrick Cornall
20 Flamerule


Father,

I am delighted to say that my courtship with Lady Corella deepens, though I must admit to harboring my misgivings.

I attended her birthday gala, as did no small throng of other invited noblefolk, and she greeted me in the plaza of her manor. Hours of hearty food, wine, music and chatter followed, with servants darting about and getting underfoot as society's elite traded tales and rekindled acquaintenceships. When dusk settled and the lamps began to burn, Corella took me by my hand and gleefully led me to the terrace overlooking Hippogriff Pond, where we sat for the better part of an hour, murmuring sweet words and gazing into each other's eyes.

Our goblets then ran dry, but Corella was prepared. She plucked a small brass bell from her sash and shook it with vigor, and before over long we were joined on the terrace by her dainty winebearer, a young raven-haired girl bearing a large amphora near to half her size. Though the servant girl was pretty in a way, her air was tarnished by soot-smudged cheeks and heavy, tired eyes which seethed with anger for my lady. Corella ignored the burning stares, or so I believed. But in turning to leave, the girl pitched forward and fell, shattering the amphora beneath her ribs and showering wine across the marble tiles. The culprit was then revealed as Corella kicked her leg upward with a sharp laugh, unhooking her own foot from the wine girl's ankle with force enough to jar the girl's sandal from her heel.

Clearly the servant girl had yet to find her servile heart, for she was promptly off the floor and on her feet, screeching terribly at my lady over some matter involving the girl's parents. Corella did not suffer her servant's harangue for long at all, silencing her with a blow from her backhand sound enough to send the girl reeling to the floor. And then, I fear, it was Corella's turn to be enraged, for she savagely lifted the servant by her hair only to send her back to the floor with four vicious cuffs from her open hand.

Perhaps Corella noted my confusion or dismay as I stepped in to part them, or perhaps I was afraid of facing my lady's rejection. For whatever the reasons, she took the battered servant by her hair again and set to goading me. "Try it, Aidrick! Strike her! She's only a peasant girl! Do with her what you want! Hit her! I enjoyed it, did I not? And you shall too! Now do it!"

And may Ilmater pardon me, for I did it.

I could never truly explain what I felt as the shock from that poor girl's jaw sank into the back of my hand and traveled up my arm with the peal of her scream. I was horrified by what I had done. I enjoyed what I had done. I was horrified that I enjoyed it. And then I did it again, and again, and several times more. And I was vaguely aware of Corella, somewhere near, joining in the sport with a berserk flurry of wicked stomping and kicking and pulling and clawing through what minutes followed.

Corella lifted me to my feet, or perhaps I lifted her to hers; I am not certain, having witnessed the entire moment through a red haze as I did. And tenderly we held each other in a warm embrace, numb to the servant girl's sobbing and wimpering at my calves. Sensing my disquiet, my lady lent the girl a cutting remark about learning her place, then led me to the water closet where we could straighten our garments and wash the blood away. Soonafter we returned to the party, and the servant girl, still drenched with wine, blood and tears of pain, was weeping pitifully into her disheveled black hair when we passed the terrace.

After two hours of midnight dancing with my Corella, I had finally pushed the suffering maid from my mind in time for me to quit the celebration and return to my carriage. But more suffering graced my ears as my lady and I passed through the breezeway: the pained howls of a man in horrid anguish. "What manner of man is that?" I asked. "Damara has no absence of scoundrels: pickpockets, swindlers, burglars, Leirans and worse," came the answer. "All of them find their way to some gaol or another. That man has surely earned his reward."

The report of something cracking and splintering--something in that nether torture chamber not unlike wood, yet wet and thick with sensations of agony--rippled over my back as I left Corella in that breezeway and hastened to my waiting carriage, ending that moment of ghastly punctuation for a checkered evening.

So perhaps you can forgive me if I hesitate to give Corella my ring just yet, Father. But I simply must consider my relation with Corella for a while longer and decide if such brief dashes of excitement and dalliances from propriety may be worth what price I may pay for them.


Your Dutiful Son,
Aidrick