A Confession to Agne'eskah and Marshall Emory

[Rance]

“You seem conflicted,” said the old professor, lighting a pipe by way of an ember from his fireplace.

“Yes,” the seamstress said, sitting in a heap upon one of the wooden seats in front of his bureau, tracing invisible lines on his desk with her finger. She had scarcely slept. She had not changed her nightgown in three days. Its collar and sleeves were stained by muddy tarsweat, its hem splattered with old mud, and her hair beneath the long-eared ragsack hat a tangled and oily mess.

“Is something bothering you,” he said.

“I heard a Slave Song this week.”

He puffed at his pipe, curls of coltsfoot smoke dancing around his thinning white hair.

Then she said, “I gave blightmilk to Master Cherny; I feel I betrayed him terribly.”

The professor of Jernoan literature knew blightmilk – a light hallucinogen, a demulcent, made from crumbles of the black sunblight rose and mixed into the cooled breastmilk of a-- “What woman did you manage to convince to give you milk from her breast for that concoction?”

“A desperate lady in the ghetto, who needed shillings for food for her other children. I have a clever tongue when I must,” Gloria said, not with pride, but with firmness. “I will do what I feel I must to help my t'oddah.”

“And did it help him?”

“I wish for you write a letter,” she said.

“You didn't answer my question.”

“I wish for you to write a letter,” she repeated.

“I think you should rest,” he said. “And later, you may come back, and you may dictate one of your four weekly letters, and we will even read a poem together. Do you think that would be a good compromise?”

There was a pile of old books on the table in front of her, dusty things whose titles she could scarcely read. Red and brown bindings, some dyed with fading colors, volumes that looked like they had been cut straight from the hide of a pig. Her gloved arm came forward, and she swept it across the desk, sending the tomes scattering to the floor, along with a decorative half-globe and a missive-opener in the shape of a tiny cutlass. They all fell like dead soldiers, clattering to the floor, pages sprawling and trinkets lost underneath empty chairs.

With immediate regret, the seamstress crumpled her hands into the lap of her nightgown and looked away.

“I wish,” she said, staring at her boots, “for you to write me a letter, please.”

He took a seat at the desk. Without standing up, she spoke.

One of Two Copies sent: A Confession to the Councilwoman Agne'eskah and the Good Marshall Emory on Matters of Secrecy that I am loathe to divulge for the Sake of Betraying a Friend, but that I must, for beyond All Other Things, the Writer of this Piece is a faithful Subject of Myrken Wood, a Displaced Jerno, and a Seeker of Peace between Disparate Countries,

As an Innocent witless Witness to the Matters that transpired Yesterday between a one Blake Kaplen and a Marshall Carnath-Emory, I wish to speak a Truth: that I have quite by Accident discovered a Frightening Revelation in regard to Messa Kaplen, and while I consider myself a loyal Friend, I also saw his Somersault Assault of the Marshall and feel, as her Uniformess and Confidant, that I cannot keep Secrets from her Good Leadership.

Please understand that it is with a Heavy Heart that I give these Words: Messa Kaplen is a Fine Dancer, and while He has caught Me with his kindness, and while I had promised him I would tell No Secrets I discovered quite by Accident, I am very endeared to Messa Kaplen, but also to Myrken, and I wish not to harm a Dear Friend, but what dares deceive and harm the Marshall deceives and harms Us all.

All I feel I can say with Sureness and Reason is that there is a Quality to his Scar of Particular Disturbance – to say What would Turn my Stomach to Water and my Bowels to Worse for want of Sickness in betraying a Friend who held Trust in me. But that I touched that Wound Several Weeks ago with a Finger, and saw a Thing of Confusion and Fear so sudden and unexpected that I watered my Underthings like a Babe, that is what I may Say.

I can say No More and am Discomforted; I wish not to let Politicking come between Me and a Friend, but I pray to the Nameless that this Letter serves as Saying Something without Saying Something, and that I may please both Council and Marshall, and may retain my Misguided Friend for Whom I am now Considerably Worried, and fear at the Worst for Demons (if They exist at all) at play in Him. I wish with my Soul that He should not be harmed.

I may be reached at the Broken Dagger for Further Correspondence.

Sincerely, a Loyal Foreign Servant to Myrken Wood and a Displeased Friend who feels, beyond So Many Things, as if She may be a Betrayer of Confidence,

Signed,

Gloria (Glour'eya) Wynsee, Seamstress and Loyalist and Awful Friend