Chapter Text
Athli Zeuxis to the lady Iseutz, duchess of Eremia Montis; greetings.
You won't recognize my name, but that's all right, the proper scrambled eggs will be applied before this letter comes to your hand. Plus you'll have the messenger's word on it, and our ambassador there will recognize our messenger from here. Among several loose ends left to my disposal by the late Chairman Psellus, I had the surprise and discomfort to uncover sundry writings herewith enclosed. I can't vouch for their provenance and, frankly, I don't care.
These writings' preservation here in my predecessor's study is an embarrassment to his memory. You can't have known, so I'll explain. (This would be another reason I direct this correspondence to you rather than to your husband. I'd like to think that you and I can be straightforward with one another regarding such matters, woman to woman.)
Lucao Psellus was an unhappily married man, who called his marriage happy insofar as he need not see his wife too often, or speak with her at all. His personal life was conducted quite above reproach and without cause for scandal. It now becomes apparent that his more prurient interests were channeled into a species of epistolary voyeurism.
The late chairman collected an assortment of compromising documents formerly belonging to key figures in the late Eremian War, which he filed in a box of scroll cases labelled Cautionary Exempla for Civic Defense. The prize of his collection -- most frequently handled, if we're to take as any indication its stains and thumbprints of the chairman's favored ink -- is a handcrafted ugly little book in which General Ziani Vaatzes, formerly of the joint Vadani alliance, whereabouts currently unknown, composed a series of clumsy love poetry to his own wife. Similarly, love letters written by or addressed to other persons of interest are here located. The chairman made use of a network of traders who, employed to carry letters, would make copies before delivering the originals. We have here some tepid letters from the late Duke Valens to Duchess Veatriz of the Vadani, for example, and a very strange little essay penned by the late General Daurenja in honor of select munitions equipment items.
Contained in the box were also two codices of widely circulated nonoriginal material, one a manual on siege warfare, the other a compilation detailing irrigation methods used in capital cities of mid-to-late antiquity. These may have been a misdirection to disguise the seedier contents of the box, or Chairman Psellus may genuinely have considered these to share a thematic unity.
The documents I send to you I'll describe as briefly as possible, just for safety's sake; so you'll know no one's swapped them out for something.
They're evenly sized and finely prepared sheets of parchment. There are eight in total; the writer makes reference to an original sheaf of twelve, so it may be that some were lost, or separated from this group. A square of Mezentine-made paper has been pasted in the top margin of the first sheet: this is a label, specifying the parchment was located in the library of Civitas Vadanis, after the evacuation of that city and the enumeration of its inventory in situ by Mezentine-controlled agents.
The writer purports to be the late Duke Orsea of Eremia. He makes mention of events which place this chronologically between the fall of Civitas Eremiae and the evacuation of Civitas Vadanis, during Duke Orsea's time as Duke Valens' guest. The intended recipient is named as your husband, Duke Miel, then the head of the Ducas family, attainted for treason and having escaped from Eremian custody into lesser-known parts of the country. I understand that period of time may carry some nostalgia for you, but I'll say no more of that.
I'm pawning this stuff off on you because, at this time, it is useless to the Perpetual Republic of Mezentia, and may be less so to you and yours. It's a matter of internal record that Eremian nobility, those of Duke Miel's generation especially, do take as a deeply serious affront the mishandling of intimate personal correspondence. The mutual peace our nations enjoy shouldn't be left up to the chance that someone on my end digs up this old thing for an excuse to pick fights. It belongs in Eremia Montis; whether in a library or in your fireplace, I leave to your judgement.