To my dear brother,
Aidan is dead. The mystery surrounding the circumstances have proven as heartbreaking as the fact itself–he’s dead, Alex. His body was discovered in South Lithmore on the eve of our wedding, brutally murdered. I will not list the extent of his injuries. Suffice to say that they were cruel, and I will not soon be able to forget their description.
I have my suspicions as to the culprit, but nothing to confirm it beyond circumstances. Reasons I have, but proof? It’s all a matter of context; a series of seemingly meaningless events that concoct to brew an odious tincture I would not dare apply to the wound. Regardless I have spoken on the matter with the Lady Proconsul–an intense woman who seems forthright and just. I believe that I can trust her, and the list of others she provided who are considered, by her reckoning, above board. There have been a constant flow of Reeves in and out of my new home–the manse past the Dalton Gate that Aidan and I had purchased in the days before his death. I described it to you, I believe, in past correspondence: Vandagan architecture, built on the crest of a shallow hill beside a rocky waterfall. It would have been a beautiful place to settle and raise children.
The Reeves seem almost eager to unseat their leader; the very man I suspect. I know him to be a roguish sort, and on occasion more untoward than any man in his position ought rightly be. He has made use of his title and the respect it commands to mold events to his liking. But a murderer? I just don’t know. He was abroad, away in Vavard, when Aidan was killed. I had a letter from him expressing his condolences. It’s so difficult to read the intentions of men, Alexander… I wish that you were here for counsel. I was once fond of the Justiciar, and despite his brazen missteps I think that he was also fond of me. To think of him involved pains me in ways I lack the words to describe. Mister le Wattkil has moved into the house for protection’s sake at the urging of a Reeve–an Orlando something or the other, the Magistrate. He prefers “Lando.” Truth be told his forthright manner and the bluntness of his sometimes stinging tongue reminded me of you.
The Queen Dowager and Grand Magnate have been a source of unyielding support and companionship through my time of mourning. Their letters and company brighten my mood and remind me how blessed I am to know them. But I feel most often as if I am not really here. As though I am watching myself from afar–my body, my face–moving and talking, going through the motions of minutes and days that cannot be so swiftly passing by. As though I am a puppet, and the puppeteer unknown. Today I watched myself go to the Lord Regent’s home–a place where I have attended Lady Cellan countless times, yet it still seemed alien and uneasy without her. He questioned me about the Justiciar, and about Jonquil ab Ydeth. I regret to admit that I had all but forgotten the latter. I suppose I hoped he had moved on, gone away to Vavard as he had said he would after his expulsion from Daylin’s; After the officials at Ahalin dismembered him for reasons which still maddeningly elude me. That perhaps he was playing his viol and engaging his audiences somewhere far from me, as I would have always preferred. I could not glean precisely where he is, now, but he has not left the capital. That much was all but confirmed by the Lord Regent’s queries.
Things have gone mad here in Lithmore city, and for that I am glad you are abroad. Tension builds and malcontent blooms from both sides of Penitent Way. Whoever killed Aidan, I am confident it was not a Southsider. It is too convenient for him to have been found there, and why would he have gone? His armor and polearm are with his sisters; am I to believe he crossed the border into the South unarmed and unprotected? Knowing full well how a Reeve would be received? It defies logic, and that any man would place the blame where it has been directed denies him any semblance of morality he may have left. Southsiders are an easy target, and the turn of the city was already ripe to attack them–a Lithmorran Knight who crossed the Brotherhood’s path had been brutalized there mere days before, and a young lad, too. It is too convenient by leagues.
I hope I have not too severely darkened your spirits, Alex, and I miss you every day.
Lord bless you, wherever you are,
