The Memoirs of Lady Damassande

Lithmore is to Vavard as Arely ab Bretagne is to me.  It has been said we were both beautiful, and I shall certainly not object, but if we are in any way the same, it is surely different sides of the same coin.  Seahome’s delicate flower, you could as soon call me delicate as you might call her vivacious.  I do not believe she ever spent more than a few moments in my presence before something distressed her or she felt faint and needed to recover. 

Kaemgen ab Bretagne was one of my earlier friends in the city.  If I have not written of him before, I shall surely do so elsewhere – he certainly had impact enough for a few words.  But for now, I write of his sister.  I remember his being so excited that I should meet her, and I remember later his asking me to confirm to others how marvellous she was.  I told them that she was everything that a delicate Lithmorran flower was expected to be.  Oh, and she was.  Demure, fragile, and with about as much personality as a limp noodle.  For some reason, they never heard what I thought behind those words.

Amdair ab Lassider, on the other hand, was someone I felt akin with.  Becoming quickly friends, we could banter for hours at a time.  Jei hated him, of course, but Jei distrusts anyone who speaks more smoothly than he – and it doesn’t help that there was some issue between his aunt Mirielle, the Butterfly Knight, and a Lassider.  In Amdair I saw someone with the same outlook on life, enjoying it, for one, and respecting strength, accomplishment and independence.  I worked with him as Baron Casterlay, a high-ranking official of the Reeves, and Admiral of the Queen’s navy, first as Grand Magnate and then later Chancellor of the Exchequer.  As a friend too, I remember we secretly bid together on the Sea’s Flame, beating out Queen Charmaine and the Duke of Farin- if I’d never used it, I wouldn’t have regretted a silver of the coin put into that ship for the enjoyment of that bidding.  But always, he was an ally.

I was there too when he asked Kaemgen’s permission to marry his sister.  All were taken aback, surprised.  We had had no notion that Amdair fancied Arely.  But I felt betrayed as well.  We were never lovers, Amdair and I, and I never thought to marry him.  Rather, it was a betrayal of ideals.  Had he secretly always only wanted a demure slip of a thing who needed protecting?  I was offended at the lack of taste from someone who I had thought a like mind.  And I was disgusted to see him turn into a lovesick puppy as they transformed from secret paramours to newly betrothed.  The wedding was a hurried affair, managed in the last weeks before he left for the assault on Daravi.  Neither was I invited nor did I attend.  As a wedding gift, a bottle of fine capuan and a scandalous (by Lithmorran standards) set of house silks were delivered by mail.  For some reason, I don’t expect she ever wore them, but I hoped more it made Amdair think.

Fragile, delicate – when used with ladies, one does not often recall that they mean easily broken, but Arely ab Lassider- Arely is fragile blossom who broke.  I never visited her after word came from Casterlay that Amdair had been killed in a bandit attack.  I doubt my condolences would have eased her pain in the least.  I did hear from others that it did not go well by her. Do not define yourself by a man – even the best of men – because what are you when he is gone?  I mourned Amdair’s loss.  But from what I hear, Arely did not.  In fact, she did not acknowledge that he had died at all.  Jei reported her to be lost to eery time forgotten, living on as if she believed Amdair and her brother Kaemgen were there in the house with her.  Utterly broken, down to her mind.

She was perhaps my antithesis, but never an antagonist – not to my mind.  It seems she did not share my view on this.  I received a messenger from Arely, who I’d all but forgotten existed.  It felt immediately wrong.  But I was invited to tea and decided it would be impolite to refuse.  She had never invited me to anything before.  I brought my bard with me, in addition to my usual attendants.  It was wrong there too, everything just a shade off of right.  But there was nothing wrong enough.  Nothing for which I could call out a widow who looked a bit like death warmed over.  Until, of course, she tried to shut me in a wardrobe and stab me, accusing -me- of stealing Amdair away from her.  Thankfully, my men were close at hand.  I escaped with my life and most of my dignity.  Perhaps a few bruises only.  And while we closed her in her suites and ran to report on the mad baroness to His Royal Majesty, she tried to burn the palace down.

For some reason, I cannot find it in me to even pity her.  And she is who Amdair wanted?  If I am ungenerous, then let it so be.

We might not have been close.  Not quite ten years younger than I am, the blood ties are not really that near.  After his grandmother’s mother died, his great grandfather married again to a younger woman – my grandmother.  He is thus my half-aunt’s grandson.  But cousin really is easier to say.

However, chance had other things in mind, it seems.  We both arrived in Lithmore about the same time, Jei and I.  Myself as the new Grand Magnate, and he only recently Count of Endridge after the death of his father.  I had met him before when he visited family in Vavard, but the age difference really seems to matter more when it puts your cousin as a less than ten year old boy.  So many years later, we fell into an easy friendship, each glad to know someone else in the big city.

I thought it only right to speak of my cousin now, this early in my tale, because of all of my relationships in Lithmore, it has been a constant.  So many others have come and gone, but he was my first friend in the new city and counts among them still.  With ups and downs, but generally towards the stronger.

In truth, it really needs make sense to no one but us.  I buy him tea and cake and, in return, he allows me to buy him tea and cake.  We tease one another mercilessly.  I grant as little concern to loaning him great amounts of coin as I do to putting my life in his hands.  We don’t keep secrets from one another on any great scale.  No one else seems to understand it, but it works for us.

That is perhaps the crux of Jei.  He is a good man.  Accept that he is not any other man and you can appreciate what he is.  Those who say he has no sense of humor simply do not understand it – and I cannot blame them, for I often do not.  His methods are often not expected or appreciated, but behind them is just what he thinks right and necessary.  His wedding- my goodness, his wedding.  It seemed a farce.  Nagaita and he were trading insults- I don’t know how many times he mentioned burying her in the flower gardens now that all her gold was his.  But it wasn’t my wedding and they were happy.  And he did love her; losing her to bandits was nearly the end of him.  How any of it seemed to me or anyone else never mattered.  Jei is Jei and, I can only assume, will continue to be so. 

And I value him and his friendship I think more than he realises.

Design was my first love.  Not just a love of clothes or of making things, but of making something beautiful, bringing that image to life.  I have always believed that fashion should be beautiful, dramatic and suited to the wearer.  Apparently Vavard’s elite agreed with me.  I enjoyed the popularity and the favor.  It was exhilirating to see my designs everywhere, to hear my name.

But who wouldn’t want more?  My father was only too glad to instruct me in financial matters, and every gold from sale of my designs came back tenfold in trade and investments.  And I loved the success.  The money itself didn’t mean much.  I have never not had enough coin for anything I might want, but I took great pleasure in the achieving it on my own.  And I wanted more.

When I heard that the Merchants would be seeking a new Grand Magnate, I was told that the position would be a mixed blessing.   A step up certainly, but with the time devoted to guild matters, less would remain for my own pursuits.  I would share success with the Merchants Guild, but also failures, and a bevy of politics standing in the way of setting the guild’s course myself.  And despite it all, the challenge intrigued me.  I laughed and I told them that Lithmore could use the fashion help, the color.  And I put my name forward and made certain that it was the obvious choice.

Arriving in Lithmore in my mid-twenties, I found I was starting over fresh in many ways.  But starting over from such a level as I had never before enjoyed.  I was not a craftswoman, but an artist and a woman of standing.  The nobility and leaders of the guilds were my friends.  My designs were as highly sought after as in Vavard, if more moderated to Lithmorran tastes.  But it was a good time.