Maerhild's Introductory Letter
Dear reader willing to entertain my ramblings,
There are some truths that are universal, whether that be because the scientists of the past and present have told so or truths that are merely learnt. But me, fool I am, never listened, breaking one of them – perhaps the one most whispered in parlours – do not marry into an aristocratic family. Especially not one collapsing because of the strains of a civil war. It will definitely not bode well for you, my dear reader, and will only shorten your life, bar the exception of Christopher Redtaker.
And now you may ask me, why do I write all of a sudden? Didn’t the whole Teissièr affair end years ago? Simply put, I feel morally compelled to do so. Maybe the pen will stop a desperate social climber better than a sword. If I was permitted to hold a weapon, that is. Maybe my prose will cause them to think, even if it does not flow like silk or the poetry of the young Lady Litchermayne.
But I shall warn you here, it is the best course of action to take the words I jot down for you with appropriate scepticism, for it be enshrined in culture that a commoner – especially a woman of ‘base stock’, as they say – shall not dare to speak ill of his superiors in rank. Nonetheless, despite me coming from the pits of Cethelea still write. Maybe I lie, maybe I do not, because my memory fails me, or it serves my narrative better. But so it is. I am not a woman to compromise my works to be fit for society’s sensibilities. Now I think about it. Maybe Gaëlle Teissièr may have been a better narrator to imitate.
Farewell,
Your humble narrator,
Maerhild Orenge
