A su Excelentísimo Señor Duque Gisgo Barca de Murcia,
Your daughter writes to you, safe and in comfort, once again from the warm hospitality of the D’Angelines. The apartments they have given to us remain comfortable and pleasant with a good view of the gardens. Winter is coming here, the winds are colder, and I can see the gardeners working hard to preserve the beauty of the land and protect it from the chill of the season.
Your honorable brother sends his duty and his respect, but I can see in him the thin lines of impatience. The great Hasdrubal Magon Barca de Cartagena is not a man of patience, preferring action and fire over the soothing winds of negotiation. He tells me often his favorite line from the poem as he paces before the fireplace: “It is not in the palace court,/Amid the throng of ladies bright,/That the good soldier, by his tongue,/Proves himself valorous in the fight.” But never in his impatience does he forget his obedience and honor to you, Don Gisgo. He defends my honor among these D’Angelines and speaks on my behalf with skill to the D’Angeline lords and courtiers here.
But no matter how he makes friends and suggests the benefit of a strong alliance with Aragonia, it seems there is no answer rising to the question of who the Courcel King will choose for his wife. These D’Angelines enjoy their gossip, and I have heard the whispers and the speculation that the King does not wish to wed any of us and is waiting until we tire of waiting for him and return home of our own will so he cannot be said to be an ungenerous host. He has been very generous, and in the moments that I have spoken with him, he has been kind. But it is clear to me that my sisters in this quest will only be offered his hand and not his heart. This is something that I think those of us who are not D’Angeline knew to expect. But it does not give peace to those that grew up with the teaching of their Angel Elua that they ought to love whoever and however they wish. As the poet says in the poem, “The Jealous King,” “But others spread the news, that flew like fire from tongue to tongue,/That the King was doting-mad with love, for then the King was young.”
Be eased, Father—in the moments that I have met with the Swan King, I have done nothing to compromise my honor or the modest defense of my virtue that you have done so well to teach me. The other ladies who have come to seek his hand and the crown it brings seem, in some ways, to embrace the D’Angeline ways in an attempt to prove themselves a good queen to these people, but I cannot embrace the customs that are so strange to me. For I have seen the famous prostitutes of this land, those that are called Servants of Naamah, and I hear the whispers that the king of these lands is in love with one of them. But I have seen them and the way they display so much of their skin. The marks of their position are inked into their skin, and they are fully displayed on their backs. In comparison, I am sure my fashions from Qart Hadast seem matronly. But I have to wonder that, Servants as they are, if it is their Lady’s demand that they show so much of themselves? If they were not bound to her service, how many of them would choose to reveal their skin and flaunt their hair as they do? Perhaps it is just their D’Angeline way instead of the styles of their profession. I cannot know, I am not of their people, so I ought not to speculate without kindness in my thoughts.
To quote Celin’s “Farewell,” “Ye balmy winds of heaven, whose sound is in the rippling trees,/Whose scented breath brings back to me a thousand memories.” It is often my comfort in the time I spend listening to the music the D’Angeline musicians play. I was reading it when the King came to sit with me. I had seen him when I was presented by my honorable uncle to the court. But now he approached me without the rest of the court and sat with me—under the supervision of your brother Hasdrubal—to speak one on one. He was courteous and kind, and it seemed he understood some of our customs, for though these D’Angelines greet all people with kisses, he made no move and seemed to have no intent to touch me. He was warm and welcoming, inquiring about the poems I was reading and whether I was happy with the time I was spending in Terre D’Ange. We made pleasant enough conversation, but Father, honesty is the greatest treasure of a virtuous woman—I do not think I can be happy here. To live in Terre D’Ange is to live in a place where the modesty and virtue I hold so dear and have been taught my entire life will not be understood. It is not just the skin of the courtesans and the kissing of nobles, it is woven into the fabric of life here, and I cannot believe that I would be a good queen for this country and the people when so much of their precious way of life is against what I believe.
I know what you will say, Father, I hear your voice in my mind clear as I heard it the day I departed home. You will quote to me “The Letter of the King,” since I am here to present myself to a king, and remind me to “Then dismiss thy anxious musings, let them with the wind away,/As the gloomy clouds are scattered at the rising of the day.” But allow your daughter the honesty of this letter as I write that I miss you. Your stern face is often in my thoughts, as is the countryside of home and the beautiful glory of your Murcia. I miss our city: the warm stone and the blue sea and the bright flowers. I understand my duty here and the benefit of an alliance with the Courcel King, but I am a daughter of Murcia not of the Angel-Land, and while they have a famous poet who mourned the loss of her homeland while in exile, our poems also extol the beauty of our lands, and it is those that I am turning to in the long days away from home.
Let me come home, Father. I have no chance to win his hand, nor do I want to spend the rest of my life here. It will be an uncomfortable and unhappy life, and I cannot believe you would choose that for me over the peace and joy of a marriage that will suit me. When I wake in the morning, my first thought is for home. When I sleep at night it is facing southwest so that I can imagine I can see Qart Hadast from here. I understand Celin all the more when he writes in his “Farewell” poem, “I see thee shining from afar,/As in heaven’s arch some radiant star./Amilcar, queen and crown of loveliness,/Listen to my lament, and mourn for my distress.”
The comfort I have now are only the poems I read and the attendants I have brought. This place is not for me, and I would not make a kingdom suffer for a queen unsuited to their tradition. Send me where you wilt to find a husband, but let it be in Aragonia and not this Terre D’Ange. I pray that you will heed my plea and that your heart misses your daughter as mine misses her father and home. What I am is Aragonian, I cannot and will not become D’Angeline!
If my words will not move you, perhaps you will heed the words of the poets that you read to me when I sat upon your knee and taught me pride in name and country! “A hundred thousand favors she/In public or in private gives,/To show her lover that her life/Is Aragonia’s while she lives!”
I waste ink repeating the words and thoughts that make restless my mind. I pray that your next letter comes with it a request to return home. That is all that will give me joy now, the treasure of returning to beautiful Aragonia!
Let Adelifa’s “Farewell” be mine to you as I close this letter—”This to an end her farewell brought,/But not her dark and anxious thought.”
In love and obedience,
Su hija,
Elissa Ylenia Barca de Cartagena
