Here, too, babies trump spies. Ysellei Moyri astin Rhydin, Valdis, Festival of Anshen, Midsummer, the year 347 To her Father and Mother Dearest Father and Mother. It’s time to send me your congratulations! The day before yesterday, two days before Midsummer I gave birth to the twins Lydan and Bandeh. They are beautiful! A lovely boy, not as big as Bahar when he was born, but big for one of a set of twins, and the prettiest little girl you’ve ever seen. We are naming her Bandeh, after Uznur’s mother: she was born first. Her brother, our youngest child, we will name Lydan, after Grandfather. Please find enclosed some sketches done by Shab Hafte, the Painter to the Court. He has spent some days around me with his paper and chalks, sneakily sleeping on the couch in the drawing room instead of going home. Bahar and Serla are besotted with their little sister and brother and cannot keep away from the bed — I am still bedridden. The last month was very difficult for me and I have not left my bed for weeks, except for the actual birthgiving. Uznur, that dear, held me on his knees, which is something […]

Ysellei Moyri astin Rhydin, Valdis, ninth week after the feast of Timoine, the year 347 To her Mother Mother dear, There is, again, all kinds of news. First the most important thing: Raisse has given birth to her son and named him Radan. Prince Radan! She is very well, and so is her son, all toes and fingers complete, and also a very impressive appetite. I am a little bit jealous of her, because my burden is beginning to be very, very burdensome. I wish I had the energy to go to the bath-house, but it’s too far. Though I am glad my children do not usually disturb me during dinners (state or otherwise) — Vurian came when they were wining and dining the cream of Essle and Radan arrived when Raisse had just received all the teachers from the Academy for a formal getting-to-know-each-dinner! Actually, the law scholar, Hallei Lyan, had already arrived because very, very involved unpleasantness. Look, Mother, I will probably be sending Dimani Ar-Rajul and her two adopted kids, Dorugh and Javan, to Turenay really soon now. As I’ll tell you in a minute, we’ve beheaded the Iss-Peranian spy effort in Valdis — but only as […]

It was very good to see Moyri again– and I-the-GM wasn’t the only one who thought that. She’s very pregnant, though only six months gone; but she’s tiny and it’s twins. What makes her so easily tired and short of breath is likely to be an atrial septal defect, a “hole in the heart”; she was born in  a famine year. Ysellei Moyri astin Rhydin, Valdis, third week after the feast of Timoine, the year 547 To her uncle Eldan and her brother Lydan, Dear Uncle, dear Brother, The luxury of having a private and confidential secretary with good handwriting makes even your niece and sister Moyri act on her obligation to write you, with the news I have from Valdis. Maybe Mother has time to write you too, maybe not — she and Father are going to Turenay! This morning! In fact, they have already left at dawn! As I had told you in my previous letter, Father was still very somber and moody. He and Anshen — they are such dim-witted, stubborn, cloth-headed fools! They are like lovers who have had a tiff and who are waiting for the other to climb down. Let me tell you, my […]