Borne in Blood (Saint-Germain #20)

Text of a letter from Hero Iocasta Ariadne Corvosaggio von Scharffensee at Obenzemmer to Saint-Germain Ragoczy, Comte Franciscus in Iraklion on Crete; carried by commercial courier and delivered forty-nine days after it was written.

To the most excellent Comte Franciscus, Hero von Scharffensee sends her fondest greetings on this, the 7thday of May, 1823,

My dear Ragoczy,

Your attorney and factor, Reinhart Kreuzbach in Speicher, informs me that you are still traveling, so I have asked him to arrange for a courier to bring this to you wherever you may be. I would just as soon continue to keep Gutesohnes here, so Kreuzbach will engage a commercial courier to bring this to you.

It hardly seems credible that two years have passed since I last saw you, but so it is, and I am sorry that more was not possible. I am so grateful to you for bringing the sad news about my father to me directly rather than entrusting it to Gutesohnes or some other hired servant. I have finally found an official to help me to arrange a Christian-albeit Orthodox-burial for him and his companions, which his executor is unwilling or unable to do. I thank you for the introduction to your Turkish factor, who has proven most reliable in these negotiations, and willing to do all that the Ottomans require to bring this sad episode to a conclusion. I suspect that this smoothing of obstacles is your doing, too, and I add that to my reasons for gratitude.

I am troubled by the news in Europe. Just when I see a glimmer of hope, there is an uprising, or a plot, or an assassination. The last three years have been tumultuous ones, what with a new King of England, a new heir in France, a revolution in Spain, an attempted revolt in Naples, a war of Independence in Greece, Bolivar and de San Martin victorious in South America, Mexico casting off the Spanish yoke, West Africa and Haiti up in arms, Brazil emancipating itself from Portugal. The recitation alone is exhausting; the actuality is undoubtedly dangerous. Even the mad rush to Egypt, thanks to Champollion's work on the Rosetta Stone, is tiring to contemplate.

On a lighter note, I have hired a second tutor for Hedda, who is now fourteen, and beginning to show promise. She has an ear for languages and so I have expanded her instruction to include Dutch, Czech, Greek, and Spanish in addition to the French, German, Italian, and English she already knows. I would like to enroll her in some advanced school in two or three years. I know the Universita of Padova has graduated women from time to time, and I seek your advice if this might be worth pursuing for Hedda. She is reluctant to leave Obenzemmer, and has said she would like to remain here doing her own studies, but I hope against hope that perhaps she will decide to broaden her horizons and seek a wider world for herself, for as awkward as life may be for educated women, it is preferable, I think, to do as much as one can to improve the state of other women than to accept the strictures of society and remain dependent creatures.

I have, as you may imagine, been reading the work of Mary Wollstonecraft. I agree with her wholeheartedly, and were I less hideous to look upon, I would do more to help vindicate her stance by teaching young women more than needlework and how to address members of the peerage. I have also read her daughter's book Frankenstein: or the Modern Prometheus. As innovative as the novel was, I prefer the mother's work to the daughter's, although for Hedda, it is the opposite. In fact, Hedda has proposed that she may turn her hand to fiction one day. She declares she would like to write a roman-a-clef about her childhood and all that she experienced in the time she was with the Graf von Ravensberg. I am of two minds for such a project, for I fear raking through such coals could ignite more fires than creative ones. But she has said that she remembers her ordeal every day, and hopes that writing may provide an exorcism of sorts for her. She has already stated an aversion to marriage, which is an imprudent position for such a young woman as she is to take. If you were here, I would implore you to talk with her, but as you are gone, I have asked Herr Kreuzbach to discuss the advantages and disadvantages inherent in such a manner of life. He has been instructed not to discuss any aspect of marriage, for that would surely turn her against anything he says.

Pasch Gruenerwald has become head-man in Zemmer, and has instituted a regular patrol in the region. Every week we are visited by a courier who makes a report to Zemmer, and if aid is needed, or trouble suspected, there is quick action for a response. This has made market-days far more pleasant than they have been in the past, for they are guarded, and where needed, Zemmer's guards provide escorts for those bringing livestock or produce to market. We have had good harvests the past two years, and that has supplemented your most magnanimous provisions for us. Now that the journey to and from Zemmer is protected, the field-hands are much more willing to trudge the two leagues to work here, and so we have enlarged our plantation. In time we may be able to become fully self-supporting.

Thank you for your invitation to visit Chateau Ragoczy at any time. I may do so in the fall; Hedda and I will be traveling in the summer-since you and I never got to Roma to attend the opera, I have arranged that Hedda and I will do so. My twins have been asked to join us, but I anticipate they will decline the invitation. For such travel, I have the veil studded with diamonds you gave me when we moved here, and that should serve me very well. If you should be in Roma then, it would be a delight to see you again. That is for later, of course, and only if fortune should allow our paths to cross. Until that time

My fondest love,

Hero von Scharffensee