My Meritxell, it is dreadful here.  If this letter arrives wrinkled with all its letters runny it is because the archmages have not let the Sun shine in four days.  They think it will stop people rioting and burning down buildings.  It might, but they might have found a way to stop people doing that which didn't cost everyone the pleasant Summer.  The roof of the Stable where I am sleeping of late is sturdy at least and not too hot but there is Fuck All to do in it when it is too wet to borrow a horse for anything short of Archmage Demands.  They were offering to let us sleep in the Palace but while it is very large I did not think it likely so large as to make that comfortable for the common guests.  It is a Palace, not a Tenement.  So I am still in the stable, which is all well if I cannot be with You and the babies.

How fare the babies?  It feels as though I have been away for so long that surely they are both talking full sentences and maybe Gemma is already halfway along to being a Wizard like her mama too.  I fear Mar will not even know me when I come back.  I will be a strange Man of uncertain belonging and she shall yell at me and put her face in your robe and beg you chase me away with your magics.  Gemma I hope has a longer memory but I am not sure of this.  I will have to introduce myself like I was not there the day they were each new.  Will you kiss me when I am home again to show them I am not fearsome?  If only this whole rotten business would end soon enough that they could be glad as I will be to see them again.

I am putting in this letter another letter from the Abadarans which says you may have my money in their Bank if I am not able to carry it home for you myself, or if you are in need sooner than later, though I hope you have had no trouble on that front since my leaving.  They said it did not matter for writing the letter that we have not had a wedding.  I do not need too much of the money here.  Food is sore expensive in the city but the stable is not so much so and I am not in the mood for carousing.  Only sometimes for staring into one beer all the night long wondering if it is right to drink the worry away.

I am afflicted with terrible worry, my Meritxell, because already some dozen delegates have been killed in the events that occasioned the Rain.  The Arch-healer Naymeh brought them back, if without anyone who stood Nearby; but I cannot know her Mind about how she decided on this.  And anyway that is only me, and only if I do not misunderstand, and only here while I am at the Archmagical labors, where if something happened to you or the babies I do not think she would be moved!  There was a sermon given in the hall of the Convention by an Iomedaean who thought it was no trouble for men to die provided they did not die Evil.  I heard later all her family were already dead, so she has no more loss to fear.  That is all very well for her or perhaps it isn't but she has made up her mind that it is nonetheless.  But I am greatly afeared.  I know that I am not so quick as you and if there is an answer in some book somewhere I would not know it, but in all my life the only Goodness is you and the babies, so how then is the Goodness of any Plane claiming the label not a sham when it cannot assure me of these precious things?  Everywhere there are specters looming over us keeping me out of your house for fear of the lord and then out of your town for fear of the Archmages and later on out of whatever paradise you earn for fear of the Judge.  The lord has had his comeuppance but can there be any hope of it with the others for such small lives as ours?

The light such as it is in all this miserable rain is failing me.  I will post the letter come morning.  I love you forever from whatever distance.  Kiss the babies for me and tell them Papa misses them.

- Lluc