The day when Walter Augustus Kent Scordato received his first letter from the heiress Myenlo was not such an event. It had not faded. Five years had passed since then, but even the tiniest details remained, as clear as the relief on the face of a newly minted coin.
It was Wednesday, early afternoon. September. Walt had been occupied with his letters since morning, and had just plunged the blade of a penknife into his palm in a moment of inattention and clumsiness; a knock at the door of his small apartment had startled him. He met his caller-- the postman-- with the slowly bleeding wound unbandaged. He accepted the package and pair of letters, taking the weight of the parcel in his good hand and balancing it with one side of his injured hand, turning it upright to cup the blood within his curled fingers. The postman grimaced at the sight and left with a stuttering and hurried good-bye.
As Walt carried the day's mail back into his study, the letters fluttered from their perch atop the package and onto the floor. Without thinking, he knelt to retrieve them, and as he picked up the second he noticed the unfamiliar address.
Its postal code belonged to the wealthiest quarter in the entire city. The sender: Ms. Vivienne Rachel Myenlo.
Walt was good with names, and the Myenlo family was well-known in Aekea. This Vivienne, he knew, was the eldest daughter of its patriarch, Howard Myenlo; she was also gaining renown as a chanteuse, and Walt had gone to see her perform the week before.
He turned the letter over to observe the old-fashioned wax seal that kept closed the heavy, cream-colored envelope. After a moment's hesitation, he slid a long fingernail under the seal to break it, and removed the letter. It smelled faintly of perfume.
This instant, he stressed to himself in later years, was to be the dividing line. Walt had seen many beautiful and wealthy women perform-- in plays, in ensembles, in the orchestra. He never initiated contact, but enjoyed their radiance or their skill as they offered it to all, and moved on with his solitary life. The nymphs of Durem were lights that passed before him, revealing with their luminance the meager worth of this world; then each winked out, forgotten as if she never was, until he happened upon her again in one venue or another. But Vivienne Rachel wrote him a letter. It fixed her in his memory forever, and nothing could have been crueler.
The letter read:
"Dear Mr. Scordato,
I am sure you will think me quite the snoop! Or worse. We have not even spoken, and obviously I did not determine your name by asking you, as would be the polite and proper way. But you make quite the distinctive observer in an audience, and my father, as an inventor, has ever encouraged my implacable curiosity, rather than attempting to curb it.
Suffice it to say... it seems we have friends in common. And you have a most interesting reputation, the details of which are quite contentious among our several mutual acquaintances.
Allow me to be plain: There are some who call you a criminal. Others name you a mercenary. Others still make claims so foolish I shan't put them into writing; though perhaps I ought to think deeper on them, and would, had I been reared here in Durem, den of ghouls that it is known to be.
Regardless, neither vocation matches the demeanor I noted in you.
Durem is a free city, and one luxury of freedom is that of the fair defense of one's own reputation. And so, Mr. Scordato, I will ask you in confidence: What manner of man are you, to bear forth such intrigue? Would a criminal take his seat beside the highest lawmen and the children of the establishment to hear me sing, as you did? Does a mercenary dine brazenly with Durem's well-born?
I would have you tell me, though I will tell no other-- for I delight in the keeping of secrets.
Kindest regards,
V. R. Myenlo"
I am sure you will think me quite the snoop! Or worse. We have not even spoken, and obviously I did not determine your name by asking you, as would be the polite and proper way. But you make quite the distinctive observer in an audience, and my father, as an inventor, has ever encouraged my implacable curiosity, rather than attempting to curb it.
Suffice it to say... it seems we have friends in common. And you have a most interesting reputation, the details of which are quite contentious among our several mutual acquaintances.
Allow me to be plain: There are some who call you a criminal. Others name you a mercenary. Others still make claims so foolish I shan't put them into writing; though perhaps I ought to think deeper on them, and would, had I been reared here in Durem, den of ghouls that it is known to be.
Regardless, neither vocation matches the demeanor I noted in you.
Durem is a free city, and one luxury of freedom is that of the fair defense of one's own reputation. And so, Mr. Scordato, I will ask you in confidence: What manner of man are you, to bear forth such intrigue? Would a criminal take his seat beside the highest lawmen and the children of the establishment to hear me sing, as you did? Does a mercenary dine brazenly with Durem's well-born?
I would have you tell me, though I will tell no other-- for I delight in the keeping of secrets.
Kindest regards,
V. R. Myenlo"
Walt remained crouched there, staring at the letter, for three minutes. Then he stood, leaving the rest of his mail on the floor. Two minutes later he realized his heart was racing. At nine minutes he finally looked away from the letter and realized the parcel on the floor was stained with crimson where he had touched it; he turned his hand over and saw the blood blackening over the wound on his hand, and felt alive.
