#letter

The note is scrawled in an unusually shaky hand.

My lord,

I have paid this courier a great deal of money to find you, and I hope he does. Lord Tindir is away, and the matter before us is urgent to a degree I felt you must know.

Lothilind of the Pillar, who had become an apprentice at the Houses of Healing, has been murdered in the Vale. We discovered her poor hröa under a bush, downhill from the Markets of Imladris.

Besides the obvious security implications, these things should be known:

I have received a most surprising correspondence this evening, and have need to consider it deeply.  Having travelled west and north on errantry, I am now returned and quartered in the home of the Lord Elrond as I write, bearing news of some import to him - but this be not what I write of, grave though it be.

Nay, rather, upon my return, I was soon met with a runner who bore a note for me from the Lady Manadhlaer, who had apparently penned an answer for me directly, only to be thwarted by my own quick departure into the Wilds.

Early Lithe the following, in the hand of Zavas hastily scribed in …:

This letter is as pretty as its predecessor, but appears to be in a different hand, likely Manadhlaer's own. It is more of a silken parasol than a formal linen napkin this time.

Angrinc
Guest Houses, Imladris

Esteemed Angrinc:

I am terribly embarrassed to admit this, but I have at least one terrified witness to this event.

I was in the garden, with my dog poking about shrew-burrows and my swan stalking about ominously in the background -- even after I had told her to go and play in the stream. Imagine.

My dearest Mamma,

I hope this letter finds you and Papa well. I am very well.