Accidental War Mage

To My Dear Neighbor Boris,

My steward says he found the most curious visitor at my manor the other day; what he claims to have been a deer wearing armor. It was waiting for him outside the back door, apparently; I am having him fitted for false teeth while his broken bones heal. From the hoof-shaped dent in his forehead, he is lucky to be alive.

He was clutching a message tube in his hand when the maid found him, and the tube had your name on it. He informed me that the deer had been wearing it around its neck before it attacked him, destroying his favorite crossbow, breaking both his arms and one of his legs, cracking his ribcage, breaking his jaw, knocking out half of his teeth, and concussing him before running off.

I thought this meant that the deer had come from you, somehow, and was intending to write you an angry letter demanding restitution for the damage wrought by your creature (the doctor’s bills and putting my steward out of service for at least the next several months, if he is not crippled permanently), but my little nephew opened it up while playing with it, finding a letter inside. The letter was addressed to you from your daughter Katya.

The letter has been enclosed, along with a list of expenses related to its delivery. In the future, please discourage your daughter from making use of messenger deer (whoever heard of such a thing?) or at least arrange for them to show up at your estate instead of mine.

-Ljubomir Ignatovich Vladislav

My very dear Konstantin Borovich -

I hope you are well in Kazan! I write to tell you that I heard several most amusing rumors, with hopes of enticing you to return back for at least a little visit. The cloth factor’s daughter is pregnant, for one, and everybody is busy guessing who the father might be.

Speaking of fathers, the other amusing rumor I have heard says that your father has been terrorizing Ljubo with enchanted livestock. An alternate rumor says that one of your relatives has come back from army service and shot some of Ljubo’s men for poaching on your family’s lands. In either case, Ljubo came to town and visited both of the local lawyers about filing a suit. I gather Karlov gave him the brush-off.

-S.

Dearest Konstantin,

It is always business, with you! Surely your business can survive a week or two without you watching over it like a mother hen? Tell them you have family matters to deal with – it would be true! Ljubo’s lawsuit has attracted attention, a mage came here from Kazan asking questions about it. It did not take him so long to get here! You could take the train almost all the way here, like he did!

Imagine, a mage lodging in our little town! My uncle has been running himself ragged! I think he is from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, he has a skulky sort of look about him and pokes his nose around like he hasn’t a worry about getting it knocked in. He spends a lot of time asking about some girl Katya – a cousin of yours in the army, I think? It is hard to keep track of all your relatives, Kostya! – and waving around pictures of men in the tavern. He is investigating, he says, some “irregularities.” Katya’s supposed to have written the letter that launched the lawsuit, Ljubo swears it was carried to his door by a deer.

-S.

To Magister Igor Vladimirovich Topylov, whom this matter may concern:

As far as I know, my youngest half-sister is missing in action and probably dead. Your indelicate inquiries into her fate have upset my father, aiding and abetting that villain Vladislav. The Vladislav letter is of course a forgery intended to upset my father, whose health can be expected to have become delicate at his age. The Vladislavs have a long history of dishonest dealing, and Ljubomir is but the latest of a long line of cheats, drunks, wastrels, and ruffians. In what sort of drunk and debauched state he must have hatched this ridiculousness about a deer carrying a letter is nearly as far beyond my comprehension about how a Magziev like yourself might be taken in by such a farce!

I can testify that Katya never mastered her letters; any letter purportedly written in her own hand is therefore a transparent forgery. She was never a particularly bright child, but was, however, loyal to a fault, and I will not stand for you smearing her name by spending evenings in local taverns, showing them pictures and asking if anybody had ever seen her in the company of this or that man, or implying that she might be seen in their company in the future. I demand the satisfaction of an apology to our house for the insults you have aimed at our family’s honor. Were I a younger man, I would certainly be demanding satisfaction in a much more direct and permanent fashion.

Konstantin Borovich