Chain Mail

Dear Q.,

As a direct result of your actions, I'm afraid the security of our correspondence has indeed been breached! I can hold you at no fault, since you appear to have been motivated to contact my mother for reasons you felt were genuine. Since the moment she received your missive, she has taken shallow pleasure in charging me one-third of the very pretty postage stamps used on every epistolary action I make - incoming and outgoing! I wish someone would send me a copy of the Bible, to see if she would tax the very book she is so fond of quoting from. Plus, she has installed censors at every corner of the castle to intercept the mail, so I am debarred from telling you precisely what I think of this place. However, if you turn to the Book of Genesis you will see that towards the end of the week God became awfully tired. It was in the last few minutes (when He was not feeling at all good) that he produced a country beginning with D. It used to be a Canaan, reigned by a King who was however only a commoner. A tough one, at that, but kind. He was my father. At any rate, despite your uncouth meddling, your letter cheered me up - it is excellent to be reminded that there is, somewhere, however inaccessible, a more civilised and intelligent world.

Speaking of my childlike mother and her longing to be delighted, allow me to return now to the matter of the ghost. I cannot forsee which of these words will escape the censors and reach you, or whether the letter will arrive at all. With sharks' jaws invisibly stationed everywhere I look, prediction lies dormant, if not dead. To that end, I am sending you the key to my kingdom. It will provide you three things: the luck needed to carry itself and this letter unharmed toward you, an airborne weapon, and access to this castle should you find yourself within proximity and requiring nourishment and a space for rest. It will be best if you keep the key to yourself. Show no one! Not even this man of yours. I admire him implicitly, as much as he deserves, merely by knowing you, but I can readily craft (albeit safely in my imagination) the same plans Uncle C. and my mother will make against you if they find out their security has been breached.

The ghost seems to want revenge. Typical of ghosts, particularly in the modern play. Thomas Kyd produced similar rubbish in The Spanish Tragedy, which has no doubt circulated widely in your land. He calls my mother an adulterate beast, and I can hardly disagree, but I doubt that I shall ever find the urge to revenge myself, let alone my father. Revenge always ends in bloodshed, and I am far more interested in building my illusions of harmonious country living than I am in sticking my sword into someone's body as a means of remembering the dead. Still, as a fan of augury, I am forced to experience the conventional expectation of revenge, and may well find myself teetering, sharing an edge with Ophilia over which I may well plummet. I must remember to speak about this with Polonius. He requires highly coded language from me, and given the tenor of our tempest, I will make a maimed rite of all that I say.

Remember, dear friend, that a bridge is a construction that ensures the unbreakable continuation of your path across a body of water. If you do get your feet wet, it has served as neither a road nor a place, and you would do better to avoid it. Still, your will to connect with the world and shape it with the might of experience must carry you on unbidden. Heaven forbid that you would ever be separated or censored from the solace of your pen. As long as you roam, you remain free of the definite.

H.