In Which News Arrives From Abroad

Ralph Muggley-Sterns to Sir Bardolph Hingle:

Hullo Stinko,

Finally got back from Norhammer and have just been catching up on the news. How about that business with Marshweather, eh? Will you be down here anytime soon? Am very excited to tell you all about my travels. I brought home some of their liquor – they call it “aeselpark,” which means “donkey’s kick,” and it feels like a brick to the back of the head. What do you say?

Frumps

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Sir Bardolph Hingle to Ralph Muggley-Sterns:

Frumps old man,

Sorry it took me so long to return your letter – you’ve been abroad so long I nearly forgot you existed and have been gazing perplexedly at it for the past week.

Only joking! No, your letter had to be forwarded as I am not currently at home but living in Bentlefay City. In fact – you’d better brace yourself – I’m at court, as the escort of Lady Winifred Fleem, the Princess Dulcie’s maid of honor. Lady Winifred has kindly consented to be my wife, and I know what you’re thinking…what on earth did I put in her food? Frankly, I’m mystified myself. But she seems unaccountably to be fond of me, so we’ve set it up for early spring and I have to admit I’m the happiest man in existence.

The downside is that it will be several weeks before I can take you up on your offer and you will have to put your experiences down in writing if you want to impart them before this aeselpark stuff drives them from your mind completely. I really am interested to know about your time in Norhammer as I’ve traveled fairly extensively throughout the Nine Kingdoms, but never beyond, so in all seriousness, do write me of your adventures. I won’t make fun of you until I see you, at least.

Yours,
Stinko

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Ralph Muggley-Sterns to Sir Bardolph Hingle:

Dear Stinko,

Well! When I left at the beginning of the summer you were moping around your new house with nothing to do and nothing to look forward to, and now you tell me you’re living at court in the lap of luxury and engaged to be married, you old dog. Trust a man of business to get things done, eh?

But enough about you.

Norhammer is a wonderful country, to be sure. I had the time of my life there and I’ll certainly go back to visit, but the people are strange in a way I don’t know if I could get used to on a permanent basis. All you need to know about them is that they believe they are descended from mermaids, not that that’s all I’m going to tell you.

To begin with, they are the most physically beautiful people I have ever seen. Tall and fair, with cheekbones you could cut your fingers on, and brilliant blue eyes. Their complexions almost defy description – perfectly smooth and almost translucent, and they manage by some miracle to be both pale and rosy without having to induce either state artificially. The Princess Dulcie could easily walk unmolested almost anywhere in Norhammer, as its people would make her look like a normal person. They made me look like a hunchbacked troll.

Naturally, what with the mermaid story and all, one would expect them to be insufferably arrogant, and they do not disappoint. To talk to any Norhammer nobleman, one is given the impression that they merely suffer other nations to exist out of the goodness of their hearts – and indeed, they have not always been so generous. To this day there is not a citizen in the land who does not speak proudly of the Great Conquest, a period about four hundred years previous, when the king of that time, who has gone down in history as Harker the Magnificent, tripled Norhammer’s territory in the space of slightly over twenty years before declaring an abiding peace based on his firm intention to die in his bed surrounded by mistresses instead of ignominiously at enemy hands. The sons of those mistresses became Norhammer’s royal dukes, and once the Magnificent was safely dead and buried, they commenced adding territory around the edges on their own account, though more slowly, and as often as not through marriage and treaty backed by a solid and intimidating force.

But Harker the Magnificent remains powerful in the popular imagination. They swear oaths by him – “by the wrath of Harker” and “Harker have mercy” and so forth – and one of the young royal dukes, who shares his name and apparently some of his qualities, is practically revered across the land and spoken of as some sort of moral successor.

I met the young man several times in King Stanislaus’ court. He is the very embodiment of the national beauty and arrogance, and also manages to be quite charming – refreshingly single-minded, with a devil-may-care insouciance and the power to enjoy life down to the smallest sip of wine or ray of sunshine. He recently commanded a force which mopped up some sort of restiveness on Norhammer’s western border, and though he apparently did it with the skill and evenhandedness of a man twice his age, his heart is on the sea, and he sighed for worlds to conquer that were more to his taste.

“This business of riding horses to a place and threatening its people with swords – bah!” he exclaimed to me once at a royal reception. “It is nothing but herding naughty sheep. Give me a few ships now, and a long voyage on the open sea, and a people of pride on the other end to conquer with honor, and perhaps I can realize my potential.”

He broke off there to chase a young lady of the court onto the dance floor. Their dances are very much for whirling and stomping, and everything happens on the downbeat. I am fifty-two, and I think I’ve been too old for that sort of exercise since I was eighteen, so I stayed in my seat and therefore heard no more of the young man’s aspirations.

Until that day I had been wishing that Norhammer was closer, so that it would be easier for me to visit again, but now I’m rather glad that they are so far away. Fortunately, there are a few other naval nations between Norhammer and Bentlefay, so that we are unlikely to be the object of Duke Harker’s ambitions anytime soon.

They have not been much for diplomacy in their history other than the execution of treaties – I suppose with such strength in one’s arm it is less necessary to exercise one’s brains – but when I saw King Stanislaus for a farewell audience, he had a new councilor with him who seemed to indicate a change on that front. He was a shifty little dark outlander, who sat at his elbow and whispered in his ear. He never addressed me directly, but he didn’t seem to like me much, and when I was announced as a merchant of Bentlefay his eyes gleamed with a liquid hate quite out of proportion to the event.

I didn’t quite catch his name – something like Kleek or Dreke or Weak. If his is the kind of diplomacy to which Norhammer aspires, it will likely become a much less pleasant place, so I urge you to visit soon if you are able. Do give it some thought – it would be just the place for a honeymoon, and I would gladly show you and your fortunate lady around. As a favor, of course!

Sincerely,
Frumps