Three for a Letter

Chapter Twenty-four

Greetings, dear Aunt Matasuntha.

Has General Belisarius set Ravenna alight yet? I do hope not! Here we just had an awful fire. We would all have been burnt to ashes in our beds if it hadn’t been for Hero’s fire-fighting device. I’ll draw you a picture of it some time. I did draw Hero’s wine machine, as I promised. The top part was easy enough, being like a man, but it was hard to draw its goat legs. Godomar found the picture before I could hide it. He was very angry but I couldn’t help laughing because I made its face look like his.

Anyway, I have decided Hero will come and live in my court when I am queen. He makes all sorts of toys and clever things and knows lots of interesting stories.

But about this strange fire. Bertrada says it was a horrible accident but I don’t think it was. You see, the goats have been foretelling terrible things for some time now. I think the fire must have been what they meant, or at least some of what they meant. But nobody had taken any notice of what they said, so in a way it serves them right. Also there’s an old statue that somehow got broken, but you could hardly call that a disaster. Zeno doesn’t seem at all upset about it although he told me it was given to him by one of his relatives. He says he’s not expecting this relative to visit him in the near future and laughed as if he had said something very funny. Godomar just looked disgusted, but then he looks disgusted a lot of the time. I wonder if he ever laughed when he was younger or if he has brothers or sisters?

But I’m getting away from what I wanted to tell you about the goats. Minthe says they have been making the worst patterns that have been seen for years and years. They’re very clever, those animals, and know much more than most people. Yes, soon the villagers will realize they were not just foretelling the fire but also my departure.

People always seem to find a way to believe the goats are saying whatever it is they want them to say, but in this case they are telling only the truth because when I have gone a lot of people will be in great trouble. I wish I could be here to see it, but then if I were, there wouldn’t be any trouble for them to get into, would there?

So, dear aunt, as you can see, it will be a little while before I can write another letter but I wanted to tell you not to worry. I am going with Porphyrio.

One night recently, I will not say when, I woke up and heard Porphyrio summoning me as he sometimes does. It’s like someone blowing on a great horn, but so far off I can only feel the sound inside me, like when a cart rumbles past. I got out of bed and left the villa. I didn’t have to creep past Bertrada because Porphyrio had cast an enchantment over her. All the way through the garden and the olive grove I could hear Porphyrio calling. Even though it was really dark, I had no trouble finding my way. My feet floated over roots and rocks as if I were a leaf drifting down a stream.

I came to the headland and went to the edge of the cliff. There was nothing to see except a great star-strewn sky, but looking down I saw the deeper darkness of the sea and the gleaming back of my friend Porphyrio. He looked so small I realized how far down below the water was, but I wasn’t frightened a bit.

I was ready to cast myself over the edge to join him right then but he stopped me. “It is not yet time,” he said in his deep, silent voice. “Hide where there is nothing between you and the sunrise, Sunilda, and then when the straw man comes to the sea, that will be a signal for you to fly to meet me.”

And so we made our final plans, but I am not permitted to tell you more. I shall write to you again after I join Gadaric and can tell you all about my journey and what wonders I have found at its end.