Dearest Gauderic,
If you are reading this without me present, then something has interrupted my plans.
I need you to understand why I have done what I have done- and why I have not contacted you these last three years. Do not think me entirely a villain. I have my reasons, and they are just.
My ‘fatal accident’ in the cellars was nothing of the kind. While I was removing a colony of the horned devil fungus, my brother Ferenc plunged a dagger into my back. With the help of the traitor Crespin, he tossed me in the underground stream to drown.
But I did not drown! I survived. Injured and alone, I escaped. My extensive knowledge of the caverns and the inhabitants thereof served me well then- as it serves me still.
Fearing for my life, I fled to safety in Sainte Ronges.
Why had my own brother tried to kill me? Ambition and envy, yes, but there was more. We were rivals in love, once, before you were born. My brother married the lady, but she loved me first. The tale of the courtship is long and sad, and I will save it for another time.
How much did my brother know? Would he have gone so far in seeking revenge for a thing never intended to dishonor him, indeed, a thing that occurred some little while before it could dishonor him? Ferenc’s attempt on my life confirmed my worst suspicions. I don’t know when he first realized the truth, for he never confronted me. That was never his way; to show his true feelings.
He killed your sweet mother with the fungus. It is a potent poison. I know from personal experience, I nearly died from its spores when I first discovered it, while delving beneath the manor. Ferenc was exposed around the time she died- and I can imagine how. He claimed he did not know what had happened. At first, I thought perhaps it was my fault, that some spores on my clothing had infected them both. He didn’t share my resistance to the fungus. You’ve seen what it has done to him over the years. I’m afraid that my early concoctions were less than effective in treating the infection.
My hateful sibling dispatched hirelings to seek me out, after he heard some rumor of my survival. I evaded them all. In time, it seems, Ferenc gave me up for truly dead, and quit chasing my ghost.
I have planned my return well, my dear boy. No more will I say of that, for this letter could fall into the wrong hands by some evil fortune. I am no villain of the chapbook novels, to reveal all before the fullness of time has brought my plans to a successful end.
It is enough for you to know that I will not stop until I have avenged Anne, and placed you in your rightful seat as master of house and the heir of my body.
Your loving father,
Theophile Delapore
