If only fanfiction would allow me the luxury of strike-throughs. Please indulge me in imagining the fragments without punctuation have been crossed out.

To Vald.

From Anders.

How is

Ja så, the reason for Aschen's role becomes clear. At her suggestion, I watched the royals as they announced the magical disappearance of the prince's beloved and his intention not to rest nor sleep 'til he has found her again. And watched the populace so enthralled by the romanticism of it all. Vald, you will not believe the feeling around town. For helvede, Vald, it's so clever I could cry. The dashing prince so supposedly in love he'll search the whole kingdom for her is fairy tale enough, but with only a slipper as evidence there is this subtle mania that it could be anyone. At any moment a perfectly ordinary girl could be plucked off the street and become a princess. Already this city would do anything for their royals, wouldn't hear a bad word against them, and darling Flori is touring the whole country next. A war of vengeance would be righteous, a noble decision. So fanden clever I could spit.

This is useless

This is a terrible excuse for a letter; I pity you having to read it. Anyway, I'd walked the city for hours surrounded by jubilant crowds and delightedly scandalised gossip, and in a fit of self-pity went to the cathedral to pray. Desperate times and all that. The Archbishop, of an advance age, still with a head of white hair and beard but his top lip shaved smooth, came and sat next to me. Gripping his silk-gowned knees, he lowered himself into the pew with difficulty. His pale blue eyes were a little rheumy and wet but decisive behind square spectacles. The backs of his hands were mottled purple, pressed dead white over bony knuckles that seemed near about to break the skin.

"Were you looking for the princess? She has not come in today," he said, the words taking a while to find their way from his mouth.

"No," I said, "I know precisely where she is. Some business has called her away, back to the Danmarches."

"I am sorry to hear it. She was a comfort to me in these last days when everyone wants to swaddle me up and pretend my mind is already gone. I'm dying," he added. "It is kinder sometimes to tell a man than let him guess and wonder."

"I am sorry."

"There is no need, my son. I have made my peace with it; the princess helped in that." He seemed quite happy to gaze up at the stained-glass saints and speak mostly to them. "She asked me questions of the eternal soul, and I had not thought of them since my student days. I visited again Augustine and Aquinas, and they welcomed me like old friends. I am content; my soul will ever be an imperfect thing, but I have done as well as I can with it. I will not be ashamed to present the Lord with my talents."

"How nice for you," I said in the pause.

"There is something the princess said to me, that a good and upright soul is the most beautiful thing and creatures, if they could feel, must mourn the lack of them. A fish has no immortal soul, and shall never live again; like the green sea-weed, when once it has been cut off, can never flourish more. A man, on the contrary, has a soul which lives forever, lives after the body has been turned to dust. It rises up through the clear, pure air beyond the glittering stars; so do they rise to unknown and glorious regions which we shall never see. I had not thought to feel pity for a fish, but the princess has a great heart. Did she come by this eloquence through you – what are your thoughts?

"I give my soul no thought except when I'm asked to on Sundays." I really would be a terrible diplomat. "There is far too much to be done to waste time polishing one's metaphysical silver."

"If you do not tend to your soul, what salvation shall there be for you beyond the grave?"

"Why not ask this, Archbishop: If my soul does not give me the strength and love to save my people in the here and now, what use have I for life after death?"

"My son, that is a blasphemous thought, and unworthy."

"Ah oui, pas de cours," I drawled, "speak to me of worthiness when your churches hoard the food I need to stop a famine, speak to me of worthiness while my country dies."

His eyebrows quirked, and there was a coldness in his eyes though I could not tell if it was anger towards myself or another. "What's this?"

"The greater part of the Danmarchan harvest was bought with false coin, and the stores for winter are now bereft; we will be lucky if we have many workers to break the ground in spring let alone the planting and reaping to follow. And while I would never throw about groundless accusations, it does seem a little coincidental that every monastery, nunnery, and chapel we passed from the border to Sonneschlafen has more food than it needs for five winters hidden beneath the ground." The consonants of my polite murmur hissed back at us from the unforgiving stone.

"I had not heard of this."

"The archbishop has not heard of what is happening in his own Church? How fortunate, how likely. You may tell your churches that there will be men coming, men with nothing to lose and swords in their hands, and we will be given what is ours. May God have mercy should you think to test us in this."

"My son," he said, his bony hand with tissue-thin skin gently reached for mine where it trembled, clenched upon my thigh, "might you ask before your soldiers demand? And I say unto you, ask, and it shall be given you. I am an old man; it is a daily regret that I am not the man I once was. But some things do not change. The Church is for God, not the petty wars of man – this I have long held, though others have not agreed. I have a few months left, and I am not the man I once was, but I would see to it that if you ask, you will be listened to. Think on it, my son. Möge Gott Sie."

He stood, another slow labourious affair, carefully touched his lips to my brow and bade me follow him.

Vald, I know it seems ridiculous – though at this stage what avenues are left to us other than the ridiculous – but have we tried asking? The Archbishop gave me a letter, with his ring which I have enclosed. It may come to nothing and it may be too little too late, but the winter will be long and cold whether we have our pride or not.

I leave it in your hands.

How is she?

This is a very different letter than the one I would have written a week ago. But it makes sense because this has been one of my greatest difficulties in writing with The Little Mermaid. H.C.'s LM wants a soul because without it there can be no salvation, which is all very well and good but surely a soul is more than a ticket to heaven, surely it means something in the here and now. So this letter is sort of, but not entirely, a conversation between me and the estimable H.C.

R.I.P 31 Jan 2013