Tarsakh, 10

Honoured Sand of Neverwinter,

Your letter came as a surprise, for I never thought to hear about my poor girl again. I'm sorry this reply has taken its time in reaching you. I meant to answer write away, but between one thing and another (my sons and the housework and the troubles in Neverwinter Wood) I've only just managed to have a sit down in a few quiet moments with a pen and paper.

I spent over ten years working for Qara's family. I went into service when I was fifteen, starting out just as Qaron Bovar was starting up his own household him being just back from Sembia with his foreign bride and being set on making a fine impression among the Neverwinter top brass.

I was there, tidying and serving and cleaning up after my master's friends. I saw the balls, and the grand dinners, saw Lord Nasher arrive on horseback to pay a visit, quite alone without his guards, which was a great source of pride to the Lady Lucia, for she said that in her country it was a great mark of favour and trust if a lord came without his retinue. Madam taught me and all the servants to read and write nicely, in the proper manner, after my master said he couldn't bear being surrounded by ignorant people. She was (or is for they say she's alive) a good lady and a kind mistress.

I was there for the birth of their daughter, and was the first person after the midwife to hold her in their arms. With her mother often falling ill during that time, I took on the job of nursemaid and looked after her, minded her first tears and sat up with her at night, when she was fretting. Not for any pay rise, of course, and on top of my usual work. I was a young thing myself then, and never had the brass nerve to ask Master Qaron for pay to match my new duties.

I was there when the master left the house for the last time, though I didn't know it when I saw him wrap his cloak around his shoulders and close the door. We didn't any of us know until his serving man arrived a week later with his master's instructions concerning the furniture. He'd left to live with his new women, you see, as men do, saving your grace. Though I hear that in these matters elven men are better creatures than their human brothers.

My mistress cried for days, and my Qara cried too when she saw her mother so upset and felt the despondency our whole household was fallen into. But she soon revived, for she was a brave little mite, full of energy and tricks. When she was still learning to walk, she would clamber out of her cot like a tiny adventurer and crawl along the corridors, looking for her friends. She once even found me in the kitchens. I can still clearly see her, sitting on the stone floor, reaching her little arms up to me with a big smile full of gums and gaps.

Her father was still around in those days. He used to say he'd cast a caging spell on the cot if she went on any more night-time rambles. He never did though. I think he was as glad to see her as the rest of us were, even if he never admitted it.

It feels strange to write of these matters after so long. Because of Qara and what happened to her father and half-brothers, people call the family cursed. For the sake of my own family's reputation, I've thought it wise to say nothing of my history with the Bovars of Neverwinter. That is simply how it's had to be.

I left my mistress when I married my husband a few years before the plague, and we moved to Conyberry, though Qara threw a fit when she found out, screaming and punching and trying to hold me back by my sleeves. After we left, I didn't see her again for a long time, and then just the once.

I was helping my husband load our possessions onto a cart. The evacuation order had gone out, reaching even us in our little village, and we knew we had to travel north in case the battles left the swamps. We weren't happy to leave, but "better safe than sorry" we said to ourselves, and got on with it.

A young woman with very red hair and very white skin appeared at the edge of the garden, and watched me quite silently. It was only when I was struggling with a case of pots and pans, and I saw white hands take hold of the other side of the box, and felt the burden lightened, that I looked up and recognised my old nursling, quite grown up and beautiful.

"I can't stay, Ketty," she said, after I'd called her name, "I live at Crossroad Keep now, and it's on the front line. It's good for me there. I get stronger every day, and they need me, you know."

Then she embraced me, in the big, bearish way she'd always had when she came to see me in the mornings, and she told me to stop being a silly fool and stop crying. (I'm ashamed to say I was crying, Master Sand. It was a difficult time, and everything seemed to be going wrong.) She pressed a gift into my hand. It was the crystal bust of a snarling dragon.

"I made it for you. If you meet trouble on the road, tell them your friend is a powerful sorcerer. And tell them she'll turn them into dust if they hurt you. But if they don't believe you, use this. Just touch it once, and say 'reckoning' – that's the command word – and they won't have any room left for doubt. Goodbye, Ketty," she said, and hugged me again, and left, turning invisible as she closed the garden gate.

If not for the dragon, I would have thought it all a dream, or a premonition of evil. My husband and sons were in the house and saw nothing.

After the war, I kept the dragon for many years on the mantelpiece, till news of the Spellplague spread, and my husband didn't want anything magical in the house. It's at the bottom of the old village well now, where I hope it will do no harm to anyone.

When I knew her best, my Qara never hurt anyone or anything. She loved painting, animals, swimming and paddling around the Black Lake with her pet ferret on her shoulder and a string of imaginary friends tagging along with her. I don't believe the horrid stories people tell about the things she's supposed to have done, and I don't wish to try. She was, and will always be, my darling first child and only daughter.

Thank you for writing to me. I don't know if this letter helped you, or if it's what you had in mind when you asked what I could tell you about my time in service, but it has helped me in reckoning up the past. Although my situation in life is so different from what it was then, a a penniless orphan labouring for a fistful of nothing in one of the great houses of Neverwinter,and now the mother of three fine sons, and proprietor of the village store, still I think the chance to remember what I lost on the road to get here is rare and valuable. I hope you understand my meaning, even if I'm not the best at writing letters.

With compliments,

Rhian Kettering

"Ketty"