Saint-Germain 24: An Embarrassment of Riches: A Novel of the Count Saint-Germain by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Author:Chelsea Quinn Yarbro [Yarbro, Chelsea Quinn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Horror, Occult & Supernatural, Horror Fiction, Historical Fiction, Vampires, Saint-Germain, Bohemia (Czech Republic) - History - to 1526
ISBN: 9780765331038
Publisher: Tor Books
Published: 2011-02-28T05:00:00+00:00

Text of a letter from Episcopus Fauvinel in Praha to Konig Bela of Hungary, written on vellum in his own hand and carried by Church courier; delivered forty days after it was written.

To the most puissant Konig, Bela of Hungary, the greeting of Episcopus Fauvinel of Praha and the Konige’s Court, on this, the 29th day of November in the 1269th Year of Grace,

Esteemed Konig,

I have the honor and obligation to tell you that your granddaughter and her daughters are well and preparing for the joyous time of the Nativity. It is unfortunate that relations between Hungary and Bohemia have not improved and thus you will not be in a position to come to Praha to see these promising girls. Let me tell you that they are modest, pious children, and the Konige sets them a fine example. With the Konig and his Court victorious in Carniola, the occasion is likely to be a grand one here for all it may cause dissatisfaction to you. The Konige, of course, is less merry, for the losses you have sustained.

The first gifts of the season have been presented, six of them from your nobleman, the Comes Santu-Germaniu, including a golden reliquary studded with amethysts and tourmalines which he presented to me as the representative of the Church for the relics of Sant Iacopus which were brought from the Holy Land a century ago; it is of fine workmanship and the quality of the gems is beyond any I have seen, so fine and so well-polished that they seem to hold the light of the stars within them. For the Konig, the Comes had made a pectoral in the form of a crown augmented with diamonds; for the Konige, he presented a topaz the size of a pigeon’s egg hung on a golden chain and a brooch worked in silver of the Virgin surrounded by birds with bodies and wings of rubies, emeralds, peridots, and aquamarines. For the dear Little Royals he gave Kunigunde of Bohemia a chain-collar of gold with white sapphires in the links; for infant Agnethe, he made a bauble of what is called a tiger’s-eye and suspended it from a gilded cord. He also presented an anniversary gift for dear Little Royal Kunigunde to be offered to her in January to commemorate her birth.

All of this is said to be in accord with the terms of his exile, and if that is the whole of it, I will say nothing more once I complete this account to you, but for a man in exile, he has wealth beyond all the richest of Bohemians; his is an embarrassment of riches, which inspires envy and avarice in many, surely the result of the Devil at play, as an instigation to covetousness at the least, and less Christian thoughts. My man within his household tells me that the Comes regularly makes more jewels, which smacks of suborning virtue to me, and possible diabolism, although the man in his household thinks not, for he has seen no direct sign of diabolic purpose in these jewels the Comes makes.

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