Letters found in Bellaquin covenant, amongst the notes of Juvenalis ex Jerbiton. These letters were found shortly after the Rain of Blood, in the Spring of 1226.

Salve Juvenalis ex Jerbiton,

Greetings my sodalis, I hope that this letter finds you well. You may not remember me, but we met briefly during the last Tribunal in Provencal. I have a request born out of somewhat unusual circumstances.

It is my understanding that you have an apprentice, John, who may be close to passing his apprenticeship. I cannot provide you with the full details right now, but we may have a request of him, and a place with us here at Valnastium once his gauntlet is passed.

With your permission, we would like the Redcap Robert del Marden to interview him. If you wish to be present during the interview, then we fully understand, and would indeed expect no less of a master. The reasons for the need for this interview and complicated, and I must admit, somewhat unusual. I promise that the Redcap Robert will bring you up to speed on these reasons once an interview has been conducted, but we don’t want to potentially skew the results by providing information before hand.

Robert should be able to answer any questions that you may have about how we’d like to conduct things. I assure you that the questions will not be of a Hermetic nature, nor will they concern you or the covenant of Bellaquin.

Isabelle Stabilis ex Jerbiton
1217, Spring

Salve Juvenalis ex Jerbiton,

Many thanks for your cooperation and help over the previous year. It pleases me that your young filius Jeremiah ex Jerbiton is now a full member of our House. Jeremiah is now safely with us at Valnastium, and will be given every opportunity to continue his studies.

Your memory is correct in that Jeremiah and myself both share the ability to see both Holy and Unholy things for what they are, at least as far as that can be done. It is in the Order’s relationship with the Divine that we hope Jeremiah will be able to help us, and he has one very unique characteristic that will go a long way in this.

One favour I would ask is that information about Jeremiah is kept quiet, for his sake as well as ours. There are those outside the Order who may wish to seek us for their own purposes, and we think they may even have servants amongst the covenfolk of our covenants. There may be another that goes by his name, and it is important that any confusion that this causes is not diffused.

Isabelle Stabilis ex Jerbiton,
1217, Autumn

Salve my Parens,

The Lord has graced me with both fortune and responsibility, and I am sure that my decision to come to Valnastium was the correct one. This place is quite massive, with halls and libraries larger than the whole of Bellaquin itself!

I have been granted a laboratory of generous size, but have barely had time to make it my own given the number of books that have been handed to me, which I am meant to study from in haste.

It does seem that there is strangeness afoot, and I am not permitted to tell all, but it does appear that Isabelle and her sodales are studying the event of two years ago which has come to be known as the Long Day. There are, well, I was going to say prophecies, but that would not be entirely true. Let us say that I have learnt many interesting things, both about Hermetic magic and about myself. It is now quite clear how Robert ex Mercere knew so much of my childhood.

I do fear for the future however, and there are some things that I wish I could unlearn. But if God has chosen me for this task, as I now firmly believe, then it is my duty to accept it without complaint. I hope that one day I can tell you everything that I have learnt.

Your ever grateful filius,
Jeremiah ex Jerbiton,
1218, Spring

Salve my Parens,

It is after many long years that I write to you again. To you, it may not seem that long, but life has been more complicated for me than you may have thought. I have been through both darkness and despair, and have witnessed more suffering than anyone should have to witness. But that is behind me, and God has graced me, if not all of us, with a second chance.

I am Jeremiah Vercius ex Jerbiton. I studied under the magus Juvenalis ex Jerbiton of Bellaquin covenant in the Provencal Tribunal. But he was not you. I am not the Jeremiah that you knew, though I am very similar and share the same past. I was born on the 12th of March eleven hundred and ninety six, and I finished my apprenticeship in 1218, one year later than the Jeremiah you knew. A great upheaval had befallen the world in the year prior, which had distracted me from my studies. In the twenty years that followed, I witnessed the fall of the Order of Hermes and the End of the World. I do not wish to recount the details of what I have witnessed here, but I believe that the Long Day was God’s second chance to us all by rebuilding the world that had been destroyed. It is only through the skill of the Criamon magi, and by the Grace of God, that I find myself here again, in this world.

This letter should be delivered to you by my younger self, who can answer some of your concerns. We have had many long discussions about the experiences we have shared. He can vouch for what I say. My full story has been noted down, and I hope one day that I can share it with you. Should something happen to me, there will always be a copy beneath the chair of my sanctum, in my usual way.

We have some support in the Order, enough to pull strings to find us a few young magi who can help our new covenant of Spring in Stonehenge. I am not sure that they would all be my first choice, but we must take what we are given and do our best with what we have.

Jeremiah Vercius ex Jerbiton,
1220, Winter