Chapter 3 A
Letter to NemediaThe savant Astreas, traveling in the East in his never-tiring
search for knowledge, wrote a letter to his friend and
fellowphilosopher Alcemides, in his native Nemedia, which
constitutes the entire knowledge of the Western nations concerning
the events of that period in the East, always a hazy, half-mythical
region in the minds of the Western folk.
Astreas wrote, in part: "You can scarcely conceive, my dear old
friend, of the conditions now existing in this tiny kingdom since
Queen Taramis admitted Constantius and his mercenaries, an event
which I briefly described in my last, hurried letter. Seven months
have passed since then, during which time it seems as though the
devil himself had been loosed in this unfortunate realm. Taramis
seems to have g
