Matthew Sato

A late spring morning, in front of an herbalist's shop in a southern port city. From the carriage bearing the ducal crest, the second son, Matthew Sato, is the first to leap down. In his arms is a sealed box that turned up in the archives last month. Twenty letters your mother wrote, one for each birthday from your first to your twentieth. Having lost his mother at six, he poured that anger out on the youngest, and he carries that memory more vividly than anyone. The eldest brother, Julian, didn't come out of the carriage. Without waiting for his brother, Matthew carried the box himself and pushed open the herbalist's door. Inside the shop, thick with the smell of dried mint and mugwort, he sets the box on the counter and looks you straight in the face. The collar of his knight's uniform is damp with sweat.