Don’t move, although you burn for it. I shall take the next step on your behalf. Don’t hate, although you are entitled to. I shall unleash your wrath instead. Whatever poison snakes may spit on your brother’s name, don’t be provoked. I shall cut their tongues while they still feed upon your pain.
Tears I cry while I write you this letter, well aware of the danger in which you find yourself. Robbed of a husband and son, a woman’s heart breaks into pieces of a million. But losing you, my dearest orphan child, I could not survive. What should I do without my little boy at my side? No life I wish to carry on if you’re not in it.
Transylvania weeps for your loss and imprisonment. Know this, my son, you are not forgotten. Your ache is felt, your cries are heard. The forests call for your return, and the raven will send word of it. We mourn with you for Laszlo’s tragic fate and pray for him to watch over you, now that his service to a mortal world has been fulfilled.
It is your right to blame the mother thine for her incapability to protect her offspring. But hear me out, so I can caress your darkened heart with words of hope. Your freedom I shall buy with fortune of the Raven Crest and do whatever is required for you to feel my warm embrace once more.
Take this your father’s ring as my pledge to make it happen. It is now yours by birthright. Take on your brother’s duty towards house and heritage, my Raven Prince, and soon you shall spread your wings with armies black and heroes brave in flight of your command, as in my dreams foretold.
All this I promise to your saddened heart at the first full moon of spring and will assure it to come true. But until then, until my hand has reached to Prague, don’t move, my son. Don’t move. Live.
In sorrow and remorse, your mother Erzsebet
Note: This letter poem draws inspiration from the 1854 ballad Mátyás anyja (The Mother of Matthias) by Hungarian poet János Arany. Similar to Sign of the Raven chapter 10 “Erzsebet’s Ballad”, the poem thematises the historical events foreshadowing the crowning of Matthias Corvinus as King of Hungary.
