PFC Episode 19: The Importance of Forgiveness

Loretta discusses and explains why Agata chose to forgive Gaius after what he did to her back in 1509 which benefited both the Paper Flower Consortium and Gaius's Legion and even France.

Warning: Suggested Violence on Women, Forgiving unforgivable crimes, and discussion of age of consent

For more information or to ask Lady Loretta a question: please visit https://www.elizabethguizzetti.com/paperflowerconsortium or email her at info@paperflowerconsortium.com

Written and Performed by Elizabeth Guizzetti

Music:

Opening and Closing music: Loretta's Theme by Evan Witt.
Learn More at www.wittynotes.com

Sound Effects

 Soft Horror Piano Drone, Cole, StoryBlocks
Horse Eating Hay, StoryBlocks 

Transcript

Dear listeners: This is Elizabeth Guizzetti, the author and creator of the Paper Flower Consortium Universe. While I do not often give content warnings, this episode is one that speaks of the historical violence towards women and children. Let us begin:

Paper Flower Consortium: Episode 19: On the Importance of Forgiveness. 

 MUSIC: LORETTA'S THEME by Evan Witt (www.wittynotes.com)

VO: Recording by Loretta Fabron Onfoy, former lady of the Kingdom of France and Current Historian and Librarian of the Paper Flower Consortium

Welcome back Beloved Initiates and other Listeners: 

 You are listening because you wish to be a vampire most of you wish to be a vampire because of eternal existence and at an adult age in which you are fairly healthy and strong. Some of you are not strong and wish to know a vampire strength. And in this episode, we will discuss an incredibly hard topic : the importance of forgiveness between vampires. 

 This is a difficult topic because not all vampires have been acted in moral ways. And certainly we have acted in ways that we know now are hurtful. This is one of the reasons it is important for a vampire to be humble. 

 The current generation has a term about this. It’s called being “woke,” and it’s meaning is something a vampire experiences after their first human life. We awaken to the possibility that our actions hurt people. Generations change. A word that once meant the best of humanity, becomes the worst or at least old fashioned.

 If one wants to experience eternal existence: forgiveness of one’s self, one’s former culture and even one’s enemies is important. Humans and young vampires might not understand this because they hadn’t seen centuries. But you are not perfect. You will not be perfect. There will be personal grievances and offenses between you and your coven. Our coven and others. 

 Some will be simple misunderstandings. I pray that is the case for all of you. However, you may claim your goodness to Heaven or whereever you believe a God dwells, but before this time of peace, between the vampires of the world, vampires knew all types of human cruelties. Many of us, especially the ancients, indulged in them at one point.

 And a warning, my beloveds, you will painfully learn about the holes in your knowledge. Did you not concern yourself with the plight of other human races? One day that knowledge will be before you and you can accept it and change or stew in your prejudices for eternity. Buried in your wickness, so no other vampire offers you friendship.  

 If you believe you are one of the chosen wise, ask yourself this question: who decides the age of adulthood and marriage/sexual relationships? Even in western cultures this has changed throughout the centuries it has been dependent upon gender.

 In vampire society, the age of consent to vampirism is twenty-five. Though initiates and enthralled humans may come to the coven younger, they find most vampires won’t have sexual relations with a person younger than twenty-five. 

 Now overwhelmingly, in American Culture, we claim the age of eighteen is the age of adulthood? But why? We know the average age of first teenage sexual activities happen younger. Now I believe, society chose 18, primarily it is because it is when the end of mandatory schooling. It is the age where people are allowed into the military. It is the age where people are allowed to vote. I believe this, because I existed in a time when boys went to war at age thirteen and though they were not often married at the same time, they might be. 

 Why? Because we want to ensure there is no regrets. Because we live with regrets. 

To be clear: the elder vampires and I are happy we no longer send boys to war as children, we no longer marry children to protect a family's land and titles. We are happy we existed to see slavery abolished. We are happy to see women have rights that they did not have when we were human girls.   

But if you have any doubt of how strange it is for someone to have lived when the age of marriage has been younger consider that in the late fifteenth century, Agata and Jakub married when Agata was 15, Jakub was 20.  Agata and Jakub married their elder human daughter to a spice merchant when the girl was also 15 and the boy was just eighteen. Their son married at 17 to a girl who was 16. 

Today we would have been considered girls, but as teenagers, both Pascaline and I were ladies of the French Court. Though chasteness was the stated expectation of a lady, in fact, discretion was the true expectation. I do not deny our virtue was for sale, but only to the royal family. Otherwise, it was for our husbands.

If one of us had lain with the King or a Prince before or even during our marriages, it would have brought favors to the marriage, it might not have had otherwise. We didn’t even need to be an official mistress, though honestly that was my goal. Better to be a Mistress to a King than be the footstool of a lesserman. 

Jakub thought he was being true to Agata as he only had sex with the officers’ laundress or other men while at war. 

The officer’s laundress would be a questionable relationship today, but he thought he was offering her an opportunity for greater comforts and protection than she had with anyone else. She also had relations with several other officers. 

And when she became pregnant, the old term “Son of a Gun” was applicable though this was before the wide-spread use of guns. I suppose a better term would be Son of a Sword. Regardless, Jakub paid for the midwife and the child’s apprenticeship—though there was no guarantee he fathered the child. In fact, it was irrelevant. He was the commanding officer and a nobleman. His duty was to ensure the laundress’s care. At the time, there was nothing untoward about it. 

Now what about the atrocities? 

So here we are and we must ask a question that people do not want asked. How long did it take Agata to forgive the man who threatened to rape her, who attempted to bring her to final death? 

 In the same vein, how long does it take Gaius to forgive the woman who killed his closest companion and helped his concubines usurp your lands and title? 

It took Gaius and Agata approximately two centuries to forgive eachother for the crimes which they commited upon eachother. I cannot speak for Gaius, but he claims he has always had a respect for Agata since she bested him twice. But Agata hated him. And she hated that Jakub didn’t. That he had forgiven him after he put sword through his chest, and claimed all of it the atrocities of war. 

In the seventeenth century, we had an idiom about how adversity makes strange bedfellows? I am not sure if you still say that, but hopefully you understand the truth of Gaius and Agata’s relationship. Agata never wanted to forgive Gaius, Agata did not forgive in the way people sometimes mean it. She does not forget, but she saw the wisdom in our current association with him. And this is why she is our leader. 

She rarely deals directly with Gaius, but she has pushed her pain and loathing deep into herself so Jakub may deal directly with Gaius. 

However, In 1687, Agata, Jakub, Pascaline and I met Gaius and his entrourage which at that point included Charles in the Courts of Versailes. 

For those who are unware, Charles was captured in the Franco-Dutch war. And his gentle birth and training meant he was taken as a prisoner of war rather than killed on sight. He was taken to a work camp which was run by Gaius and his current First Born Gunter Bach. He hated them. But they did bring him back to France, because another war was brewing. And Gaius could see the end result would not be good. So he left Prussia and came to France. 

But that is not really why Agata forgave him.  She forgave him for his kindness to me and Charles. 

One might think I would be safe surrounded by the soldiers of Versailes, but in truth there were many temptations to a maiden. And not all gentlemen born by blood are true gentleman. And the days which were the most dangerous were when the King when hunting.

I was sitting among the fountain of Apollo when a man. I did not know, approached me.

It was one of my favorite places to read. The statue is of a golden god bursting forth from the water in anticipation of his daily flight above the earth.

And this man, I admit I was charmed by his smooth tounge, telling me that I looked as beautiful as sunlight. But then he dared touch me though we had never been formally introduced. I knew he was an imposter. Or he was a man who may have been of gentle birth, but thought I was for him. Many men did assume that in those days. 

I already admitted I knew of sexual relationships, so I wasn’t shocked. I do not know what the end result this man thought he would get from me, but it wasn’t pleasant. 

He loomed over me, his gentle words of love, became whispers of a different type. I backed away from the man and excused myself with a curtsy and the excuse, I must meet with my father.

I excused myself and hurried towards the north wing of the castle, to where my family slept.  

Fear quickened my steps. The gravel path seemed longer than before. I looked for another woman, for a group of people who might protect me, but there was no one. I think I remember people laughing at my distress. I didn’t dare scream or cry out. That simply was not done. 

I was closer to the castle’s main wing, but I only knew a few people there and no one who I felt I could ask for help. As I had said, I had met Charles and certainly I liked him, but this was before Charles had asked Jakub if he might court me. The idea I would throw myself at him was simply not something a lady of the Court would do.

Somehow I got lost in the garden, and before was a dark and horrid grove, but I also knew the King was gallant towards women and if I fell upon his hunting party, I would be under his protection. While it felt like I was chased for hours, I am sure it was simply minutes which passed. Times slows when one is frightened. 

I felt I had to keep moving. Not stop. If I stopped this man would be upon me.

Branches and underbrush grew thicker, reaching out and pulling on my heavy skirts. I could barely see a few feet ahead. I sensed the darkness closing in. It was impossible to know what could be waiting. 

I knew I was near something undead. 

Sweat and facepaint stung my eyes, and for a moment, I thought what I saw might not be real. Indeed for a moment, I believed I saw Apollo in the flesh and with him a black horse with glowing eyes and fangs.

Knees trembling, I clung to a tree. I had not met Gaius’s named firstborn, Gunter Bach. Gunter looked as if he wanted to consume me, for he was a vampire of a century and never trained to control his bloodlust, yet he made no move against me. He smiled at me, his fangs exposed. “Charles wasn’t lying.”

“My father…Jakub will be looking for me…”

“And my father told me to watch over you. Come, Lady Loretta. You should not see this.”

The lech screamed as Nix ripped into his throat. He screamed for a long time, because Nix likes his food warm and alive. I was frightened, but Gunter just brought me to Gaius. His Roman attitudes were hidden under the most gentile of Prussian. He was quite gallant. At any rate, he fed me a fine dinner, as Charles also needed to eat human food, and once Nix arrived, he tried to push sweets upon me, because as he claimed I was still so young.

There was part of me which wondered if this was staged for Agata and Jakub’s benefit, and certainly they considered the same. We cannot know. Gaius always does what he thinks is right. In anycase, Charles was innocent of such knowledge. 

Gunter said, my father tells me what I need to know and little else. What we do know is Gaius needed Jakub as another general to lead undead troops into battle several times over the next century. He needed Pascaline’s beautify and violence. He used them both. The information we would get to Gaius ensured we were ready to leave France before the Guillotine did it’s dreadful work. Right or Wrong France and her allies depended on it. We depended upon France.

No company of the Paper Flower Consortium wanted to sponser this episode so Gaius did”

Are you person of questionable morals? Have you seen a lifetime of battles and want more? Do you want to become a vampire without all the moral posturing of the official covens? Contact Gaius’s legion! It’s kind of like Norma’s Cleaning Service, just on an international scale. Also an immideate opening!  If you are a too young or otherwise ill-fated vampire with an inate gentleness towards animals, Nix is quite lonely and needs someone to ride him when I am out of town. You will be responsible for his care and grooming. Nix loves young innocents, I think he may be a unicorn in disguise. Or perhaps the myths of unicorns were always about vampire horses. You will be under my full protection. The council ignores me as it wise to do so and if someone hurts you or touches you without your permission, Nix will eat them for you. And I will always have your back, because I love Nix. 

My word is my bond and Norma can attest to my trustworthiness in such matters. 

 Time for questions: 

So Lady Loretta, if I do something wrong and discover it later how do I deal with it? 

The same way people deal with anything. They make amends including at times by leaving the hurt party alone. They confess to their spiritual advisor and their God if they have one. Perhaps they give money to charities that work to combat whatever wrong they did. 

Lady Loretta, What if we see bad change today? How do we stop the world from falling backwards. 

Beloved, Unfortunately there is no way to stop the world from falling backwards that doesn’t require direct action and killing on our part. We live apart from humanity, except the humans who decide to join us. We live in an open secret with our governments, because we do not get directly involved anymore. We may still write letters and sign petitions, as registered voters of our distrcts and we give to charities.  We vote and support canidates who we belive will protect our world. We may choose to protest, but understand that if you are caught overnight in a jail you may be immolated in the morning. If Pascaline and I were not rich white women, we would have been immolated back in 1911. 

So that’s all there is for tonight: Next time we will speak on certain books. Good day beloveds, and sleep the sleep of the dead.

The Paper Flower Consortium was written by Elizabeth Guizzetti If you love this podcast, like and share this episode. And please consider donating either one time or through the Patreon. 

Sound effects were made by Elizabeth Guizzetti or found at the Free Sound Project. Sounds of Nix came from StoryBlocks. Information in the Shownotes

The intro and outro music was by Evan Witt: Learn more about his music at www.wittynotes.com

Thanks for listening.