Your excellencies, thank you for granting me this moment in your court.
I regret that I must begin it by apologizing for my long absence from your presence. Sadly, I have been called away by strife and conflict, for my village, and many others, have fallen under the shadow of a wretched baron, a would-be robber baron, who conspires to make himself king. But my family and I have sworn that we will have no kings, except those that rule with honor, and earn the love of their populace.
This struggle to preserve our freedoms is not an easy one, and I fear it may be two years or more before this foul would-be king lies defeated and I can rejoin you here in the courts of Østgarðr — and yet there is an obligation I must fulfill before ere long.
It was at Pennsic Fifty that you commanded me to bring something special unto your presence. There’s no need to trouble ourselves with recalling the reason I was given this charge (aside, to the crowd: it was treason!) or what fate I faced as an alternative (execution!) so let’s instead focus on my path out of this predicament: a lemon!
But not just any lemon: you demanded instead a perfect lemon, and it turns out while these may be common in your sunny Mediterranean homeland, it is not easy to find lemons in Appleholm. (If only she had asked for a perfect apple, I’d have been done three years ago!)
At Barleycorn; I offered you candied lemon peel, but you were not satisfied. At Bear’s Tavern, I delivered lemon cushions, but you were not satisfied. At the Lions End Schola, I brought you a bottle of lemon balm oxymel, and still you were not satisfied.
Finally, at the Halls of Valhalla, I brought you a ripe citrus… but it turned out to be some weird kind of orange and it was green, and spherical, and really it’s no wonder you didn’t love that one, that one’s on me.
But then, last night, having waited until literally the last possible moment, inspiration struck. It is not sweetness that makes a lemon perfect, nor plumpness, nor its medicinal benefits — what makes a gift perfect is its memorialization of the bond of friendship… and so I hope this gift is perfect in its expression of the lasting affection between my family and the two of you, in a form you may enjoy yourselves and pass down to your children, as it was passed down to me by my sainted mother, who bargained for it from a merchant on the sunny Amalfi coast when she traveled to your homeland in the years when I was but a callow youth.
It has served my family well for over twenty-five years, and now I hope that it serves yours as well — like you, its beauty never fading. May it bring you pleasure, and remind your excellencies that you will always be my excellencies.
