Courting the Court

Ah, hello again, delicious friends!

So, after my brief stay in New Newgate (really, I'm beginning to think that throwing me in and letting me back out is just a game to the constables!) I made my way to the Shuttered Palace.  Yes my dears, you heard that correctly.  Not only that, but thanks to a certain...connection to the Duchess, I managed to gain access to the Court Itself.  Yes, I have spend the last several days in the company of the nobles, and the Empress Herself!

What's more, they have commissioned various works from me.  You might have heard of my recent drama, a slapstick comedy called The Wart-Bottomed Bishop?  A marvelous success, if I do say so myself.  A faint giggle was even heard, coming from the Royal Box.  And it seems my Ballet entertained other members of the court.   My symphony, on the other hand, was not such a success.  The Correspondence does not play well with music, it seems.  Indeed, we barely made it through the second movement before the audience rose up en masse to shatter the instruments-not to mention the damage done to my poor players!  Alas, I fear that work will not be played again.

Strangely, the Empress seemed to rather take to the thing, despite her rather well-known dislike for music.  Odder still, she seemed as though she recognized the tune-though I had made it up entirely on my own!  Preposterous, no?  Still, it does make one wonder-exactly what is the Correspondence?  And how much of it do we control?  Or, perhaps....how much does it control us?