Nonostantegrazia

You don't understand how many times they teased me claiming you was a part of my imagination. Too good to be true, they argue. They are jokers and sometimes mean and envious but they love me too much. They gave me gold-woven fabrics and floral velvets and woven mats and jewels. We will reach the Castle of Burgos, in the majestic and very high granite cliff, very difficult to reach. For years it was the prison of Adelasia di Torres walled up alive by her handsome young husband, Enzo di Hohenstaufen, son of Emperor Frederick II and King of Sardinia. It seems that Adelasia's ghost still haunts that place. Even if that were the case, she’s a friend. I often go there and what I find is peace, silence, and complete happiness. I know that Adelasia's spirit loves me and fights with me, so that I can succeed in changing my destiny, so that I can find the strength to disobey my Father and avoid marrying that old and miserable Don Zame and marry you instead, my beloved. Tomorrow everyone will understand that it is impossible to separate us, that we are one person, that even if you come from Scotland we share a love for letters, for wild nature, for dogs, for precious and ancient fabrics, which have a soul. If it weren't for that obnoxious Juannicca I'd be the happiest in the world. Do you know she came early in the morning raving about a bad omen. She gave me such anxiety! She says that a monster that is half wolf roams the forest (as if there is a wolf in Sardinia) and half wild boar and that the shepherds know this monster well and call it Babbaiottu and are terrified by it. Them and their sheep. He says that Babbaiottu doesn't want people wandering in "his" forest especially if they are "continental". Indeed, it seems that the continentals really don't want them, he says that he howls and grunts uttering words at the same time repeating in his strange language “..Personas estraneas in domo no che ndhe cherzo” “I don’t want foreigners”  eand curses “Tota custa zente es bennida dai fora”. The worst is that if you challenge him, he makes you lose your mind, the way it happened to Ananias who had organized a hunting trip for important Piedmont people and as I wrote to you that day, he is out of his mind. Same thing for Ziu Pauliccu who had brought Spanish people and has never recovered, he is now holed up inside his sheepfold and never comes out. No one knows what happened. You don’t understand the bad mood it put me in. Juannicca says that the only antidote is to wear a Sardinian button tied to a red thread…meh! Is it possible? Should I believe her? Or is hers all envy? I tie a red thread around my wrist and never take it off. But could also be that Jannicca has an agreement with my Father and wants to prevent me from meeting you? Anyway, I don’t understand what is going on… why I am closed in this room, they have taken everything away from me apart from the pen, why hasn’t Annesa  arrived yet with all the clothes, why hasn’t Anneredda come to do my hair, why don’t I hear the horses of the guests arriving and why do I hear so many voices in my head all different from one another that scream, whisper, call me ... but what do they want from me? Why are they torturing me? What did I do wrong? I didn't ask anyone for anything. I live with the wind, with the forest, with the mountains and the clouds and I just want to go where my heart takes me…