Year of the Boar, Fourth Month, Day 17. Postscript.

My boredom has reached such epic levels that I now find myself making multiple entries in my journal. Although it did occur to me a little earlier to wonder what exactly the consequences would be, were mother to find it. And with a sick kind of fascination, I have been imagining such a scene all morning; over and over again. Each time with attention to a different detail; the colour of mother's sash, the print on my silks, the sound of music practice floating in on a breeze, birdsong outside my window, dust motes dancing in a ray of sunlight, the list goes on. If mother keeps me in here for much longer, I shall go stark raving mad.
I have been thinking a good deal about the affairs of the Houses of late. About how strange it is that, even though technically we don't need any since the Diplomatic Talks are supposed to keep us all in line, until Dying Crane "parted company" with Fallen Sakura, there were only two Houses with no allies. Silent Thunder, the largest of the Houses, and Pale Twilight. Why? Silent Thunder, having the most land, would surely be a target for invasion and take-over bids, yet as far as I have been able to ascertain through my study of the Kingdom's history, no attacks have ever been made. Of course, geographically, being so far down the coast, they are not a likely target from out-Worlders but until Lady Yuki and Lord Shunya tried their little coup, Silent Thunder had never been attacked at all...this puzzled me; I thought a great deal about it before I came to the conclusion that Silent Thunder took great pains to remain on good terms with every House and those that they were not on especially good terms were those on the other side of the Kingdom and therefore not a likely threat. Excellent political strategy; I could learn a lot from the House of Silent Thunder.
Pale Twilight on the other hand, is a political disaster, we have no allies and yet we fight off Raiders almost every six-month which costs the treasury a fortune... Why have we no allies and why are we such a target for Raiders? The answer to both I think is perhaps the same. Mother and father are so... insular. They stick to some ancient creed that none other follows, they keep themselves apart and care for nothing save their own tiny little world. I suppose that's what happens when you marry a cousin, however distant. Gods, why could I not have been born into Silent Thunder or Golden Harvest - into a relatively NORMAL House?! What is it that I did to deserve the wrath of the gods in this manner? Trapped, my intellect wasted, all because I was born here and twenty minutes later than Taiji. It is simply not right. I have been thinking a great deal about my situation of late. Mother seeks to confine me within the castle walls permanently, the noose, so to speak, has been tightening further by the day. In fact, I am amazed that she ever permitted me to attend Precision School, or the Talks at all... now that I think deeply upon this, perhaps it is father who ails and not mother after all. Perhaps this has been mother's wish all along, perhaps until recently, father had simply been telling her how things were going to be. ... This is an extremely worrying train of thought... Perhaps it has all been a plot by mother and knowing how close the two of us were, perhaps she is poisoning him...! I think too much, I am bored that is all. There could be no such plot - I cannot imagine mother has the brains... unless she really is a great deal more devious than I ever gave her credit for... I must stop this line of thinking otherwise it really will send me quite, quite mad. I must pull myself together and come up with a plan, but before I get to that, another carrier bird came in from the North - this one from Silent Thunder. It seems that the North is where all the action is of late. the other Houses are practically torpid...
It seems that following a collapse, Kaede of Silent Thunder was the victim of an assassination attempt. This really is rather intriguing since she is enslaved to Lord Kenta; her identity unknown to the population at large, most of whom, if we remember correctly believe Lady Kaede Silent Thunder to be already dead. So who is it that knows the truth and who would wish Kaede dead...? And since the House of Silent Thunder belongs to Lord Kenta, why would they wish Kaede dead? It makes no sense, the plot is as thick as our head chef's porridge. The attempt, a rather nasty affair involving a serrated dagger according to my spy at Silent Thunder - (who by some stroke of luck has befriended Lord Kenta's new companion - a young woman from the Borders) - was foiled by said companion who was nursing Kaede at the time. Obviously, an incompetent assassin who would attempt to kill a woman with another in the room, but we will save that little reflection for another time... The Lord Kenta's honour guard came rushing in and slew the assassin but not before Tomoe (the companion) had taken the dagger in her side... a nasty wound from which she may not recover says my spy. Kaede appears to be recovering from her shock but the final piece of information my spy imparts is that Kaede is confined to her room, an armed guard outside for her own protection yet Lord Kenta has ridden off on a mission and no one except his closest guards know whence he has gone and they are telling no one. Were I not so angry, I would find a delicious irony in being confined to my rooms by a guard along with Kaede... yet just at the moment, I am finding it impossible to laugh at anything much. By the gods I wish my intellect would help me now - I must find a way to remove myself from this wretched situation...