Year of the Boar, Fourth Month, Day 29.

I am still very much at Mother's mercy; she has been steadily increasing the amount of that "self-improving literature" she is expecting me to read. Mealtimes have become an utter nightmare as she continues to quiz me on what I have read; in the banquet hall this evening, she informed me at the top of her voice that if I did not make a better job of absorbing the instructions she sets forth that she will have me taken into the courtyard and whipped with a stripling if that is what it will take to beat some sense into me. To say that I was staggered would be the grossest understatement possible. I could only gape at her and mumble something about trying harder as Father sat there pretending not to notice anything amiss. As if that were not bad enough, she has also decided to regiment further the amount of time I may spend eating and bathing. According to Mother, my attitude is not improving sufficiently and she wishes me to spend more time reading and sewing and less on idle pursuits. It really is becoming intolerable - her very latest decision is that Aki will accompany Mother's maid to my rooms in the afternoon to join me in work on the tapestry for the Laughing Spider wedding. According to Aki the Ladies of the Court are now engaged in work on some new Pale Twilight banners and the Laughing Spider tapestry is to be my "special project", if I do not finish a certain area of it during the afternoon, Mother lectures me through out dinner on the merits of feminine pursuits and of the dangers of getting any older without securing a suitable husband. She then laments the fact that she has been looking for one such for several months and "cannot even interest the lesser lord of Crying Orchid". All of this I am expected to tolerate in absolute silence, whilst Taiji looks on pityingly, Aki simpers and Father... Father does nothing at all.
I do not know how much longer I shall be able to bear this. I spend what should be my sleeping hours thinking desperately about how to avoid any kind of marriage to someone I have never even met. Considering my options, though I know that I really have none. Stay here and become a tragic heroine, locked in my rooms ... or... actively seek a husband myself and escape into a prison of another sort. Of course, there is a third option... but how practical it is, remains to be seen. I have given the prospect of running away from home a great deal of thought. Several thoughts have occurred to me; firstly that I have no access to the library and without maps, I should be very foolish to leave home and roam about when I do not know the lands except from the inside of the litter that transports us where ever we go. Secondly, that I really have nowhere to go; who would shelter a runaway from another House and risk the wrath of Lord and Lady Pale Twilight on my account... this leaves me with the villages... and how should I survive village life when I know nothing of it? More to the point, whose villages should I choose? There are no sensible answers to any of these questions. If only I could gain access to my books, but another of Mother's little ideas for making me more feminine has been to forbid me entry to the library; I could scream. I really could scream. Unfortunately, on the one occasion I could not refrain from doing so, Mother decreed that I should go without supper and since she has replaced my maid, there is no one close to me who would defy her. This requires a great deal more thought...
On an entirely different note, I have been so distracted of of late, that I had not noticed the fact that there has been little news from my network, other than from Silent Thunder and Dying Crane. An oversight on my behalf; clearly I should have dispatched carrier birds to each of the other members of my network, but I have been distracted. A missive arrived from Fallen Sakura this morning with some news of extreme interest: it seems that following the abortive attempt to remove Lord Fallen Sakura from his House, things on that side of the Kingdom have become... unsettled. My spy up there says that Lady Fallen Sakura has begun packing her effects with the intention of removing herself to Laughing Spider and her parents there. Not, however, because she deplores Shigeru's mistreatment of Lady Dying Crane, but because she has taken umbrage at his lack of fidelity. Wonders will never cease! Lord Fallen Sakura, apparently does not seem to have taken the news too badly either and continues to rule as he always has. According to my man at Fallen Sakura, the courtiers seem to be assuming that he is hiding his grief and that he is on his way to a breakdown, which accounts for the unsettled atmosphere. My spy also let it be known that a letter was intercepted from His Lordship, addressed to the Lady of Dying Crane. Unfortunately, he has not yet managed to procure a copy of the Fallen Sakura seal so he was unable to open it before it left Fallen Sakura lands. That annoyed me, though no doubt I will hear of it when the next message arrives from Dying Crane. I must rest... and I must think more, on how I am to effect an escape from this confinement.