Year of the Boar, Twelfth Month, Day 12. Postscript.

 Although it is somewhat warmer in Silent Thunder than it is in the extreme north, it is still not what I could call comfortably warm and once I had eaten a wonderful breakfast of eggs and seasoned rice, I crawled back under my blankets to mull over the Rani issue while I waited for Haru to wake up. After about three sticks, she had still not woken and I still had no answers, so I decided to go and see what information I could glean from the smallholders. Under the guise of offering what assistance I could in return for the hospitality, I found myself collecting eggs from the chicken houses around and about, while keeping an ear out for any morsels of gossip I might use to my advantage. The pickings were slim both in terms of the eggs and the information I sought and I felt a pang of guilt at having polished off so many eggs for breakfast. I have added the smallholders to the steadily growing list of those I must find a way to compensate somehow... 

When Haru finally awoke and had eaten some fish and rice, she had good colour to her cheeks and announced that she felt much better. I was pleased about that because I do not think I could have added her ill-health to my conscience as well as everything else I appear to have got spectacularly wrong of late. At present she does not seem to bear me any ill will which I suppose is a relief of sorts; we had a good talk once she had finished her meal and according to Haru, I am vastly over thinking this entire affair. She does not see any reason why I cannot enter the House unseen at the servants' entrance. She will hide me in her room and find supplies for me and then I can be on my way the same way I went in... 

I wish I was possessed of such confidence! There is nothing for it but to try it, I suppose and if it goes to plan, while I will not have been able to indulge myself in a few days of luxury as I had hoped, it will not be a catastrophe... It would be an overstatement to say that I am feeling entirely positive but I am more inclined to feel hopeful than I did a sevenday ago.