Year of the Boar, Fourth Month, Day 9.

I awoke in my rooms, not even realising that I had been slumbering and thought to find Lord Kenta and ask his permission to go and chant sutras for Tomoe or at least sit at her bedside and watch over her while she chooses between this world and the next... Upon sliding open my door still wrapped in my quilts for I was suddenly cold, I discovered four guards each with the tips of their swords resting, crossed, on the floor outside my room, one pair in front of the other. I looked at them in consternation, asking if I were a prisoner again. the guards looked faintly uncomfortable but did not answer me. I asked a second time, my voice a little higher and a third, positively shrill. 'Twas only when tears threatened that one of them did tell me that I am not a prisoner; I am being guarded for my own protection... Lord Kenta takes my safety so seriously that he has promised to have the head of any who would even think to lay so much as a finger upon me... What can he know that I do not, and why will he not talk to me of these matters...? When I let it be known that I wished to go to the temple to offer sutras, the guards informed me that until Lord Kenta is advised of my wishes, I am to go nowhere, I told them not to be ridiculous and made to leave the room, but they brought their swords to rest in front of my face and made it clear to me that should I try to leave without permission they might be forced to hurt me themselves... I asked them to send for Lord Kenta and their reply was so strange that I could not fathom it at all... His lordship has gone. They do not know where and have orders to keep me here for my own protection until he says otherwise. According to them, I am to be nursed, bathed and fed in my room until Lord Kenta has deemed that I am no longer in danger... I find my mind refusing to work of late, and I cannot adequately follow a thought until its conclusion that I might understand what is happening, like a bird I now reside in a cage, gilded it may be, but just as I was starting to feel that I was no longer his slave, his lordship nevertheless puts me back in prison... the thought was too much for me and no sooner had I slid the doors closed than I swooned yet again, hitting the floor in a bundle of cotton and bedding. I cannot stand this physical weakness that assails me and my heart is gripped with dread... Where has Lord Kenta gone...? Whatever shall I do if something morbid befalls him while he is gone...? Somehow I must escape my cage and go to the temple, I shall think on it...