Year of the Boar, Tenth Month, Day 31.

Azusa is adamant that I must not enter into a confinement in the traditional way. The House is only just returning to normal and for me to be absent at this time would be unsettling and would give White Lake entirely the wrong idea. She has suggested that I follow the plan I had when I first realised that I was pregnant... It is flawed though... the idea of a confinement is that I maintain complete bed rest which I cannot do if I do not hand over House affairs completely because I will still have to see to the day to day running of the House whoever masquerades as me about the House. 
Azusa thinks it is better than any of the alternatives and that she can adequately train one of the maids to impersonate me... Apparently, she has discussed this with Sasanuma who is also of the opinion that I should not let it be known about the Kingdom that I am expecting the heir to White Lake... I am caught between the sea and the cliff face... however I choose to act, I cannot see this ending well and I do not know what to do but I am running out of time in which to make a decision...

Year of the Boar, Tenth Month, Day 26.

I cannot stop crying. I have tried to pull myself together but each time I believe the weeping has stilled, fresh tears slide down my cheeks and wet my papers. I feel deeply uncomfortable dressed in silks; the sash binds my child inside me making him press down terribly and I am tired. I have been tired before, of course, but this tiredness is not like having gone without adequate sleep for a few days or even like being beset by the Summer Malaise... this has become exhausting... 
The mosquitos continue to drone and although they are bothersome, perhaps there is something about my ... condition... that prevents them from biting me; since I have noticed that their whine annoys me more than it ever has before, I have not been assailed by a single bite... I have come to the conclusion that I have no choice but to enter a traditional confinement; I do not wish to but I cannot see another way out. I could not live with myself if I acted deliberately to let the child die but with that reaslisation comes another which is that if I do enter a confinement, I cannot hide this pregnancy. I will have to give up House duties and hand them over to someone who would act on my behalf, I will not be able to receive anyone and I will have no choice but to announce the confinement to the Kingdom. Shunya and Yuki will run riot with this news... They may even see this as an opportunity to try and take Silent Thunder again... I cannot believe that they would have the nerve but then I would never have imagined that they would try it a first time and very nearly succeed... 
That aside, I do not know to whom I can hand over the House.  After the occupation, there is absolutely no one I can trust. I would trust Sasanuma but if I hand over to him, I am making a statement to the entire Kingdom that I am unsure I would want to make and it really should be a woman in keeping with our matriarchy... I have no choice but to hand over to one of my cousins, I think. Hikari, perhaps, or Kiku. I think I could trust either of them to do the right thing but I do not know if either of them is strong enough to stand in the face of another assualt by White Lake... Perhaps if I asked them to stand for me together... yes... that might be an acceptable compromise. I will discuss it with Azusa and draw up the papers...

Year of the Boar, Tenth Month, Day 25. Postscript

To add to the misery I feel, it transpires that my suspicions about Sasanuma's feelings for me were correct. I had recovered from my bout of weeping sufficiently to go to my offices and attend to some duties and while I was working through the House finances, he came in to discuss our plans for war. Evidently I was distracted and at some point, he asked me what ailed me. I hesitated before telling him nothing was the matter but I hesitated a moment too long; he pressed me to tell him and I could not control the fresh tears that welled up within me. 
Before I knew what was happening, I found myself in his arms, crying hysterically into his shoulder and I did feel his lips pressed softly to the top of my head as his hand curved around my neck pressing me to him. It must have been a full half a stick that we remained thus and when the weeping stilled, I told him what the midwife had said. 
Yet more tears come as I consider his response which was that while he would prefer it were I not pregnant, he admired me for being unwilling to take the easy way out. Worse still, when I decided that I simply must discuss the situation with Azusa for I cannot continue to stew on this alone, she told me that he had not made his feelings a secret to anyone except me; she also said that he would be good for me and Silent Thunder and that I should consider him.
I have considered him... I do... consider him and yet I cannot ... I cannot bring myself to begin any kind of relationship with any man when still I grieve for Kenta. No... not for Kenta for he was clearly never the man I thought he was... but for the love I thought we had... perhaps I grieve over the betrayal I feel and the insult to my House... it does not really matter. I do still grieve and for now, I cannot see my way past it...

Year of the Boar, Tenth Month, Day 25.

I do not know whether to feel cursed or blessed. Tomoe has returned and with her a midwife from one of the furthest villages to the West. The woman has examined me already and has expressed concern. She insists I am confined to bed for complete rest for the rest of my pregnancy. How can I possibly remain in bed until the child decides to enter the world...? If I do not, she says, the pregnancy will end early and with it, the child's life... So I find myself faced with an awful choice. I do not want the child... I cannot bear to have the child and yet how can I act in a way that will deliberately endanger him...?
I have spent much of the morning weeping. My eyelids are swollen as they have not been for some while...