Daisy in the Fringe

Dear Diary,

Geoffry and me went to see Jugotai-sama to ask him about Harmony of the Tao.  He told me some of what happens in Nihon to someone with the Harmony.  They’re expected to use their ability to help people in one way or another.  Lots of them become sword saints like him: mighty warriors who serve princes.  Some become healers, or teachers, or care for people in other ways.  And he heard how when a Roman gets the harmony, they’ll usually join the Knights of Isis.  But he couldn’t tell me anything more.

I sure am confused about all this.  I want to do the gods right and use my gift as they would want.  I reckon that means that I need to help people, but I don’t know just how to go about doing that.  Who is it that I should help and how?  Should I be spending my time helping Geoffry help people, being his nurse and all?  Or should I become one of them Knights of Isis, whatever that means?  Or should I do something else entirely?  I just don’t know, and I sure do want to.  It feels like I’m being called, but I don’t know for what.

Meanwhile, Lord Toda don’t have any ideas of how to rush the protocol office on the decision about married folks sharing quarters.  He said he can set up special “conference rooms” where we could go to have “private conferences,” and Hank and Dorothy jumped at the chance to “confer.”  But I don’t know: a room set aside just to “confer” seems kind of sleazy to me.  And it ain’t exactly modest to be excusing yourself to go off to a “conference room” – I heard one of them samurai guards snicker as he saw Hank grab Dorothy’s hand and drag her to a room, and the guard at the “conference room” was smirking with an ear close to the door while he was standing there.  I mean, I reckon I’ll go and “confer” if Geoffry asks – he is my husband after all.  But it just don’t feel quite proper.  (And I hope that someone cleans out the “conference room” once Hank and Dorothy are done with it – I sure don’t want to “confer” in a dirty room!)

And oh, everyone was talking with Lord Crispin on the radio.  They’re talking about all the politics around here and whether we’ll be official ambassadors or just try to make nice with the court.  But all that’s kinda boring, and I can never keep track of all that politics stuff anyways.

Dear Diary,

The Iron Falcon landed this morning!  Lord Crispin hired Captain Olo to be our embassy ship.  His job is to stay here and take us home when we say it’s time.  That’s nice, but I reckon it’s even nicer to have Captain Olo around.

And what’s even better, the Nihonese are sending in some folks to clean out the Falcon.  That’s just in case one of them important princes or such want to visit the ship: they figure she’s too grimy for a prince right now.  And much as I love the Falcon, seeing as she was the first ship I ever flew and all, I reckon they got a point.  It’s gonna be nice to see her sparkle: I did some cleaning on her once myself, but didn’t have time to do all that was needed.

We’re gonna see about taking Captain Olo and his crew to town some day.  He don’t want to go yet, though: he ain’t ready to let the Falcon out of his sight, not with all the Nihonese around.  But I reckon we’ll take him one of these days: I want to see Captain Olo dancing at one of them clubs.  I bet he can dance a real treat!

Dear Diary,

Not much to say about today.  The ladies of court was all so impressed with Dusty’s honor that they invited us shopping in town.  We visited some nice new stores and they bought her an extra-special kimono in deep blue silk with abstract patterns in green thread that look like lily pads.  She looks a treat in it.

We stopped by some of the city clothes stores and I got some new boots, purple soft leather with an open toe and a high heel.  They look a treat with capri pants, and Dusty said that when I wear them I strut like a peacock.  They look like they’d be fun to dance in – I’ll have to wear them out with Geoffry some time.

Other than that, things are just rolling along.  We’ve put in a request to let spouses share a room together cause with Lord Agrippa dead we should be able to make our own rules about such things.  But they got a protocol office here that’s got to decide that, and it’s likely to take them a week or so to figure it all out.  I sure do hope they decide soon cause Geoffry is starting to look a mite peaked again now that it’s been a couple days since our trip to the city.  Anyway, he’s awfully distracted and can’t seem to take his eyes off me whenever I come by and he’s always reaching out a hand to brush over me, which I reckon is all awfully nice but it’s keeping him from thinking hard on important things, so I suppose it would be best if we get to start having alone-time together.

Dear Diary,

Daddy always used to say that what you want and what you get ain’t always the same thing.  That sure was the case last night – that’ll teach me a lesson to make predictions in a diary entry!

I was deep asleep when there was a knock on my cubicle.  One of them samurai said that Geoffry needed me to do some nursing.  It seems Lord Agrippa took sick and they was calling for Geoffry to see what was what.

Only Lord A wasn’t just sick, he was dead.  Geoffry declared him dead and then set about trying to figure out what had happened.  That meant doing an autopsy, which means cutting up a dead body and taking a look at what’s inside.  I ain’t never seen an autopsy before, though it reminded me of seeing that samurai-feller cutting open his belly.  Anyway, Geoffry decided that Lord A had died of a heart attack – he showed me the heart-damage that did him in and even let me hold Lord A’s heart – it’s just like a cow heart, though not quite so big.

But Lord A’s assistant who’s the ambassador now didn’t believe it – he was sure that the Nihonese killed Lord A somehow.  That seemed silly to me, and if Geoffry says he’s sure Lord A died of a heart attack, then I’m sure of it too.

Anyway, it’s looking now that most everyone we came with is going home.  Lord A’s assistant is bringing everybody back, but Lord Crispin said we can stay.  I guess that means we’re the embassy now – I told Dusty that now that everyone here respects her so much, she should be the ambassador, and she seemed to like that idea.

Lord C’s even going to send another ship to us to stay here to take us back when it’s time to go.  I told him he should send Captain Olo and his crew, but I don’t know if he will.

But this means that we make the rules now, which means that Geoffry and me will be sharing a room like a married couple should.  That’s good, cause it didn’t make no sense to keep a husband and wife apart like Lord A did.  I don’t know rightly what else is gonna happen, though, but it sure should be interesting.

Dear Diary,

Well I talked with just about everyone I could think of about my harmony with the Dao.  I talked with priests (both from Nihon and our own battle-priest) and the archivists and everyone in between.  I talked with just about everyone so far except Jugotai-sama whose got it too, and I’m gonna talk to him tomorrow.

About all I found so far is that there’s always 13 people who have this harmony at one time, and they’re almost all Nihonese.  It’s pretty rare that one of our folk have it – that only happens every century of so.  Most of the time when one of us does, he ends up in that Knights of Isis group that Hank got all that stuff for.  I wonder if that means I’m gonna have to be a knight?

In Nihon, when a feller is born with the harmony he usually becomes a sword-saint.  They said women can do other things, but they weren’t too clear about what they was.

Anyway, they all agreed that someone with the harmony should use it to help people.  I got no problem with that.  But I’m still not sure what-all that means.

I got to talk to Hank and find out if that book on the Knights of Isis that he got talks about folks like me at all.  And I got to find out what-all else being a knight of Isis means and whether a girl can be one.  (Hmm… I recollect that there was some women’s clothes in one of Hank’s boxes.  I wonder if that was meant for me?)  And I’m gonna have to find out what Geoffry wants me to do about all this.  I reckon that I’ll have to listen to him on this, he being my husband and all – I wonder if I can be a Knight of Isis and his nurse at the same time?

Anyway, this day’s been an eye-opener in all sorts of ways.  Makes me wonder what’s gonna happen next.  But whatever it is, I hope it don’t interfere with my sleep.  After being up most of the last two nights, I’m mighty tired now and I sure do want a good night’s sleep.

Dear Diary,

Oh, I’m so very happy.  We’re back from our meeting with the emperor and Dusty don’t gotta die after all.  What’s best, that samurai feller is dead instead and everyone says Dusty got great honor for doing what she did.

We went to a special garden with a sandy floor.  The whole court was there from the emperor on down, Prince Nariaki, Prince Nobunga, Prince Hidetoda, Lord Toda, the daughter of heaven, and pretty near everyone we know here.  Even the emperor’s oldest son who gave up being a prince to become a monk was there with a couple of his fellow monks.

Dusty was amazing.  She was so very brave, not showing any sign of worry or fear at all.  I couldn’t stop the tears flowing from my eyes, but nobody but me even knew Dusty was scared, and I wouldn’t have known if either if I didn’t know her so well.  I’m so proud of that sister of mine – I ain’t never seen nobody face death so calmly and bravely as she did.

It all came out sorta like a trial, like Mr Hawkins would hold when somebody accused someone of stealing a pig.  Lord Toda did most of the talking.  It seems he’d done a whole lot of checking into what had happened.  I couldn’t follow everything, but it seems like there weren’t no way that samurai (I won’t even write his name in here, I’m so miffed at him) could have even been in the club, let alone seen what Dusty might or might not have been doing.  As he went on and showed movies of the boat to town and the club and everything (cause they got cameras everywhere watching everything around here it seems) and it became clear what he was saying, I relaxed a mite.  Maybe I wasn’t gonna have to cut off Dusty’s head after all.

But that weren’t all the evidence.  The monk-prince had two of his monks who he said was mind-walkers.  They got into Dusty’s mind and the mind of that samurai and they said Dusty was telling the truth and the samurai was lying.  At that point, pretty near everyone knew what was up, and Lord Toda yelled at that samurai and told him he didn’t have a speck of honor, not compared to Dusty anyways, nor compared to Hank who would fight a duel for his friend’s honor.

But still the samurai refused to withdraw his charges.  I was worried that Dusty would go through with it after all, but Lord Nobunga, who’s that samurai’s boss, ordered him to kill himself instead.  And he did it right then and there, pulling out his short sword and using it to cut open his belly before his guard commander cut off his head.  (Apparently fellers who kill themselves here don’t cut their throats but instead open up their bellies.  It’s pretty gruesome and looked awful painful, but not more than the jerk deserved.  Dusty seemed a little grossed out by it, but I enjoyed watching that so-and-so getting chopped up.  Afterwards I went over and spit on his body – served him right for lying about my sister!)

After that Dusty was a mite shaken, though she didn’t show it much until everyone but Prince Nariaki’s folks left.  Lady Michi fainted outright – she was wearing white too and said she’d kill herself since the lies was to keep Dusty from telling things about her and so they touched her honor too.  I didn’t know about that, but I did appreciate her being so brave – it made a difference too, since both Prince Nobunga and Lord Toda seemed awful upset that Michi might end up doing herself in.

Anyway, Dusty’s sleeping now.  She didn’t sleep at all last night, what with one thing and another, and she’s earned a good nap.  I’m kinda tired myself, but I don’t think I could sleep right now so I’m gonna go talk to some priests to see if I can learn anything new about my harmony with the Dao (which is what they call my ability to do just about anything without being taught).

But I’m so proud of Dusty I could spit.  She gave us all great honor with her bravery and her proper behavior.  I don’t rightly know what’s gonna happen next, but I do know I’m proud to be Dusty’s sister.

Dear Diary,

I’ve been up all night, praying mostly, but also bringing notes from Dusty to near everyone in the Nihonese court.  I been glad to have so much to do cause if I was to stop I’d probably break down and cry.

Dusty’s decided that she ain’t gonna put up with being slandered by that samurai.  And since we’re in Nihon, the only way to deal with it is the Nihonese way.  And that means she’s gonna kill herself if he don’t apologize.

Oh Diary, what’ll I do if Dusty kills herself?  I ain’t never been so scared of nothing in my life.  If it was someone else attacking her, I could do something to stop him.  But I don’t know what to do about this.  I can’t tell her not to do it, cause he really has said nasty untrue things about her, but what’ll I do?

The worst part is, she sat me down and told me how the Nihonese women kill themselves.  There’s a whole ritual for it, just like there is with just about everything else they do here in Nihon.  The suicide ritual, which they call jugi, is that the lady wears a white kimono, reads her death poem to everyone, and then cuts her throat with a knife.  Then it’s the job of her second to cut off her head which finishes things off before she feels too much pain.

Dusty’s asked me to be her second.  I had to say yes – how can I not help her anyway she needs?  But what if that samurai don’t apologize and I got to cut off Dusty’s head?  How’m I ever going to forgive myself for that?

Please all you gods.  Please Artemis or Artemisu or whatever you want to call yourself in these parts, Dusty’s your servant and them lies that samurai is telling is about her maidenly honor that’s in your keeping, so please don’t let this come out bad.  Please Hermes, you touched Dusty and gave her a special gift, it can’t have been just to watch her kill herself.  Please Jade Emperor, you chose me as your own, don’t let me have to kill my dear sister with the sword-skill that you gave me.

I got to go now and help Dusty.  She’s been sent for by the emperor and she says she’s got to be ready to do it now.  I’ll do my part and I won’t let her down, but please don’t make it go bad.  Please.

Dear Diary,

After Geoffry and me got back, we all went to a party held by the Emperor with all the princes.  It was a fun time and they had lots of that saki wine that they drink here.

There was plenty of music and dancing too, with Dusty and Hank taking turns playing guitar and fiddle, and even Prometheus taking a turn.  (He’s good on the harp, but his singing could peel paint off a barn.)  We got some of them princes to do a square dance, and pretty near everyone but the emperor joined in on the chicken dance.  That was something to see, all them fine nobles in their fancy kimonos squatting and flapping their arms like a chicken, and everybody was laughing before it was done.

I wore one of my new kimonos, soft silk with pink chrysanthemum patterns and a matching red obi with an abstract pattern in gold thread, my hair done up with the fancy combs that Prince Nariaki gave me for helping rescue him.  It was awkward doing the chicken-dance in a kimono, but that made it all the more funny.  Anyway, everybody seemed to have a good time, and all them princes seem to like us just fine.  And ain’t that the job of an ambassador, to be liked?

Dear Diary,

Yesterday Geoffry decided he’d like to go into Edo to look around.  That seemed only fair, seeing as the first day we all went he was sick.  Besides, everyone else was doing something different, so it was a chance for him and me to do something alone together.

Well, it was a chance for him and me and a guard to do something alone together anyway.  I’m getting a mite tired of having guards all around everywhere, but I reckon they’ll keep us safe if anything happens.  And it does help get us into the fancy shops and clubs – ain’t nothing like having imperial bodyguards to get you noticed.

I dressed up in one of my new Nihon city-girl outfits.  Geoffry told me he don’t want me wearing anything too revealing – shorts and a little baring of the midriff is okay with him, but short-shorts and a bikini-top is more than he wants he wife to be wearing.  Or less than he wants his wife wearing, I guess.  So I wore my Nihon school-girl outfit – blue plaid skirt down to the knee, white shirt, cute tie in a ribbon around my neck, a blue beret, and knee-length socks and shiny black shoes.  Geoffry seemed to like it, once we changed on the boat.  Anyway, he kept complimenting me and standing extra close, so I guess that means he likes it.

First thing was business.  We dropped off them pills at a lab in town to get a report on what was up.  They seemed awfully accommodating, once we told them it was for Prince Nobunga.  They said they’d have the first report in the afternoon but the final report wouldn’t be ready until the next day.

About then Geoffry surprised me with his plan.  It seems the poor dear’s been feeling awfully lonely in that room with only fellers around.  Turns out that he’s getting downright hungry for me.  After all, we been in Nihon about a week now and what with staying in separate rooms and there being people around all the time, I ain’t had a chance to be a good wife to him.  And we are newlyweds, so I guess it figures that he’s been working up an appetite for me, him being a man and all.  Anyway, I find it flattering, and I reckon it means that he’s just about all healed up, so it’s probably a good thing.

Turns out Geoffry had been thinking of finding a hotel here in town and spending some time alone with me in it.  And now that the lab reports was gonna take an extra day, he decided that we should just go ahead and stay overnight.  He called back and cleared it with Lord Toda and Lord Agrippa (though I ain’t sure if he actually spoke to Lord A or just left a message), so we ended up spending the whole night together.

Course, there was a problem: I hadn’t brought anything with to wear, or a toothbrush or nightie or anything.  But that just gave us something more to go shopping for.  We ended up spending most of the day going to different shops getting things.  We got Geoffry his fancy clothes (it was hard to find things that wouldn’t look too strange back home, but we managed to find some nice stuff).  And I got the things that I needed too.

First off was finding something to wear tonight.  Since we was gonna be in town, Geoffry and me decided to go clubbing again.  I found a nice dancing dress in pink – slinky and clinging like the girls wear here, with a skirt that goes down to the calves and flares out when I spin.  I looked real good in that when we went out dancing, and lots of heads turned my way on the dance floor.  Then I got an outfit for the trip home in the morning.  That was stretchy pants that go to mid-calf, a yellow sleeveless blouse, a white-straw hat with a big black ribbon, and sandals and sunglasses.

Course, that left me without anything to wear to bed or any fresh underwear.  So we went to a fancy lingerie shop.  Geoffry seemed uncomfortable at first, but after a bit he got into the spirit of things.  After that, he sure liked helping me pick out something to wear for bed and going through everything and picking out some stuff for me to wear under my clothes.  Fact is, he liked it so much that I might get in the habit of bringing him along anytime I need to buy undies.  I think he’d like that – his forehead was sweating by the time we was done!

We got our room then and went there to change for dinner.  Only thing is Geoffry insisted I try on one of my new nighties.  The shop didn’t have no changing room where he could see me in the stuff he picked out, and he was feeling awfully curious.  Well, one thing led to another (he weren’t kidding when he said he’d been missing alone time!), so we ended up with a late meal in a fancy restaurant and a fun night hitting the clubs and dancing on crowded floors.  (And boy do they have crowds in the Nihon cities!  I ain’t never been around so many people!)  And then we returned to our room and continued where we left off – good thing I got two nighties, not that I had either one on for long – and we was up half the night and Geoffry worked off some of that loneliness.  I was feeling fine myself – it’s funny how you get used to letting someone get real close and even come to miss it when you ain’t had it for a bit.

We picked up the report after a little morning fun and a Nihon room service breakfast, though it was sealed so we couldn’t read it.  Then it was back to court and our day alone was all over.  Geoffry sure looked a lot more relaxed for our time alone together, and that was okay by me.  I reckon we’ll have to find some other ways to get alone while we’re here, even if Lord Agrippa don’t approve.