SHlGEKO'S DOSSIER: Iuchi Michisuna is noted throughout the city as a talented musician, and is widely admired for his accomplishments as a poet. Unlike many such artisans, he has not developed an arrogant attitude; instead, he has a balanced spirit and sees his gifts in proper proportion to the rest of the world. He does have a tendency to drink, and I suspect him of indulging in opium, but I have no proof. In any event, he is not a swaggerer, and his indulgences are discreet ones.
"MEMOIRS OF AN OPIUM EATER": Twentieth Year in the Reign of Hantei XXXVIII, Twenty-Eighth Day, Month of the Snake
I have just returned from a visit to the bath house (L5) but I still feel dirty. I was a fool to think that hot water could wash away a pollution that comes from the inside, that spreads through my body with every beat of my deceiving heart.
I do not love Jocho (P2). I never did and I do not want to. My heart belongs only to Michisuna, and it was his arms that were meant to hold me.
My father once told me that oath-breaking was a double sin. It is a sin against the person to whom the promise is made, because you have disappointed and betrayed them. But he told me that I would also be sinning against myself, by being the kind of person who would break an oath.
He told me that while a lie might seem to make things easier in the moment, I would only be borrowing trouble; not just because the lie might be discovered, but because each lie would weaken my spirit and make me less able to see the truth.
My father was so wise, and I was a fool not to listen. My lies blinded me to the truth of my own heart. Only by breaking my promise to my parents, only by giving myself away, did I realize whose love I truly want - and no longer deserve.
If I become pregnant, I wonder if Jocho will marry me.
"MEMOIRS OF AN OPIUM EATER": Twentieth Year in the Reign of Hantei XXXVIII, Nineteenth Day, Month of the Horse
I remember once when I had a fever. I became so weak that the blankets on my body were too heavy for me to lift. I was pinned down and stifled and could hardly breathe. When the fever broke and I could leave my bed, I felt light as a feather - like I was truly reborn and could fly away.
Today I felt the same way. I saw Michisuna - and he smiled at me! Jocho (P2) wasn't with me, so I felt I could speak freely to him... he told me how much he had missed talking with me, told me that he had felt terribly lonely since Michikane (P15) died, even with everyone around offering their consolation.
"The only thing that made me feel even a bit better was your funeral poem," he said. I blushed so furiously that I had to hide my face behind my fan.
"It was a pale thing compared to how I felt for him," I said. "It was the hardest poem I ever had to write."
"It was the only thing that made me feel like anyone knew the same feelings I knew. I could still mourn, but I no longer felt I mourned alone."
He looked away then, said his next words without looking at me. "I know there has been a... a gulf between us since my birthday," he said. "I feel now a great regret. I don't want us to be strangers anymore."
Can it be that he feels he made a mistake? He didn't make any declaration of love - but Michisuna is an honorable man and would never try to seduce me away from Jocho. If I leave Jocho, will Michisuna love me? But what if he doesn't?
Perhaps Jocho would then realize that Osako (P10) loves him - but perhaps he would be angry that I spurned him. Osako already hates me; if Jocho hated me too, I would be an outcast in Ryoko Owari. I wouldn't care if Michisuna loved me - but if he doesn't? If I send Jocho away, who would marry me? What a fool I was to lie with Jocho - no man would marry a used up girl, no one wants a slattern for a wife ...
If Michisuna loves me, surely he will have to show it somehow. I knew he didn't like Jocho's interest in me! I knew it from the first. If he loves me, and keeps seeing me with Jocho, he'll have to show his feelings. He's an artist - he won't be able to help himself.
On the other hand, if he does not love me, at least I won't have given up my virginity in vain.
I stay with a man I don't love in order to test the man I do - and to keep my shame secret. Perhaps it would be for the best if Jocho were to marry me; I fear that I am becoming quite the Scorpion with my deceptions and manipulations.
"MEMOIRS OF AN OPIUM EATER": Twentieth Year in the Reign of Hantei XXXVIII, Second Day, Month of the Monkey
Is any fool worse than she who fools herself? Is any lie worse than those we tell ourselves, then cling to in a desperate hope of turning them true?
It's all over. I added secrets to the load on my back until I had to stumble and fall, and now everyone knows. My heart has been spilled into the street for all to marvel at and step'on.
I was at the House of Foreign Stories - may it burn to the ground and take its whorish mistress with it! I was with Jocho, and Michisuna was there, and I kept looking at him, trying to see if he was jealous, if he cared at all about me. For months I have been trying to gauge his feelings, and been unsure if I saw genuine love, or just a reflection of my own love and foolish hope. Tonight, my hopes have been shattered forever.
Magda (P47), that vile burlesque of a woman, was flouncing her unnatural hair around and displaying her grotesquely disproportionate breasts in a costume that was barely a veil for a decent woman. It was a nauseating display - but Michisune was not offended. No, Michisune stood up to sing with her - and the song was the song we had written, my words and his tune, for Michikane (P15) and Kimi's (P3) marriage.
I had always secretly felt that the marriage song was as much about a marriage between me and Michisuna as it was about Michikane and Kimi - my words wrapped around his music, the way I've longed for our bodies to wrap together. And then he goes and puts it in the mouth of that foreign slut, that caricature of womanhood who couldn't read a Rokugani poem to save her miserable life!
In tales, one hears of a soldier in battle who goes berserk; a red fog clouds his eyes and he cares for nothing but the death of his foes, holding his own life of no account. Hearing my words in that foreign mouth, that dark cloud came down on me, only my weapon was my tongue, not a sword.
Before I knew what was happening I was on my feet, screaming at the top of my voice at them. I do not recall exactly what words I spoke, but I remember seeing the faces turned towards me, all wide eyes and open jaws.
I told him that he was a fool to give his love to someone who wasn't even a person, who was a harlot and a foreigner. I said that she hoped to become a little more like us and would try to steal his seed and his love so that she could convince herself. I told him that a dog would be a better object for his love than an alien un-woman, for at least dogs know loyalty.
Then I accused him of treachery - saying it was a crime against the nation to mix our blood with that of foreigners. I said he must be mad to follow such dirty lusts when there were women of Rokugan, women with clean blood, who would give their honor, their love and even their lives to be his wife. I said a great many things besides - that I hated him, that I was sorry I'd ever spoken a word to him or given him the least thought, and then I burst into tears and fled into the night.