Year of the Boar, Seventh Month, Day 10.

I slapped one of the maids this morning. A young girl from the out-lying valleys on the border of the Seventh Kingdom if her accent is anything to go by. I slapped her full-square in the face and cut her lip. She came too close to me and I did not like it. I did not like it at all.
I woke in the night yesterday and got up to go to the bath house. I could not get the contents of the letter out of my mind and I felt... unclean. I just wanted to scrub him off my skin as I have done so many times before. I do not know why I bother. It does not help other than for a short while when I am in the water. I had the usual lecture from Nanami about my weight and my obsession with scrubbing my skin until it is raw and I told her imperiously, that I was perfectly fine as I always do. Yesterday though, she did not simply fall silent and return with me to my chamber. Instead, she burst into hysterical tears and sank to her knees, sobbing. I had no idea what to do for her. She refused to talk to me at all and hunched over clutching at her stomach, weeping. I suppose that now I know what it feels like when Nanami has to deal with my behaviour. Wrapped up in my own troubles, I had not noticed that Nanami never has a day off and sleeps as little as I do. I had not seen the dark circles under her eyes or the haunted look she has taken on and I had not noticed that she too, has lost weight.
My stomach was in knots and I had to spit the words out because I really did not want her to go away but how can I make her suffer when all she has done is be a friend to me...? I have told her not to come back for a seven-day. I told her that I did not care where she went or what she did but that she was to go away from my chamber and rest. I gave her enough coin to travel to the coast if she wished and I sent her away. I should like to go to the coast again. It is such a long time since my childhood holidays on the white sandy shores of the Northern Seas... Mother used to take me every year when I was very small and I did so love the feel of the sand between my bare toes and the freedom of not having to wear the heavy court silks. Since I cannot leave my House, perhaps Nanami will return with stories of the sands and the whales and perhaps she will even bring back some shells... If she goes there. She may choose instead, to visit her Grandmother in the villages... I am trying very hard not to care. I am afraid that she will not come back. I would not. I would run to the other side of the Kingdom or perhaps to the other side of the Seventh if I had to look after me...
So, with Nanami gone, I have had another maid sent to me. Chiyo, her name is. She is too young and cannot look after me like Nanami does. I had not realised how very much I have come to rely on Nanami or that I have come to feel comfortable with her. Chiyo's fumbling about with my clothes distressed me this morning and the feel of her hands about me was just too much to bear. It made the unclean feeling return and although I told her several times to stop trying to dress me and leave me be, she persisted. Eventually, it all became too much and I lashed out. The child has been in a corner crying for the past stick and a half and I do not know what to do about it. Deep inside, I know it is not her fault, she probably does not even know what has passed and anything about what I have been through but I feel ... I scarcely know what I feel. I wish she would stop crying.