6 January, 2009
Aboard the SS Vulcania
We have boarded safely, and Matriarch never suspected our subterfuges. Eldest and Youngest Brothers are delighted with their quarters, as is Youngest Daughter. Now we can but pray that the rest of our plans come to fruition. By the time that Matriarch returns from inspecting the family holdings, she will find a greatly reduced family.
Our Machiavellian web has grown frightfully large, what with freeing servants (we are the first of our people and family to do so) and taking their places, even wearing their rough garments and no footwear!! I am beyond delighted to do away with those unnatural, cloddish shoes!!
The necessity of veils or masks is miserable, the Brothers complain mightily about how the masks crush their whiskers. I should like them to do so with the set of whiskers a Patriarch has grown.
My duenna and I are looking forward to our tour of the Vulcania, as are the rest of my family. I wish I could sit on the rail comfortably and watch the water. It is hypnotic and soothing to watch the wake leap from the prow of the ship, the dolphins that frolic to starboard and larboard (I think that is the term) sound so happy to see us atop their homeland.
It was so exciting to actually be untied from the dock and pulled to the deeps by the tugs. Ships’ horns and alarums wailed, everyone was shouting to and from the Vulcania. Long streamers in bright colours stretched from dock to ship, and a veritable storm of balloons were freed at the precise second the tugs freed us to move under our own steam.
Youngest Brothers was so excited that he nearly fell overboard while throwing streamers and confetti. Eldest Brother laughed and caught him by the hem of his shirt, and let him enjoy this novel freedom.
Youngest Sister, who had been slated for a cold, repressive religious order Matriarch thought would ‘whip her into shape’, was almost hysterical with excitement. Eldest Brother and I knew that she would be up half the night, panting and overheated, but fully alive.
Eldest Brother has brought his lady on the cruise, right under the nose of Matriarch!! He spent a terribly stiff evening entertaining the ‘suitable’ cookie-cutter femmes, none of whom hadn’t even thought to entertain the notion of being independent.
After the ladies had been escorted to their carriage and left the family compound, Eldest Brother told Matriarch that he agreed to accompany the least threatening of the femmes to a museum opening in Jhumazdh and would be gone for three days.
I told Matriarch that I wished to spend some time with Youngest Brother and Sister prior to my departure, and she lapped it up greedily. She was so pleased at the thought that she sent money with our bodyguards to purchase sweets for us!
I am sitting here, in the soft warmth of an oil lamp, adding this to my diary. At our first port of call I plan to send a wire to Matriarch, to apologise for leaving her in such a manner, and also to inform her that none of us wish to be her heir, not at the price she asks.
The Veiled Lady's Cabin 