How I found out transmigration was a thing.

Chapter 11 - Start the Way you Mean to Go.

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From my bed, I can look out onto the courtyard beyond. The luxury of an open window, no matter how cold it is outside, was a hard-fought compromise. Settling deeper into the pillows and pulling the quilt up to my chin, I'm happy to look out at the barren garden and make my plans.  Like the other yard I saw near the kitchen, it's unloved, no more than a place for dust to collect and weeds to grow.  The only difference is that this one has a tree. 

The tree feels as much a prisoner as I am. It stands in the center of the yard, its network of branches covering the entire area. It's close to 20 feet tall, and during the hot summer months, its green canopy must be a godsend, providing shade and relief from the worst of the heat. Now it looks blighted and lonely.

It's an enclosed courtyard, with high stone walls on three sides.  I can't help but think about the world beyond those walls, a world totally different from everything I know.  Having resigned myself to my new life I'm desperate to see more of it.

I've been locked away in my bed chamber for three days. From the moment my godmothers found me wandering around looking for Adam they've been more cloying than usual.  Joan tells me they are worried because they fear my fever will return and I'll fall back into another death sleep.  They blame everything on my heated brain, from my strange behaviour to my new shameless vocabulary.  

My godmothers keep repeating the same thing..." You are not yourself young master."  they frown and wring their hands.  They are right but I can't tell them the reason why. Half the time I get the impression they are happy that I don't remember my past.  They seem torn between relief that I've forgotten something they didn't want me to know in the first place and wanting their Min back.

Once they hauled me back to my chamber they returned to their old ways, no privacy and treating me somewhere between an invalid and a toddler.  It only took a couple of hours of them buzzing around me and the arrival of the second bowl of disgusting brown liquid and I'd had enough.  In this life my philosophy is "Start the way you mean to go." so I called all my godmothers into my room to laid down the new rules. I was, after all, the young master, my word was law, supposedly.  I told them I was accepting nothing less than their total compliance.

In my past life, I had on occasion laid down the law to patients who were self-sabotaging their health and I didn't mind playing the badass. To be honest, putting the fear of God into someone has always appealed to me. Although my tirade, whispered loudly in Min's soft voice, wasn't ideal, it did have the desired effect. They were all stunned into silence and once the surprise wore off they were too confused to argue.

The new rules were simple.

The first and most important...I want to be left alone. A godmother was no longer needed to attend to me every minute of the day. If they had something to discuss with me or a chore needed to be done in my private space they could enter my chamber, after they announced themselves and were given permission to enter.

I fobbed off Joan's Lady Chun's suggestion that I start wearing my bells again. I could imagine them listening at the door waiting for every noise I made.

The second was I bathed alone, I dressed myself and I took a daily walk.  The look of horror that crossed all their faces almost made me laugh.  It was as if they lost their reason for living.

I got two out of three. They would not let me out of the bedchamber.  Lady Chun held her ground in that regard and said in my present condition they couldn't possibly allow that, even with an escort. The open window was a compromise.