The Clocks

Hiroshi took a slow, deep breath then even more slowly exhaled. It had proven to be a most enlightening and interesting day. After the children had been put to bed, Blair had suggested that since neither of them had anything urgent pending for a change, they too might want to "celebrate" the engagement. Said celebration had lasted over an hour.

Blair was snuggled up against his chest, apparently deeply asleep. He, on the other hand, was wide awake. His mind was much too busy for sleep, no matter how comfortable he was. He needed to do some serious re-arranging of a few of his attitudes, and now would be better than later. As Blair had hinted earlier in the evening, urgent matters might interfere if he put this off, and that might cause problems.

The root cause of his concern was Sara, or, more particularly, her abilities. His agents, usually the best ones, had a tendency to think that they could, with proper planning, overcome anything and anyone. Some few of them convinced themselves that nobody could be as good as they were. As any commander knows, that kind of person usually was proven wrong when they took on something they shouldn't have and ended up very messily dead. This created two problems. A good agent was no longer going to be available, and those who killed them would be asking questions that would be embarrassing at best and deadly at worst.

Which was where Sara came in. She was, without a doubt, the best student of karate that he'd ever had or could hope to have. Ever since she was 10 he'd used her to disabuse his agents with swelled heads of the idea that they were invincible. The smartest ones got it the first time Sara threw them across the room. Even the most stubborn absorbed the lesson after she'd put them on the floor four or five times.

In addition to proving that they weren't as good as they thought they were, it also drove home the lesson that just because something or someone doesn't look dangerous, it in no way assures that they aren't. Complacency can get you dead too.

He was very proud of his eldest daughter. When the family was forced to flee Japan in his childhood, he'd found that he could do nothing to help during the journey. He didn't even know how to search for dry firewood. It had galled him when even the youngest children they encountered looked at him with pity as they expertly performed tasks that he didn't even know existed.

It was then that he'd learned three lessons.

1) Wealth was worthless when someone strong enough to take it away from you decided that they wanted it, and you had no ability to defend yourself.

2) Children, if properly trained, can be much more than most adults realize.

3) There were times when, no matter how reluctant you were, you had to let go of things no matter how much you prized them.

It was because of the first two that he'd thrown himself so diligently into learning karate when they'd spent those seven years in Okinawa. It was also the reason why all his children were trained in self-defense from an early age. Oh, yes, when they were little he made it a game. Pushing too hard at too young an age would have only made them bitter and rebellious.

The third lesson was now keeping him awake. Specifically he was mightily annoyed with himself, and the trigger for said annoyance was Sara. His plan had been to continue using her for when agents needed, oh, "fine tuning" would do he supposed, and she would take over for him someday. Tonight had not just tossed a rock, but had thrown a boulder through that window.

Sara had made it obvious that his plans were of no account. She had her own goals in life, and they didn't include what he'd planned. No, they hadn't discussed it, but, after putting together a number of little things he should have noticed earlier.... He had no excuse for his egotistical thinking.

Her goals were to have a family and to pursue an academic career. She'd told him a few days earlier, in passing, that she'd applied for an assistant's position at the library of the Cathedral of Whispers. Such a kind girl she was. They could have done what happened in so many families and argued about it for days, or weeks. Instead she had gently let him know how things were without making an issue of it.

Fortunately his brain was now functioning, and he hadn't made a fool of himself in public. He could be grateful for at least that. As for what he'd do next with the problems arising from the situation, well, that could wait for another day. For now he intended to just enjoy being with his wife.

Blair raised her head and asked, "So you've sorted it out, have you? Whatever it was or is?"

"How did you know that I...."

"Dearest, your whole body was tense. It's especially noticeable when our skin is touching. Just now you relaxed, which always means that you've figured out whatever it is and are ready to move on to whatever you need to do next.

"And speaking of moving on, since we're both awake, why don't we continue from where we left off. It's not all that late yet, and we might be able to relieve any remaining tension you might unconsciously be feeling."

Hiroshi nodded. "You're very wise my dear. Now that I think of it, that's an excellent suggestion. Why don't we do just that?"

Later, when he was finally drifting off to sleep, he realized that, as usual, Blair was right. He was totally relaxed, both in mind and body. Maybe they should make time to repeat this "tension relieving" process a bit more often in the future.

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Saturday, May 24, in The Year 721 After the Founding

Shortly after breakfast the next morning, Robert appeared at Paolo's door. He was accompanied by four of the bank's clerks and an equal number of guards. Collecting Paolo's coins from the various places in his room where he'd hidden them, carrying them to the bank, counting them all twice, and then recording the deposit took several hours.

There were a few raised eyebrows among the customers doing business when the clerks, guards, and senior partner marched in, but that was the only visible response. This particular bank dealt only with the "upper crust" and, while somewhat unusual, such large deposits were not rare enough to cause any major excitement.

What it did though was reinforce the idea in the customer's minds that this bank was THE right bank for them to use. Obviously whoever was making this deposit trusted the bank implicitly. Normally one doesn't send off such a large amount of money without going along oneself to make sure that all of it ends up where it is supposed to go. At the same time, the small parade also emphasized that the privacy of the bank's customers would be respected, as not a word escaped the lips of anyone passing through that might give a hint as to whose money it was. Finally having one guard for each clerk reinforced the idea that the bank believed in strong security. Many smaller banks would have used two, or possibly even only one guard.

Of such little things was a reputation made, which is why Robert had brought them all in through the front door and had Paolo enter through the back.

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When Paolo finally got home he was not in the best of moods. His father had insisted that he observe the entire process of counting, sorting, and depositing the money. When two of the coins were found to be debased copies, his father had spent 30 minutes explaining how to detect them and then testing Paolo (and the clerks) until they could identify the false coins every time.

He gloomily trudged up the stairs toward his room but, realizing that nobody was around to see or hear his performance, he sprinted the rest of the way up the three flights as he usually did. While it was inconvenient being in the highest room, and as eldest son he could easily have chosen one more spacious, he reveled in both the privacy and the view.

At the top of the stairs, he pushed open the door of his room then froze in astonishment. He rubbed his eyes to make sure that he wasn't hallucinating, much as Sara's father had when he saw the piles of money in her room. However what Paolo beheld wasn't money but something much more valuable to him. It was the desk from Flora's.

Questions flitted through his mind and, like swallows capturing insects on the fly, he chased each one down so as to examine it. Question #1. Why was it here? Answer: Obviously his parents had bought it. Question #2. How had they known that he wanted it in the first place? Especially since his father had shown no sign that he'd noticed Paolo's interest. Answer: This was a bit harder and a bit more complex.

1) His father was clearly more observant than Paolo had ever imagined.

2) Much as he loathed admitting it, seeing as how it battered his lofty self-impression of his skills, the only possibility was that his parents had known that he was listening at the door that night two months ago when they discussed the good and bad reasons why parents would give their children valuable gifts.

Finally Question #3. What were the chances that his mother, for surely it was she who'd spotted him somehow, would teach him how to be completely undetectable when he was being sneaky?

Answer: If he took some time to figure out the best approach and how to word it, his chances were probably fairly good. Based on occasional, apparently chance remarks his parents had made over the years, he had come to understand that, while not directly involved in banking, his mother somehow collected and provided to her husband a great deal of information that was definitely not public knowledge.

He threw himself down on his bed and, over the next several hours, dredged up as many of those "chance remarks" as he could remember and did his best to truly divine the meaning behind them. At the end of that time he came to the conclusion that his parents were far more cunning and sneaky than he'd ever imagined. They also they had to be involved in much more than the banking business. Some of the things he'd overheard had nothing at all to do with finance.

He also realized that there was an extremely high likelihood that there was nothing "chance" about anything that he'd heard. The reality was that he'd been played by them, probably ever since he was old enough to talk. On second thought "played" was the wrong word. The word he finally settled on was intensely irritating, because he was, as I've said before, a bit on the lazy side. The word he'd come up with was "trained." He didn't like doing extra school work even if he hadn't known at the time that that's what it was. They'd been training him for...something. He had no idea what, but he did intend to find out. He could, of course, ask them. However, that wouldn't be nearly as much fun.

Realizing that his subtle attempts to manipulate his parents had, in reality, probably been as heavy handed as a muleteer when dealing with a recalcitrant animal, he decided to go to his mother and ask for instruction rather than trying to be subtle. But that was going to have to be after he'd organized his belongings on his new toy. His energy level was now too high for lying abed, so he got himself up and decided to take a closer look at his desk.

First he explored all the nooks and crannys. He pulled out all the drawers and examined their construction, opened and closed all the little doors so as to admire how smooth the action was, and generally familiarized himself with its severe beauty and craftsmanship. Near the end of his examination he found what was probably the maker's mark. It was only the letters J/K enclosed in a circle. Like the desk itself, the mark was altogether elegant. He didn't recognize it, but he wasn't an expert in furniture. He could always ask at Flora's later.

It was getting to be close on to dinner time, so he went to his dresser and checked himself over in the mirror. His parents didn't tolerate sloppiness of dress or behavior at dinner. Satisfying himself that he was presentable, he turned around and headed toward the door. Arriving several minutes early would leave a good impression. At least that was his plan.

His turning engendered a sense of unease that he couldn't quite put his finger on. Only a moment passed before he realized what was wrong. There was a book sitting squarely in the middle of the desk. It was, oddly enough, almost the same color as the wood, and it even seemed to have a bit of grain, as if it were somehow mimicking the surface it was lying on. For a second Paolo thought that perhaps he'd missed seeing it earlier, but he dismissed that thought instantly. He'd rubbed his hands all over the top of the desk when he was checking it out, luxuriating in the satiny feel of the wood. There was no way he could have missed the book.