September 27 in The Year 721 After the Founding

"You turned in your quarterly project last week Jason. How was your evaluation?"

"All went as predicted Mother. Given the quality of our work, Sensei had no other option than to rate us as 'Excellent'."

Akane sighed inwardly. She'd long despaired of getting Jason to practice even the most rudimentary tact when speaking, but it still bothered her. "And why is that dear?"

"How could he not? Our group's analysis of trends of land values in the twelve districts of The City over the past 200 years is unique. Nobody has ever done something like that before. Even father was interested in the part where I'd derived a formula that can be used for predicting the pattern of prices up to 10 years in the future. I don't understand why he asked me not to discuss that part with anyone else though. It's not like I made any mistakes in the math...."

Akane looked up as his voice trailed off. It was most unlike him to be anything other than, shall we say, "decisive" when he was speaking. What she saw surprised her even more. He had what could best be described as a "dreamy" expression on his face. She didn't recall ever seeing him look like that before.

"Jason dear. Is something wrong?"

He shook himself, bringing himself back to the present. "Oh, no, sorry Mother. I was remembering something. I know it's hard to believe, but I made a mistake in one of my calculations. Fortunately Yoko was there and spotted it. She's so smart!"

His mother reflexively grabbed the arms of the chair she was sitting in. Surely an earthquake was about to happen. Jason never called someone else smart. Usually, on a good day at least, he'd refer to other people as "slow." She shuddered when she remembered what he'd called some of their adult friends when he was younger.

"Dear...who is this Yoko person?"

He looked up at his mother with the beginnings of a "how could you not know expression" but caught himself and schooled his face into blandness. It was still insulting, but not as bad as it could have been. Maybe he was learning.

He coughed once. "Yoko is a classmate. She and her sister Hibiki were also working on their project at the Registrar's Office. The people there mostly seemed to think that we were getting in their way, so they had all of us sharing the same table." Jason stopped there, not understanding that his mother's current expression was one of encouraging him to continue.

"Go on Jason, tell me more about these girls and their project. Knowing you, you learned a good deal about it from listening to them."

(While born in Italy, Akane Fukui was, culturally, more of an old Japanese aristocrat than a modern, relaxed Italian. Consequently, social position was about as important to her as her blood. She knew the details of every family of Japanese descent in The City and felt a compulsion to place Yoko and Hibiki in their proper slots.)

"Oh, OK Mother. Their project involved the accuracy of city tax records. In particular their hypothesis was that one could trace one's family history by accessing the records of various taxes paid over the centuries. Did you know that The City tax records go back almost 500 years? I wonder why they don't have them for the whole history of The City. It hasn't moved or been burned down or anything. And Yoko is as crazy about history as you are. I wonder if we could...."

"Yes, that's interesting dear, now let's get back to these girls." Time to get what she really wanted from him. "What did you say their family name was?"

"I didn't say Mother. You know that I didn't. Your memory is at least as good as mine. Are you up to something?"

Well, he was her son in that at least. He'd spot even a tiny discrepancy in the trend of a conversation. Unfortunately he also, almost always, pointed it out...usually at the most embarrassing time possible.

"Let's leave it that I want to know their family name, shall we?"

"Oh, all right Mother. Why didn't you say so straight out? It's Macklin."

Macklin. Well, well. That explained quite a bit. When Hiroshi Tsukimine has married, he'd followed Japanese custom and taken the surname of his wife's family since there were no male heirs in the direct line who could keep the family name alive.

He had impeccable credentials. His family had been well-regarded aristocrats in Japan, at least until the political winds changed and they were forced to flee or become impoverished -- or worse. He'd done well for himself. He was a partner in what was generally conceded to be the most prominent bank in The City, even by its competitors. She'd even heard that it had recently expanded and had opened branches in several major cities.

Well, he wasn't a problem. The problem was his wife. Oh, Akane had heard that she was a nice enough woman, and she seemed to be intelligent. It was that her roots were in the dirt. Akane hadn't probed deeply when she'd checked them out, but it appeared that they were all farmers or, at best, moderately successful shopkeepers.

"Oh, that reminds me mother. Yoko sent you a gift."

He ran off to his room before Akane could say anything and returned shortly with a rather large scroll in his hands.

Akane did not like being blindsided. One doesn't send a gift to someone out of the blue, especially a stranger. There's a proper procedure leading up to such a thing. And a gift from a child Jason's age? What was her obligation to the child if she accepted it? Well, first things first.

"What in the world is that Jason?" She stretched out her hand to receive it.

Jason backed up a step and put the scroll behind his back. "You're always after me to explain things properly Mother, so let me practice, please?"

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Akane nodded a startled consent. Jason thinking about what someone else wanted, twice in the same hour? She looked at the ceiling. No, no cracks, it didn't look as if the sky was going to fall. "Go ahead dear, explain it as you see fit."

His smile could be considered beatific. Nobody ever told him to tell a story the way he wanted. They always got fed up with him and cut him off. "Yes Mother. I'll do my best to not get sidetracked.

"OK. Well, when they'd worked their way back to the oldest records in the Registrar's Office, Yoko got really excited about something. She called Hibiki over and they put their heads together, you know, talking in 'twin'. Hibiki has this really pretty handwriting. She practices something called 'calligraphy' and also does tea ceremony, you know, like you do mother, and...yes, getting back on track.

"Anyway, they rushed out and were gone for an hour. Oh, they did put all their things back in place before they left. When they came back they seemed really happy about something but they didn't answer me when I asked about what. They didn't say anything for two weeks, no matter how I asked. Whenever I did, either Yoko would start asking me about my project or Hibiki would draw something. Even though we're in Italy she almost always does her 'calligraphy' in Japanese. She says that the characters are 'soothing'.

Seeing his mother's look of gentle remonstrance he got back to the main subject. "Yes Mother. They showed it to me three days ago. When they'd run off like that, it had been to see their brother-in-law, Paolo Donetti. He's studying to be a priest. Oh, he's married to Sara Macklin, their older sister. You know, the girl who took first place in the City Exams this year?"

Now that was interesting. Akane rarely paid much attention to the exam results, except to see how many students from her school did well. She'd not connected the girl's name to Hiroshi at the time. So these girls were the siblings of the girl who'd taken first place with a perfect score? Interesting indeed.

Taking his mother's silence as consent to continue, he did. "Somehow they got Paolo to arrange for them to see some old records at the Little Cathedral. You know, that's an odd name for a building that big, and...."

He paused, seeing his mother's right eyebrow start to twitch. "Why are you doing that mother? You're not sick are you?"

Akane sighed. "No Jason. I"m not ill. People do things like that when they're frustrated or impatient. I guess that's the best way to explain it. It's that you were going off on a tangent, a big one, that had nothing to do with what you were going to tell me."

"Oh. I see. Yes. I guess it makes sense, sort of. Anyway, I'll try to memorize that. Maybe later you can tell me about other things people do? Or does everyone twitch their eyebrows like you just did?"

"No Jason. Not everyone. And, yes, I'll tell you later. So for now if you'd get back to your story?"

"All right. Yes. Well, what they found was interesting, even to me. They'd traced things back from the tax records and then through several sets of church records to the same man, who turned out to be their many times great-grandfather. And you'll never guess, not in a million years! He was married to two women who weren't twins! Not only that, one was one of Duke Alphonse's granddaughters, and the other was one of his daughters. The twins are descended from the granddaughter. Anyway, the man's name was...."

Akane cut him off with, "Johann Kastner. Son-in-law and grandson-in-law of Prince Alphonse Joseph Bulambo, usually known by his lesser title of Duke Bulambo. Johann was a master cabinet maker, a 'Staff Master', and the man who organized the City Militia in the form we know it today. After Duchess Abigail assumed her position, he became one of her chief advisors in all things related to the military even though he was a civilian.

"Remember his name Jason. He was one of the 10 most important people who lived during the first 70 years that The City existed. Then she murmured to herself, "How interesting. So these Macklins are descended from him." She turned to Jason, "Did they say how the line of descent ran?"

"Yes mother, they did mention that. Their mother Blair's mother Ophelia's father's line. Um, it was Johann and the Duke's grandaughter Lily's firstborn, Rosalie. After that it was all through males until Ophelia was born. And that's why they sent these gifts."

"Gifts? You said earlier that there was one gift."

"Oh, well, sort of. You see, when Yoko said that she'd send this to you," he waved the scroll in her general direction, "Hibiki said that she needed to send something too, so she did a calligraphy word for you. It's rolled up inside the other so I sorta forgot.

"Oh, The scroll is a copy of the genealogy they worked out, all the way back to Duke Alphonse. Let's see, what did Yoko say? There was something unusual."

Jason lightly bonked himself on the head. "I almost forgot again, Yoko said that she put in a lot of other names she found from back then that were about other people. One of Master Johann's wives, the one who was the Duke's granddaughter, was called 'Lily'. I said that already, didn't I? The other, the one who was the Duke's daughter, was 'Raven'. That's a silly name for a girl, isn't it? I wonder why they called her that, and...getting on with the story, yes.

"Yoko found an old diary belonging to the bishop at the time. It said that Master Johann's family was at the Ducal Residence for the 12th birthday party for the twins and that it was hosted by their aunt Duchess Abigail. Uh, Raven's first twins, not his other wife's twins. Her name was Lily, the other wife. Oh, I've said that two times already, haven't I? Well, at the party there was someone named Count Phillip Augustine who had stopped by that day. He had a son three years older than Raven's daughters. Four years later his son moved to The City and he married them on the day they turned 17! Isn't that interesting?

"Anyway, Yoko wrote it all down and put it on the chart too. So, ah, here it is mother. And thank you for letting me tell it to you all the way."

He carefully unrolled the scroll and weighed down the ends. It was a good 3 meters long and a full meter wide. It was covered with closely spaced writing in the standard geneaology form. In the middle was a piece of paper about a half meter square. As she picked it up, Akane noticed that it was unusually good paper too, a type that was hard to come by and was exceedingly expensive seeing as it was handmade and was imported from Japan.

On the paper was a single word in bold kanji, "Perseverance."

A tear came to her eye. How wonderfully appropriate, and what a tastefully delivered gift. Two children who were strangers could never come to one of her status in person and encourage her in raising her rather unusual son. By sending this, they were subtly letting her know that they understood the challenges involved and were thinking of her. It was a mature approach that she wouldn't have expected in someone under 25, certainly not girls who were 12. It boded well for their future.

"I think I'll have this framed and put it in my study where I can see it when I'm at my desk. Jason, please thank them for both of their gifts."

He bowed. "Yes mother, I shall be pleased to do so."

He grinned at her. "Hibiki taught me that. She said that you'd probably like it, and I like doing things for you that you enjoy."

His brow furrowed. "Though I don't think that I do it all that often."

Akane stood, flung her arms around him, and hugged him tightly. "It doesn't matter Jason. You're still my son, and I love you very much. You don't have to try to do things my way all the time. Just be yourself. That's enough for me."

Neither then nor later did Akane realize that she'd taken the bait Yoko and Hibiki had prepared. The extra information about the other nobles that Yoko had put on her chart was intentionally incomplete. When Akane got around to reading it, she was going to be ecstatic. Nobody had ever seen a good genealogy of Count Augustine's family, and Yoko was the only one who had the data she'd need before she could publish it.

As for Hibiki's gift.... It was true that Hibiki had, in some small part, intended to encourage Akane with her "Perseverance". Mostly though it was a declaration that she and Yoko were going to persevere until Jason was theirs.