I walk out my door to go to breakfast when a man with a deep hood appears out of nowhere a step in front of me. I scream and before I can take a step back, he grabs my wrist.


    Everyone comes running.


    Zhen is the first to arrive and he says, “What the heck is happening here? Tai, why is Ellen screaming?”


    I try to peer under the hood, and he just throws it back. It really is Tai.


    I say, “A strange man in a hood jumped in front of me and I was so startled that I screamed.”


    Luan comes with a flock of maids. “Ellen are you okay? Tai didn’t break anything right?”


    Tai releases my wrist, and I wiggle it to check. “I think I’m fine.”


    Jun rushes in and says, “What is going on?”


    Tai thrusts some paper into my face and says, “Explain.”


    To keep from going cross-eyed, I grab the paper and take a good look at it. It’s just my scratch paper from checking the books yesterday. I flip it right side up and take a closer look, but I don’t find anything alarming enough to merit an early morning jump scare.


    Jun says, “Tai, I’m sure that this is nothing. There must be a reasonable explanation for what you found. Relax, this is your time to rest up before we head out on campaign.”


    Tai glares at him.


    I check the paper one more time to see if I missed anything now that the adrenaline is starting to wear off. But I don’t even find a small arithmetical mistake. “What do you want me to explain?”


    Tai looks me over closely and I’m sure my confusion is written all over my face. I’m not awake enough to figure out what the problem is here.


    “What does it mean?”


    “What does what mean?”


    “The symbols of your secret message.”


    “There is no secret message. This is just my scratch work from yesterday. I checked the math in the ledgers. All that’s written here is math.”


    I point at the top left corner and read out, “17+2= 19. 19+11=30. There is no profound meaning let alone a secret code.”


    Jun says, “See, there was a reasonable explanation.” Tai crosses his arms.


    Jun steps between us and puts his hand on the small of my back before leading me down the hall. “Tai this can wait until after breakfast.”


    He walks me to the table and makes sure to sit between Tai and me. Tai spends most of breakfast looking concerned at Jun as if I brainwashed him. Jun manages to eat while shooting icy glares at his close friend.


    After breakfast, it’s decided that proving my math skill against the accounting clerks will exonerate me. Jun has to rush off to some sort of morning drill but promises to check on me before lunch with a warning that Tai isn’t allowed to do more than watch me until then.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    The accounting clerks work in a room just down the hall from Tai’s office and there are many similarities: same desks, walls filled with files and plenty of paper. The only difference I kind find is that they use a cheaper ink.


    I sit down at one of the desks. One of the clerks stands in the center and reads out numbers for us to add and subtract.


    Tai stands behind me watching every brushstroke I make on the paper. The most embarrassing part is that I do my calculations faster than these professionals.


    This only seems to heighten Tai’s suspicions. Clearly math is evil, but only when I do it.


    After at least an hour of this I say, “Tai, surely you have seen enough. I have work I need to do today.”


    He shakes his head no. “Again.”


    So, we do another set. While I’m waiting for the other two clerks, I say, “How about I just show you how it works?”


    After confirming that I got the correct answer again, I pick up a clean sheet of paper.


    I write a vertical line and say, “One.” He nods.


    To the right, I make a two and say, “Two.” He nods again.


    I continue and he nods in agreement until I reach ten. Then I don’t get a nod.


    He stares at it for an awkward minute and says, “Explain.”


    “The number that comes after nine is called ten.” Then I count on my fingers until I reach ten.


    This was clearly not the explanation he was looking for. He crosses his arms.


    I look at the clerks for help, but they are studiously not making an eye contact while trying to seem busy at the far corner of the room.


    “What do you want me to explain?” I don’t want to be kicked out of the manor for insufficiently teaching a grown man how to count.


    “What is this circular symbol?”


    “That’s a zero.”


    “Zero?” He would not make a cute parrot.


    “Yeah, nothing, nada, null, a place holder, it’s zero.”


    “It’s nonsense to keep track of nothing.”


    I want to scream who cares if it’s nonsense. It’s not hurting anything.


    Instead, I try to act like an adult. “It’s very useful for certain things, because sometimes you need to know when something is all used up and there is nothing left.”


    I look around the room to scrounge up an example. “Look at that desk over there.”


    I point at the desk across from mine that the clerks have abandoned for the one further away. “On it, we can see three brushes and zero apples.”


    Tai looks at me like I’m crazy, so I look away. But I manage to make eye contact with the youngest clerk. I ask him, “Do you understand?”


    He gulps and says with a trembling voice, “I think so. It like if you loaned someone money and then after they paid you back their balance would be zero.”


    I smile. “Exactly!”


    Tai seems unconvinced but lets me continue my counting lesson.


    I write out all the numbers up to one hundred. Then I try to explain adding numbers in columns.


    At some point, the clerks inch close enough to see what I am doing. I carefully explain carrying the one and then ask, “Are there any questions?”


    Tai shakes his head no. The clerk that might be in charge of the other two says, “It’s novel, but it doesn’t seem all that practical to me. At least not for what we do milady.”


    I explain subtraction next and am careful to not broach the subject of negative numbers. I’m walking Tai through the calculations on the sheets he shoved in my face when Jun finally arrives with Luan in tow.


    He takes one look at the situation and gives me a wink. Thank the heavens, I think he’s going to break me out of here.


    I give them a quick recap of the counting numbers, addition and subtraction.


    Jun says, “Honestly, zero is rather baffling. But I have a feeling that it might be more useful than it appears. I will mediate on this further when I have the time.”


    Tai throws his hands up in the air, clearly exasperated. Luan says, “I think it could be useful for the occasional edge case, like household ledgers.”


    I nod, just wanting to leave. I stand up and then Tai says, “Where did you learn this?”


    Apparently, I’m not leaving yet. Unable to keep it in, I sigh and say, “As a child in school or maybe my mom or something. I was really little.”


    “I’ve been where you grew up. No one is even literate.”


    I shrug. I don’t really want to tell this jerk about my other childhood.


    Jun says, “Tai, if you’ve got this much time lying around for such an insignificant matter, I’m sure I can find more work for you, like drilling the vanguard.”


    He steps between us again and says, “Given what I know, I would be very surprised if Ellen didn’t have a few more tricks up her sleeves. So Tai, you might want to brace yourself.”


    Then we walk out of there before Tai can protest again.