Year of the Boar, Thirteenth Month, Day 25.

I have spent some more time in the library which has been a welcome relief from worrying about when or even if I will receive a reply from Aoki. Haru says I can expect it to be at least two weeks if the merchant in question travels directly to Shimmering Dawn and then straight back with Aoki's response. I feel unreasonably perturbed by this and am taking great pains not to think about it at all. Of course, that is having the opposite effect than the one I desired. There was nothing for it but to take refuge in some scrolls; it was that or help Kaede choose Solstice decorations for the Banquet Hall and I thought avoiding her for a while would be the better option.

Perhaps I should have gone to help her; we might have talked and I might have discovered something to my advantage such as what she really does know about my network. I did speak to Haru again and she swore blind that she was not the source of Sasanuma's information but she also does not think he took my papers. Since she was in my room with me almost all of the time I was unwell, she does not think it possible that he came in and found them. She could not be certain about whether he could have taken them shortly after I arrived at Silent Thunder but she thinks it unlikely. She was quite distressed at the thought that Kaede might know about her involvement in my network and begged me to say nothing of it. I reassured her, of course. It is hardly in my interests to tell anyone the details of my network but it led me to wonder again whether Haru could be persuaded to stay within my employ.

I decided I would tread carefully rather than ask her again outright and risk sending her into a frenzy over it so I simply asked her whether she was still being paid. It seems that the chain of brokers I had set up is still functioning and every other month, a pouch arrives for her. So... the brokers and the merchants are still doing their jobs which means that no one has discovered the supremely expensive bolts of silk I have diverted from the House supplies, or the merchant who takes them and sells them in order to pay my people. That is extremely reassuring. 

I left the conversation there. Perhaps I will return to it once I have more information and see if Haru will change her mind...

I found nothing of major importance in terms of my quest in the library but I did find a copy of the works of Horii Tsuyoshi so I spent several very pleasant sticks reminding myself about the various military strategies employed by Golden Harvest's finest martial minds in several generations. What a shame he died long before I was born; I would loved to have learned from him in person. Then again, I suppose Mother would never have allowed it even had he agreed to teach me. Just as well he wrote extensively...