It wasn't as good as the Fourth of July, but you really can't beat blowing stuff up when it comes to exciting pastimes. If I only had an actual chemist here. Then, I could show these people what real fun was.

As it was, though, their progress was quite impressive. They told me that after causing the rock chunks to fly off and embed themselves into a tree. Some of them had the idea to put the small rocks in a tube and launch them at things. The tubes would rupture easily if they were packed tight and the distance was not great, but in the end, it was still the beginnings of a cannon.

I really didn't know how I felt about this. I praised them for their work, but I was really hoping to blow up the fort and then not continue down this path. The problem was that sooner or later, this technology would be exposed. Sure, without my prompting, it might take another thousand years, but it would have happened. And then this invention would cause the death of millions.

I wanted to progress civilization towards peace. Everything I have done so far could be used to spread knowledge and make people's lives better. Ok, not the crossbow, but in general, I was trying to make it so that conquering more land wasn't necessary. I knew it was naive. Even if it weren't food, it would be resources. I had no tin in my land. If another leader did not have tin but had gunpowder weapons, would they not just use them to grab what they didn't have?

In my online business in a box course, one section was on ethics. The professor had an interesting spin on that class. Taking events in history and using them as a warning about how people twist right and wrong to match their own narrative. For example, the reason that the US government killed millions of Indians was so that we could have more land to produce cotton, not food. Oh, and one of the tribes had gold, but I cannot remember which one. But it wasn't just the United States.

I worried more about being like the guy who created the process for obtaining ammonium gas. It is a crucial element in the process of making high-quality fertilizer. He won a Nobel Prize for it and probably would be remembered as the father of "Modern Fertilizer" due to the fact that we can now produce ten times the amount of food. Instead, many people refused to stand when he received the award because he is better known as the father of "Chemical Warfare" for his invention of Chlorine Gas that killed almost 100,000 people in World War I.

I highly doubt there is a country in my old world that does not have skeletons in its closet due to the atrocities it committed. Actually, most skeletons aren't even in the closets. They are just lying around, and we try to ignore them.

The point is that the fertilizer saved a lot more people than chlorine gas killed, but that man would always be remembered for those he killed, not those he saved. It almost made me laugh. Whoever thought that a person like me would be responsible for such a decision?

I shook myself out of my melancholic thoughts. They didn't help. I was trying to save my people. If the council would just leave me alone, I could build a mercantile empire that… that they would seize because I did not have enough strength to keep it from them. Then, they would strip away the rights that I was trying to give my people and work them to the bone to produce things like guano fertilizer, cotton, and steel.

I sighed. Even a seventy-kilometer-long wall along the Nore River would not stop them if they decided to send ten thousand soldiers. I was about to have resources worth killing for, and the only way to prevent needless slaughter was to give up on the idea of making my people free or, as Teddy Roosevelt often said, "Speak softly and carry a big stick." Of course, that was the same guy who helped the United Fruit Company, which took over countries in Central and South America, all for complete control of the banana trade. Even brought in the CIA to topple the Guatemalan government under the excuse of fighting communism. They are kind of like a real-world Hydra organization from the Marvel comics.

Hail Chiquita!

In the end, all I could do was my best and let history judge me. With that out of my way, I went back to having fun.

By the time the demonstration was done, I was not sure if these guys were going to be the world's first chemists or the first rednecks. I just had this image of one of them saying, "Hey, Count, watch this…" in a southern drawl. Of course, that would be the point where we all died in a fiery explosion.

"This is all very impressive," I said after all was finally done. I noticed something with the wicks when the thickness was not the same. Some of them shot forward. "What if you made a tube of wood or clay and put a small hole for the flame to escape through at the end? Would it push the tube forward or explode?" I said before I could stop the words from coming out of my mouth.

I didn't know how to make fireworks, but if I did end up using firearms, I wanted people to see that they didn't just have to be used for destructive purposes. Of course, this would also lead to rockets, and that could be a problem in and of itself. Dang, I was going to give myself an anxiety attack at this rate.

These were thoughts for another time. Now it was time to prepare for sending my people into battle with both the Hitub and the Rabiss. So, I think tomorrow I will look at how the crossbow is coming.

*******

The next morning, I went to see Tarrence, Emily's Uncle, and the headman of this area. We had dinner with each other last night, but we kept the conversation light. Today, it was time to get down to business.

"So, how is the crossbow manufacturing going?" I asked as we walked the grounds in the morning.

He smiled. "Production has increased with the building of your puddling furnace. I can boast of having forty-two crossbows made and an additional 17 limbs waiting for the rest of the components."

The amount really surprised me, especially with the limited number of people we had. "I am impressed. I didn't think you would have that many finished."

"There are children who are old enough to assemble them, and we have put them to work," he said proudly.

Thank goodness for child labor.

"I am glad they are being productive, but make sure they have time to play."

Tarrence snorted. "Forgive me, my lord, but if you don't give children tasks, they just get into mischief."

I thought back to my teenage years and realized that I couldn't argue with that.

"So, with that many crossbows. How are we training our soldiers?"

"They are being sent to Fort Cove. General Draves is training the crossbow squads."

"Excellent. Well, speaking of Fort Cove, I am going to head out and see how they are doing after we look over the rest of your production numbers."

"Would you like to take the back trail along the new canal? It leads to the small aqueduct you recommended. I am sure the workers would be pleased if you saw their work."

"That would be great. I didn't realize there was a trail leading down that way."

"It is pretty small. But since a trail was needed to move concrete up to where they were building the aqueduct, we just extended it all the way up."

"Well, since it is on the way, let's do it."

I left Emily in Pine Ridge and traveled down the back trail with my small contingent of men and Tarrence.

As we traveled down the path, I became more and more impressed with the amazing job these people were doing. Tarrence explained that they hoped the short aqueduct would be done next tenday, and then it would only be another tenday until the whole thing was done. I shook my head. They were diverting an entire river away from the swamp and marsh. Once we broke through in a few other places and created smaller canals, we would have a lot more arable land. I was hoping it would be good for pootba, cotton, and hemp.

When Henry Ford built his hemp plastic car, he also used hemp seeds to make biofuel to run it. That would be cool. Chemists were awesome.

So we would have the cash crops in the north and the food crops in the south.

We came across workers further down. They were building an area that would work as a gate for the main canal. Opening it would allow water to flow into an irrigation ditch.

I sat and chatted with the foreman and his crew for a while as I figured out their plan for the canal. They would indeed be done in a week, and then they would start working on draining the swamp.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

We were about to leave when a group of soldiers in the black uniform of the Pine Grove appeared from higher up along the trail. The surprising thing was the people who came with them. They were definitely not ours. They wore tight tan colored pants and shirts with a thick overcoat for winter weather. Their faces were wrapped in what looked like mummy wrappings. On their heads, they wore what seemed to be bandanas.

One of the Pine Grove scouts was slightly older than the rest and had the flaxen-colored hair of a Karr. He also had a black eye. I believe his name was Arbis. He stepped forward and bowed. "Descended, may I present Juku of the Mother's Mountain Tribe. They are our lost brothers."

Edward

I looked around the large building, which now held twenty desks for scribes, a sewing workbench for binding pages, and a separate one for applying the glue and cover for the books. The scribes carefully wrote each word with precision so as not to waste any of the precious paper, especially since each page was actually four pages, and having to redo all that work would be incredibly taxing.

The weight of responsibility that Amos had put on me felt as heavy as all the bricks used to construct this building, yet it was lighter than running the barony in his absence. In fact, this job was quite fulfilling due to how interesting it was. I was in charge of the publishing house and trying to make connections in the city. Amos wanted me to gather as much information as I could about the labor market and get additional skilled laborers. Also, any tools or inventions we did not have there. Then, there was the regular gossip that I was collecting.

I had tried to visit a young woman that Amos had made contact with while he was in Vaspar; she was a cousin of Fredrick Vaspar. I had yet to hear back from her. Apparently, she had her finger on the pulse of all the gossip in the kingdom. If she didn't respond to my letters next week, I may have to stop by in person. It was rude, but I refused to fail in my duties. There had been an attempt on Amos's life, and we still had no information on who had sent the assassin. He said she might know who is most desperate to kill him. Right now, our only suspects were the new duchess and Count Vaspar's heir, Peter. If it was them, however, they hadn't made that much of an effort. The guy they sent was no professional.

Moving on to other matters. The accounts were looking good. Each of the scribes averaged about one book's worth of pages per month. It varied according to the pages in the book. Our shortest book was fifty pages, while the longest was two hundred. I had our income broken down by silver per page as Amos wanted it, but I preferred gold per book since the price varied due to the popularity of each book. Supply and demand is what Amos called it. So, every book made us between fifteen and thirty gold crowns per copy.

We had made 132 gold crowns last month, and with the additional workers I brought with us, we could easily triple that this month. Amos was having me keep all the gold with me for now. There wasn't much use for it in Bicman, so I was supposed to look for potential people to hire or things that would benefit the barony. With hundreds of noble families and their relatives around Vaspar, as well as wealthy merchants who were willing to ship books off toward Kimton in their caravans, I could only see this growing. Next year, I plan to try to establish a publishing house in Kimton. I would have to ask Amos or Benjamin who their contacts were in Kimton.

It was while I was making my rounds that a messenger came to the door. He was dressed in the livery of the count, and my heart skipped a beat. This was probably the letter I had both been dreading and hoping for. I read the letter and let out a sigh. It was an invitation to meet with the count in private. It was time to see if the trust Lord Amos had in me was well placed.

*******

I stood up from where I had been sitting in the waiting room of the count's castle. I began to pace back and forth, trying to decide how I was going to present the information. I tried to tell myself that I shouldn't be nervous. I had dealt with a noble before. But Amos wasn't your standard noble. I had heard of the stern disposition of Count Vaspar, and it made my hands sweaty.

A servant opened the door, and I froze. "Lord Vaspar is ready to see you now."

I straightened my back and ran my hands down my jacket and pants to remove any creases. Then I followed the servant in silence. We came to a door that he opened and allowed me to walk in first. In front of me sat a very stern-looking man. His very presence seemed to fill the room. He had black hair that was just starting to grey. His piercing eyes stared at me like a predator studying its prey. Beside him stood a man I could only assume was Casper. The servant followed in after me and said, "Edward of North Cove to see his lordship, Count Vaspar."

After the introduction, I bowed deeply, and the servant excused himself. Although there were chairs, the count did not offer me one.

"So, Count Bicman said in the letter he sent me that he wishes me to allow you to negotiate our paper contract in a manner that he hoped would be more beneficial to both of us." He said in a deep voice.

Gathering myself, I prepare to speak the words that I have been preparing for the last few weeks. This was the moment when he might throw me out or chop off my head for our deception. "Forgive me, my lord, but Amos's letter was sent to hopefully gain me an audience without arousing suspicion. The matter is more important than the paper, and it was something that he could not afford to have leaked."

There was a long pause as the count considered the words. He had every right to kick me out and complain to Amos about the deception.

Finally, he nodded and said, "I see recent events have made the young man more cautious. Very well, present your information."

I pulled a few folded sheets of paper from my inside coat pocket. These pockets, which Amos invented, were quite handy. I unfolded them and placed them on the table. Casper looked a little surprised at the pocket, but nothing showed on Vaspar's face.

"These are designs for what Count Bicman calls a crossbow. It is a weapon that he hopes will help to end the war in the south more expeditiously. The first page shows the design of the actual weapon," I said as I turned the paper around to show him. I spent a few minutes showing him how the weapon worked and then went to the next page.

"Because of the high amount of tension on the string, they use this device to pull the string back faster." For some reason, this device caught the count's eye, and he began to ask questions. Unfortunately, most of them I could not answer. I just showed him the pages for the crossbow and cranks construction.

After that device was shown, we went over the last sheet. It had observations from both the creators and those who had used it, along with a list of the device's pros and cons. We spent almost half a bell going over this sheet, and when we were done, the count seemed satisfied, though it was hard to tell with him.

"Do you have one of these devices here in Vaspar?" He asked.

"Of course, my lord. We have a couple of variations, as well as the crank. I did not, however, have a way to get them to you in secret." I said.

"I will send someone by to pick them up. But let us discuss compensation. I am sure that Count Bicman has something he is requesting for this."

I had become more comfortable in the count's presence the more we talked. So there was no hesitation when I began to speak of Count Bicman's desires. "His lordship's first request is that the knowledge of where you obtained this information not lead back to him or his people. We both know that if the enemies of the king found out that he had given this information over, they would make things very difficult for him. So he requests that if the information does leak, you make it seem as if a spy obtained the information from a visit to Bicman."

"He does realize that if it is not given openly, then there is no reason for the king to award him with anything?" Count Vaspar said.

"He does, but he is more concerned with helping the King win the war and his and his people's safety than with a reward. The rebels have attempted to kill him and succeeded in killing his family. Now, they are using him like a piece on a game board. The rebels have too much power in this duchy. He believes that the only way for the king to regain the support of the people is to quickly defeat Hitub and bring back the army. He hopes that the crossbow will help with that."

"And the fact that the Duke has requested two hundred men from each of his baronies has caused strain on his county. Men who would be better used at home rather than in a war."

"That goes without saying, my lord," I said.

"So, nothing else then?" Vaspar asked with a piercing gaze.

"There are two things that my lord would like assistance with that will not point to his involvement with serving the King. First, he would like the King to send a King's Messenger to Kimton and further investigate the death of the Duke. They claim that the steward poisoned the duke. This has caused Amos's steward to lose all his inheritance and his name to be tarnished. Amos believes he was framed, and he wants his steward's name cleared."

"An interesting request, but I am sure the king would agree. And the second thing."

"Amos believes that the Duke overstepped his bounds by making Amos count. It also made the king look bad. He thinks that the best way to rectify this is by giving Amos access to builders and architects capable of building a castle in North Cove. This would show that the king supports Amos and tip the scale back in favor of the king. Giving the rebels less influence. Amos will, of course, take full responsibility for providing the material and non-specialized labor. But the king's assistance will go a long way to help. He also has some innovations that the Architects will bring back with them when they are done. He guarantees they will be very popular among the nobles."

Vaspar gave a slight smile. "I like this idea. The council backed him into a corner when they demanded he move to the Northern shore and build a city capable of defending it. They want him to be drained of resources and come to them for help. Debts are some of the strongest chains you can shackle someone with. I had wondered how he would get out of this."

There was a long pause, and then he continued. "I believe you and your lord have proven yourselves both loyal and valuable to the king. So that urgent business is taken care of more expeditiously, go to the Red Bull Tavern. There is a barkeep there with a long scar across his cheek that deformed his mouth. Tell him that…" he paused and looked at his steward, "Casper, what is the code name this week?"

"Herman, my lord," Casper said.

"Tell him Herman recommended the Red Bull to you. Buy a drink and leave. The barkeep never forgets a face, so the next time you enter, he will know you are an agent. Never approach him again unless you have information that cannot wait. If he sees you sitting in the tavern, he will know you have a message for me. A messenger will approach you the next day so that you can pass the information."

"Thank you for your trust, my lord."

He nodded. "Is there anything else?"

"There is one more thing." I pulled out a small pouch. "These are similar to the candies made before, but they are flavored with mint. They are an excellent replacement for chewing on mint leaves to freshen your breath. Since they are long-lasting, they work even better."

Vaspar took one and handed the bag to Casper. Amos told me that Vaspar had not been too fond of the candy last time due to its sweetness, and he hoped this would be more appealing to the count.

Nothing was said for almost a minute while the two men sucked on what Amos called breath mints. But then Vaspar finally nodded.

"I believe this will sell well among the nobles. I would be willing to buy as many as Lord Bicman can provide."

"Amos said that he would not be able to provide more until next year. Also, the cost of production will be high, and so the price will match."

This caused a slight smile to appear on Vaspar's face. "All the better."

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