I walked up next to Jarum as he stood over the deer. "That was an excellent shot. I think you struck it through the heart."

  "Thank you for the compliment, my lord. And thank you for allowing me out on this hunt. So often, I am stuck going to parties and formal events, trying to persuade the upper echelons of society to make a deal. Being in North Cove has been very relaxing. It almost makes me want to pretend the negotiations took longer than expected."

  "So do I, but more for the purpose that I think you got way too good a deal," I said with a smile.

  "Forgive me, my lord, but I have to disagree. I think the agreement that Edward and I came to is favorable to both sides."

  "Time will tell," I said.

  I really did think he was asking for a lot. The price was ok, but the number of books he wanted seemed a little high. We were going to have to churn out more scribes. Either that or get the printing press up and running. Fortunately, I hadn't made any commitments on exact numbers.

  "Let us return to Plimgus so that the cooks can start preparing this. We will have a feast tonight, and then I must return to Cove Town. There is much to do and governing to be done."

  "My lord, it has been a pleasure. I will be returning home with more goods than I anticipated, and I feel this will be a more lucrative partnership than I thought," he said with a slight bow of respect.

  "You pretty much grabbed everything that wasn't nailed down."

  We both laughed at this. It was the truth. Any item that wasn't hidden away, he wanted. He purchased a dresser, an armoire, a rocking chair, an abacus, and another set of measuring tools, including a protractor, compass, and my more modern calipers. Some of these things had already made their way to Westcove, but he bought new ones. The additional measuring tools that I had created, I sold to him for the same reason. I spent a day going over our mathematical system. I needed to bypass Vaspar, so Peter looked like a fool for rejecting what was obviously going to be the new way of doing math.

  The funniest thing he took was my t-shirt. He almost took it right off my back.

  The day after we arrived, we headed back to Plimgus. I wanted to keep his prying eyes out of Bicman and Cove Town. Two nights ago, I needed to use the toilet, and I hated the chamber pots. It always made the room smell. Instead, I left to use the latrine. On my way down the stairs, I ran into Fredrick and Jarum. Their reaction to me wearing my nice cotton t-shirt and boxers with the North Cove crest on it was priceless. Fortunately, there were no hearts on my boxers.

  It wasn't a real T-shirt, of course, but it was as close as I could make it with my weavers using the new knitting needles.

  Could I still call them my weaver women now that they knit and crochet?

  At first, I thought I could just have them weave me one, but woven material was too stiff and inflexible. The knit material stretched as it passed over the head. It also breathed more freely and was less loose.

  I had to explain to the two of them what it was and when I wore it. I told a few lies about where the flexible, stretchy cotton fabric came from, and I had to promise Jarum I’d get him some if that strange merchant ship ever showed up in North Cove again.

  It was a little depressing knowing I’d have to go back to wearing my crochet version. It didn’t feel quite the same, and it definitely didn’t stretch as well.

  Still, I got a ridiculous amount of money for the thing. I was pretty sure he planned to take it apart and have people try to recreate it. Good luck with that. Even with the spinning wheel and knitting needles, it took around fifty hours of work to make—woman-hours, to be precise. The ladies were paid well for it, and I wasn’t about to waste that much labor on another one anytime soon. We had more important things to make than a proto-T-shirt.

  The T-shirt, like most of what he bought, besides the books, was on credit. He simply didn't have the money for all the stuff he wanted.

  All in all, I was very satisfied with his visit. If our partnership worked out, we could easily bypass Vaspar and just start shipping to Carok and Westcove.

  What I really wanted in return for the product was people, and most importantly, skilled laborers. I was going to have to deal with the fact that some would be spies. Nothing could be done about that if I wanted to grow my county. So we came to an agreement where very little of what came back to North Cove would have to be coin.

  ****

  Three days later, I found myself traveling back to Pine Ridge. I was able to make it to Kerisi by the evening of the first day and then rested the horses. Then we rode through Bicman without bothering to say hello to the baron. The less contact I had with that man, the better. All I wanted to do was get rid of him. The best way to make sure he screwed up is to make him think I wasn't paying attention to him. I also decided to take action, just in case I was right about the Yarbeth family's true intentions.

  I had an outpost put up in the mountain pass, with a wooden palisade along the narrowest stretch. Officially, it was because raiders had supposedly come over the mountains before, and the outpost was there to make sure they never reached our lands again.

  I also sent a messenger to the village of Artanes on the far side, letting them know the outpost doubled as a trade post—and that unauthorized deals were being made behind my back. Just another trap for Yarbeth. If anyone crossed Mother’s Mountain without permission, the locals would notice and tell us. After that, it would be easy enough to claim Weston had broken his vassal oath.

  Upon arriving in Pine Ridge in the afternoon, the first person I ran into was Jorb on his way home from the forge. A crease had formed in the center of his forehead.

  "Jorb, you look like a man deep in thought."

  "My lord, it is good to see you." He greeted me in his booming voice.

  "And you as well, but what is bugging you?"

  "Bugging me?"

  "Sorry, I meant 'bothering' you. Bugging is like a fly that won't leave you alone or something crawling up your back."

  He tilted his head and thought. "An interesting phrase, and yes, you are correct. Do you want the long answer or the short one?"

  I chuckled. "You know I like the details."

  "I thought you might say that. Before you left, we had wrapped the wrought iron around a mandrel to try to make the spring you wanted."

  "I remember, and as I recall, it didn't work."

  He nodded. "Yes, and so we tried to make it with the charcoal box steel. The issue was the same as we had with some of the crossbows and leaf springs. There were weak points that were either too brittle or bent. Talking with Mac, we decided to shear off the outer layer, and hopefully the inside would be more consistent."

  "And it worked?" I said excitedly.

  "Please, let me finish. It did work better, but not enough to get consistent results; it had a forty percent failure rate compared to the sixty to seventy percent from the box steel. So it was frustrating, but I also had a bunch of steel that we had sheared away. So I heated it up and used the trip hammer to combine it." His eyes lit up at that point. "Lord Amos, this steel is much better. It does not have nearly as many brittle or soft spots."

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “So you did it,” I said, unable to hide my excitement.

  His face fell. “No, my lord. The problem is the springs don’t behave the way you said they should. Mathew and some of the other children have been helping—stretching weights on them over and over, then letting them relax. Some spring back a few times, but they quickly bend out of shape.”

  I sighed. “So we have better steel, just not steel that holds a spring as well as bronze or composite wood. Still… I’m sure you’ll figure it out. I’m too exhausted to think straight right now. I’ll come by tomorrow. I want to see this new steel, even if I can’t help much.”

  “Then I shall see you tomorrow, my lord.”

  ****

  The next morning, I got up, completed my exercises, sword and spear training, and then headed to the forge. Jorb was already there working with his apprentices. They had a lot of things they were working on, so I stood there and watched. Most things he was working with were wrought iron. I saw a few wires that I assumed were for spring experiments. Cast iron was not done in this shop. That was done next to the blast furnace, and it was brought here for finishing. I watched as the three trip hammers pounded out different items. Fascinated by the process.

  Something was wrong, though—something that always felt off in these old smith shops. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but the thought kept nagging at me.

  Soon enough, Jorb turned around after he was finished correcting something that an apprentice was doing. Looking over to me, he waved me into the shop. Walking over, he showed me the wires. He picked up a rod that was as thick as my pinky. He put enough force on the rod so that it started to bend. It was actually quite impressive. I don't know if I could have done it.

  "Notice how it does not spring back like you asked. There must be something else we need to add to it, but we have tried a few different things with no success. It is going to take a long time to experiment and figure out what it is that we need. It might be the same powder that we used for the bronze or something completely different."

  "It is ok. If it were easy, it would have already been done. Which… I guess it could have been done, but the idea hasn't spread yet."

  Jorb just nodded as if listening to a sage. I wish those videos I had made had gone over how to make steel maintain its shape. I knew it had something to do with steel. I just didn’t know what part.

  We had a water balloon catapult launching contest in my high school physics class. One kid brought a catapult that looked like something you would find in a junkyard. Actually, he probably had. It was a bowed piece of rust-covered steel welded to a heavy metal frame. Most of us were teasing him for not even trying. We were all laughing until it was time to launch. His catapult launched the balloon all the way across the parking lot.

  As we sat there chatting, one of the apprentices went to the corner of the room, dipped a ladle into a barrel of water, and poured it over his head. Not being used to the heat of the forge, I decided to do that myself. As I poured the warm water over my head, something dawned on me. I began to look around and became very confused.

  "Ah, Jorb. Where are the quenching buckets? You're not drinking out of the same barrel you quench your metal in, am I?"

  "Quench, my lord?"

  "Yeah, you know, like when you quench the metal after you heat it up.”

  “My lord, I have never put it in water. We let it go out naturally or put it in warm ashes to cook it more slowly, making it softer."

  That can't be right. Every TV show has quenching iron in water or oil. They even did it at the Renaissance fair.

  "Ok, so just for curiosity's sake, heat this smaller wire and then dunk it in water. Let's see what happens."

  "As you wish, my lord," Jorb said with a heavy amount of skepticism.

  He took a pair of tongs and placed the thin wire in the fire. Once it was red hot he immediately took it to the barrel and dunked it in. As the steam came up, it gave me feelings of nostalgia from my past life. I had never been to a real forge, but I remember sitting on the couch with dad watching Gunsmoke and The Rifleman. This just had to work.

  By that time, the three apprentices had all stopped what they were doing to watch. We waited for the wire to cool completely, and then I grabbed it and bent it confidently, knowing it would work. However, what actually happened surprised everyone. The piece bent and then snapped.

  I looked over at Jorb, confused. He looked shocked. "Uh, that isn't supposed to happen, is it?" I asked.

  Without taking his eyes off the two pieces. He shook his head, "No, my lord. In fact, if you do that to bronze it ruins it, and you have to reheat it. I thought that is what would happen to the iron.

  "Well, something isn't right. Now it is too hard and brittle. Maybe we left it in the water for too long or too short a time. Let's reheat those halves and try again. One for longer and one for shorter."

  Jorb was still looking as if his whole belief system had shattered. Two of the apprentices each grabbed a piece and started to heat it. Then both pulled the metal out, and one walked over to the bucket. Putting the piece in the water and holding it there.

  "Count to one hundred before you pull it out."

  I held my breath as he slowly counted to one hundred. Pulling it out, he set it down on the table. I stared at it for a moment, then took a deep breath and picked it up. Unfortunately, the results were the same.

  Sighing, I turned to the other young man. When I looked, however, my jaw dropped. He was staring at the piece of metal as he slowly flexed it. When he released it, it sprang back into shape.

  Soon, all of us were staring at him like he was some sort of magician.

  "Young man, what exactly did you do?" I asked.

  Broken from the spell by my voice, he dropped the metal on the floor.

  As I walked over to pick up the piece, he began to rapidly apologize.

  "I don't need your apology, kid. I need you to explain how you did this." I said as I began to gently flex the wire.

  "I-I didn't do anything." The young boy stuttered.

  "Then how do you explain this?" I really needed to calm down before I gave the kid a heart attack.

  "Well, um, I don't know. I put the wire in the heat and pulled it out at the same time as him," he said, pointing a finger as if it were an accusation. "He was already on his way to the water, so I just set this down. Because he took so long and the wire was thin, it had cooled enough to pick it up. I was going to heat it up again so I could put it in the water quickly, but I just thought I would try and bend it and well…"

  "Jorb?"

  Jorb said nothing for a long moment, but when he spoke, I could tell he was excited. “My lord… if I understand this correctly, when we rapidly cooled the steel, it hardened it. I don't know why, but that is what it did. This caused it to become brittle. When we reheated it, it softened it again without losing its hardness."

  "We need to do the same thing with the other wires and rods, as well as any piece of steel that could possibly flex. Figure out the best heat and cooling ratio. This could have been a fluke, or we may have accidentally hit just the right temperature, heating and cooling. You will also need to try different metals from other batches," I held up the piece of wire. "Congratulations, my friends. I believe we’ve just created spring steel. Remember this moment because I guarantee you have all just changed the world. Now I am going to find a box to put this piece in. It is going in the museum with all your names on it."

  "What about your name, my lord?"

  “No. You’ll keep my name out of this. No one else needs to know I had anything to do with it, and I’ll tell you why. I don’t want people leaning on me every time they hit a wall. I want them to push themselves. That’s how we succeed as a people.

  What happened here was luck — both what I did and what this young man did. But luck doesn’t happen if you’re not willing to try something new. Let people think this was your work. They’ll push themselves to be just as successful.”

  I truly believed what I said. What I didn't believe was that they would keep their mouths shut. Eventually, it would all get tied back to me.

  I think it is time we did something I have been meaning to do for a while now. We have outgrown small think tanks. It is time to create the Order of the Reality Benders.

  Baron Weston Yarbeth of Bicman

  The Baron of Bicman crumpled a piece of paper and threw it into the fire. Growling, he turned back to the other reports he was going over.

  "It appears you have received bad news from the count. Is there, by any chance, something I can do to assist you?" The steward of the house asked. He was a short, squat man, but he was a genius when it came to numbers and was always moving. He was older than the Baron but more spry than a twenty-year-old. A fact that the baron resented.

  "Not unless you can get rid of that fool without my brother finding out about it." The baron replied.

  "I would think your brother would be happy he was gone."

  "Most definitely, but as a member of the council, he has promised not to touch the count. With how new we are here, we would be the first people accused of killing him. My brother would have to make concessions. One of those might be my head. Even if we could avoid retribution from the council, the boy has the favor of the king. Until the king is dealt with, there is no way we wouldn't be receiving a Royal Messenger. So for now we just have to tolerate the man."

  "And what is it you must tolerate this time?"

  "He rebuked me for telling the people they were not to take one in five days off. A single one of my fiefs in Yarbeth makes more for me than this entire barony. You can see how fat and lazy these people are," The Baron said as he put another piece of ham in his mouth. "And yet he refuses to let me work the peasants as they should be. It would do the peasants good if they needed to work a little harder for their bread."

  The baron slammed his fist down. "You must find out who complained to the count. Have some of the men we brought with us start searching for the culprit. Once we find them, make sure the body is never found."

  "I also recommend that you demand that all reports be sent to me and that I forward them on to the count. We must also put out men to patrol for peasants where they shouldn't be. Runaway peasants may be executed." The steward said with a hint of malice in his voice.

  The baron began to laugh. "Yes, that will teach those peasants not to try to interfere with my affairs. The only true way to control a population is to use force."