Captian Draves kept his hand on his hilt as he said, "Let's move out of town ways, my lord, and we can speak further."

Crap, apparently having the blessing of the priest, didn't mean much to the captain. There had to be a way out of this. I tried to think of a solution as we walked, but each was more ludicrous than the last. I was too fat to run. I didn't have a weapon to defend myself; even if I did, I didn't know how to use one. Maybe if I acted more like a Baron, could I get all indignant and stuff? No, he wouldn't believe it. I had already determined that this would be the case. I was a fish out of water here. Even if I could have used all the correct phrases and acted like a stuck-up prick, I didn't have enough practice not to give things away. If I told him the truth, would he kill me as a demonic possession?

When we got out of earshot, he told me to stop. His sword slid smoothly from his sheath as he said, "You are not Lord Amos Bicman, son of Aaron Bicman, baron of the land of Bicman." He paused, looking at me sternly, "And it doesn't matter."

He took a knee, the tip of his sword on the ground. "I must know what is going on in order to help, and for that, I need you to trust me. Lord Amos Bicman, By my sword and my honor, I swear to you and your descendants, no matter your origin. I will serve your house faithfully until my death."

OK, so that was not what I was expecting. I could tell I was supposed to say something, but I had no idea what. So I said the first thing that came to my mind. "Rise, Captain Draves; I accept your oath." As he rose, I continued, "And you are so lucky that I have excellent bowel control today, or I would have crapped myself right now, and you would be in so much trouble when the wash woman started laughing about the brown stains in my noble undies. Now, what gave it away?"

"Everything, my lord. I could believe that you had lost your memories, but you have a completely different personality. Nobles don't act that way. People do not suddenly become kind."

I decided to be frank with him.

"There's not much I can do about that. I spent the last couple of years of my life trying to be nicer after I messed up really badly. It felt better than only caring about myself all the time," I said.

He nodded.

"Really, I'm not surprised. I feel like a fish out of water here." I said.

"That is another thing. The sayings you use. They aren't like ours. If I understand what that one means, then the one we would use would be I feel like a bull at a ball."

"When I got here, I was given the language as far as the old Amos knew it but not how to talk correctly or the phrases you use. I am like a foreigner who knows the language but not the rules or how to use it. I really gave up after my first conversation with you. I could tell it wasn't working, and I figured if whatever sent me here had really wanted me to blend in, then it would have at least given me some more information."

"I think the thing that solidified it was what wouldn't have changed even if the memory was lost was the fact that Lord Amos was a raging drunk, and you not only won't drink any but aren't experiencing any withdrawal from not having any."

"Yeah that os a little surprising. I didn't have any issues with that. I gave up drinking a few years ago on death after it caused me to make the biggest mistake of my life.."

"So, could you please tell me who you are and what is going on so I can best serve you?"

"As far as I can tell, the Endless One pulled me from my world into this one. The only clue I received was from the Priest's proclamation. I know things that may help us prosper and advance our civilization."

"Do you have other things that may help?"

"Possibly, I was more an artist than any sort of brainiac. Sorry I mean smart person. See what I mean, that word didn't even translate but it still came out because I am just so used to using it."

"Yes, I can see why you would have given up quickly on trying to blend it. You certainly are a fish out of water as you say."

"Actually, I like that, bull at a ball, better. That is certainly how I feel."

"An artist is an interesting choice for the Endless One to bring. Why do you think this plow would work if you weren't a farmer?"

I didn't want to explain the History Channel and Western movies, so I just said, "I went to school since I was four years old. We learned a lot of things that I would never use."

"Since you were four!" Draves said in surprise, "And how many years of schooling did you have?"

"I died at twenty-two and was working to get my bachelor's in graphic design. Sorry, I don't have a way to explain what that means." Yeah, it would have been boasting a bit, if he actually knew what a bachelor's degree is or what an online college is.

"Why would anyone need that much school? And why do you need a degree signifying you were a single male?"

"Let's answer the first question. The answer is 'to advance the human race,'" I said dramatically. I tried to think of an example. "What's the world we are on called?"

"Marth"

"OK, are you aware that Marth is round?"

"How would you know? Have you seen the whole world?"

"There are ways to measure it that our people found out. It was taught to others, and they discovered more things."

"How would that help us now, though?"

"You and me, not a clue, but I know the study of that led to the people of my world being able to build things that could fly into the sky and reach the moon. The point is that the more educated people are, the more questions they can ask, and the more they ask, the more knowledge they can obtain. Even a farmer made a discovery while plowing a field because he was studying other things. He learned to create a picture in one place and have people able to see it many miles away as if they were right next to him." I might not have gotten that all right, but that is what I remember from science class. Meagan Dormuson was much more interesting than Mr. Piper at my age. Darn, my teenage hormones.

"Can you teach me these things?" Draves said earnestly.

"I can try. I was thinking about creating a school in the village and teaching all the children as well. Just for a couple of hours a day."

"What will serfs use reading, writing, and mathematics for."

"Because they won't be serfs forever."

There was a long pause during which the Captain said nothing. Then, finally, he started to walk back toward the carpenter's house. Was he upset that I had pretty much told him my idea of freeing people from slavery? That's what it was. These people traded their labor for food, clothing, and shelter. They didn't have any way of earning more or bettering their lives.

We passed Jack and the carriage, and Draves explained where we were going to him. After that, he said, "You are planning on making your Barony's serfs into peasants."

"Is that a problem?"

"Possibly, let me think about it." At that point, we had made it to the carpenter's house. The captain knocked on the door frame. About a minute later, as the captain was about to knock again, Mikel opened the door. "Ah, you must be here for the frame. Do you have the wire?"

Thinking of the wire in my hand made me remember the boy. As I handed the wire to Mikel, I asked, "Mikel, what is the name of the blacksmith's son, the one I trampled with my horse?"

Mikel's eyes went wide. " Your father told us not to mention that incident in private or public."

I knew it! "His name," I said firmly.

Mikel pursed his lips and said, "Mathew, my lord," but quickly added, "But I assure you we all know it was a tragic accident. If the boy had not been in the way."

I grew angry when I heard him trying to make an excuse for me, but I tried to keep my voice level. "Would you have trampled the child?"

He said nothing.

"That was no accident. An accident is when you bump into someone because you look the other way; an accident is when you pick up something hot and burn yourself. An accident is not when a young man with no regard for others carelessly tramples a child because he is more concerned with getting somewhere or too drunk to pay attention to what he is doing. That boy could have died. I will not have anyone in this town disrespect that boy or his family by calling this anything but what it really was. How was the family compensated?"

I didn't think Mikel's eyes could have gotten any wider, but they did at that last statement. "I- I do not know?"

Either they weren't or something was done but it was all swept under the rug. I wasn't going to press the issue.

Draves put his hand on my shoulder. I pushed his hand away.

I said in an even tone, "No, Captain, I will not allow you, others, and especially not myself, to disrespect the blacksmith's family by covering up what really happened."

I thought I was over this. It wasn't like the last time. This wasn't my fault. I thought I had moved past the rage and self-loathing I had because of Nathan's death. But here it was again. This time, it wasn't even me. I flipped out over a mistake I had assumed someone else had made. I guess the psychologist was right. There is no simple fix to the trauma. We can only manage it. I just have to do better.

After taking a few deep breaths, I said, "Mikel, I'm sorry; I know you were probably told to say exactly what you said to me."

I had to address this. The smith was a freeman. He could leave at any time, and whether or not he left, he had to be compensated properly. I just had to figure out how.

I tried to change the subject from this uncomfortable topic.

"Let's see if we can get this wire in the frame. This is something between Jorb and me."

He handed me a rectangular frame. Along the perimeter were holes for the wire to slide into. Putting a little glue in each hole, he slid the wires through from left to right. Next, he wove the wires from top to bottom across the other wires, giving him a screen to lay the pulp on and let it dry.

As we left Mikel’s shop, Draves turned to me. “My lord, are you…alright?”

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

He was probably asking if I was sane enough to keep alive.

“Sorry for that outburst. Since you already know I am not the original Amos, I might as well tell you that I went through some things in my last life. This situation reminded me of it. I let my emotions about what happened last time affect me. I will try not to let it happen again.”

“I have seen this after men come home from war. Something lingers deep within. Try and separate your lives.”

My psychologist said that we often associate strong emotions with significant events in our lives. Even hearing about similar events can trigger unwanted emotional responses. Apparently, shifting worlds does not free me from the consequences of my past.

The ride back to the manor was quiet. Draves must have known I needed time to think. I didn't know how to fix this problem. What do you do for someone after you ruin their life? Draves was right. It wasn't my fault that the original Amos trampled the boy. But it opened a flood of memories. Lives I had destroyed because of what I had done in my past life. There were just certain things about my past life and Amos's that lined up painfully similar. I thought I had finally forgiven myself for some things, but maybe I had just buried them.

By the time I got back to the manor, I was depressed. I hadn't even given the blacksmith the molds for the pens because I was so ashamed of what Amos had done. I didn't really feel like going and trying to make paper even though I had been so excited earlier. I wanted just to lay on my bed and be mad. But then Emily appeared out of the manor with a big smile on her face.

"Are you going to show me how to make paper now?"

I couldn't disappoint her, too. So I put on a smile and said, "Sure, let's go get this party started."

When we got to where we left the pulp, I expected to only have the little bit done that Marsh and I had made earlier. Instead, I found the pot empty and the bucket covered with a lid. Lifting the lid, I found the rags had all been pulped, still heavy with water.

"Did you do this?" I asked in surprise.

"Yes, my lord, Grandma let me work on it while she did my chores." She said with a smile.

"Thanks, Em, you did great," I said as I ruffled her hair.

"Hey, only grandma does that," Emily pouted a bit.

"As Lord of this manor, I must sometimes take all the responsibilities of my servants upon myself," I said in my most pompous and formal tone. "Since Marshandra is not here, it falls to me to take up her duty of messing up your hair."

"Well, I will be sick tomorrow, and you can do my cleaning." she quipped back.

"Falsifying your health status to an employer is a punishable offense. So instead of less work, I will give you more."

"Not fair!"

"OK, enough slacking. Let's get to work." I lay the frame on the stump and scooped a handful of pulp out from the bucket. I spread it evenly across the frame and pressed down a little. I didn't want to push it through the frame, but it looked like it was going to. It would probably be hard to get it off. I know this is how they originally made paper, but I was doing it wrong. It would end up too thick if I didn't press down. I was frowning at the result when Emily looked at me.

"What's wrong?" she said.

I explained the problem. And she frowned in concentration. "Could we put cheesecloth on top of the wire?"

"Great idea, Em." I dumped the stuff back in the bucket. And Emily ran off to the kitchen to see if the cook had any.

While she was gone, I sunk back into the funk over Mathew. I could give the blacksmith one of my family's horses. They were worth a lot of money, and Mathew could ride it to get around. No, that's just stupid. How does a horse make up for hurting the boy? He might even be afraid of horses now. Then Jorb would probably think I was giving a hidden insult. I had beaten that idea down by the time Emily came back.

"We'll have to nail it down eventually, but let's just lay it down for now."

It worked much better, but we needed a sponge or something to press it down and soak up the water.

"Hey, Em, do we have anything to soak up the extra water with?"

She thought for a minute and then snapped her fingers. Jumping up, she ran around to the main entrance. I'm guessing that snapping your fingers like that meant the same thing here that it did back on Earth. I hoped she could find something quick because we were almost out of daylight. She ran back around the corner with an armful of gray stuff. Dumping it on the ground, she looked up at me and smiled. I think she expected a compliment, but I had no idea what this was. I picked up a piece. It looked to be a dry gray moss.

"What is this?"

She arched her one eyebrow in an "are you seriously that stupid" look. I was starting to see what Draves was talking about. Emily was getting way too comfortable with me. I should never have messed up her hair. Actually, all my interactions with Emily were way too informal. Combine that with the fact that she was a teenager, and I had a big problem. Give a teenager an inch, and they will take a mile when it comes to disrespect. The other problem is I really didn't want to change the relationship. It was nice having someone to tease and would be willing to tease me back. I couldn't have her doing it in public, though.

"Emily, I want to be your friend, you know that, right?" I said seriously.

Her face fell back into her normal, cheerful look. "Aren't we already?"

Seriously that was too fast for someone to go from being afraid I was going to rape them to being besties. I was starting to worry about the mental state of this girl. Or maybe she was just lonely.

"I guess we are," I said with a smile, "but Emily, I need you to do something for me. I'm the Baron, which means that when we are around other people, you must treat me like a Baron and not my friend. Does that make sense?"

She pursed her lips. "Yeah, I think so."

"That's good because I would just hate to have Captain Draves chop off your head; it would make such a mess, and then I wouldn't have anyone to clean it up," I said with a laugh.

"He would have to catch me first," she smirked.

"OK, enough messing around; what is this?"

"Spunge moss."

We began to soak up the water, and the gray slurry became a gray sheet of thick, wet paper. "Well, now we need to let it dry," I said. "Then tomorrow, you will figure out how to really make paper."

"Didn't we just do that?" She said, scrunching up her nose.

"We, maybe, figured out one way to make paper, but even if we did, is it the best way? Remember when your grandma took over grinding the cloth fibers? She did it much better than me, right?

"Yeah"

"If we assume that one way is the best or that we can't do better, nothing improves. Does that make sense?"

"I think so, but how do I make it better?"

"That's for you to figure out," I said.

She gave a pouting face.

"Well, you could try a few things like thinning out the pulp or squeezing out more water before laying it down. The fun part is experimenting with it."

"I guess." She didn't look convinced. Suddenly, she changed the subject. "So, what were you so upset about earlier?"

"What do you mean?" I said innocently. I was not going to tell her.

"Come on," she pleaded, "I promise I won't tell anyone."

"Don't worry about it. It's not important," I deflected.

"It looked important to me, and maybe I can help."

I sighed. I told Mikel not to cover it up anymore. She would probably find out about it sooner or later. It's better she finds it out for me. "Do you know Mathew, the blacksmith's son?"

"Sure, I play with his older sister sometimes."

"Do you know what happened to his leg?"

"Sure, he was trampled by a runaway horse. One of his hands doesn't work quite right, either. He has trouble holding stuff with it. It was awful, and Grandma says he is lucky to be alive."

One of his hands, too! I had seriously started thinking maybe if we found him a way to move around, he could sit down and do some blacksmithing. This was such a mess. Would she hate me for what I was about to say? I steeled myself, remembering it was either me or someone else. "It wasn't a runaway horse, Em. It was my horse, and I was riding it. I trampled him, and I was too much of a jerk to even care."

I watched her reaction, looking for any sign of disgust. She looked like she was deep in thought for a moment and then looked me straight in the eyes. Her face was that of a mother who was very disappointed in her child. "That's just stupid. That wasn't even you."

"What do you mean it wasn't me?" I said, taken aback by her assuredness.

She gave me her arched eyebrow. She was really good at that. "No, that was the other Lord Amos. The one who died." She pointed her finger at me. "You are definitely not him. So you didn't hurt Mathew."

"How do you know?" I said, holding desperately to my cover.

"I just know. So stop being mad at yourself." This time, she seemed slightly upset, like a friend was lying to her.

"Even if you are right, Em, that boy can never have a normal life because of Lord Amos, whether it was me or some other guy. And I am Lord Amos. So how do I fix this? It's not like everyone else thinks I'm a different Lord Amos."

"Mmmm, say you're sorry?" She said with a shrug.

"That's not enough," I said with a sigh

"It's a start."

"His dad is probably more likely to kill me if I brought it up."

"I can tell him," Emily suggested.

"Thanks, Em, but I need to do it. Oh, also, please don't tell anyone you think I'm not Lord Amos."

"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone I know you are not Lord Amos." She said mischievously.

If this is what having a little sister is like, I am so glad I never had one. My older sister was a big enough pain in the butt.

Mikel

I strode down the road as the sun set in the west. The Baron's carriage had left a quarter bell ago, but I had sat in my shop thinking of the conversation. Something was wrong, or maybe it was finally right. I shook my head as I walked. Maybe Jorb could give me some perspective. He was no longer at his shop, so I clapped at his door. Jacklyn answered and smiled up at me.

"Hi, Mikel, are you looking for Papa?" she said in a hushed voice.

I smiled and nodded.

"OK, but be quiet. We just got Mathew calmed down and sleeping. He had a bad experience earlier, and Ma had to hold him until he fell asleep. The door opened further, and I saw Jorb with a bowl at the table. Mathew was on the bed he shared with Jacklyn in the corner. Kim was probably nursing little Ryan in the back room.

"Jorb, can we step outside and talk?" I said quietly as he looked up at me from his bowl. He nodded and stood. He led me to his workshop, which we entered through the side door. He stood there with his arms crossed. I could tell he was in a foul mood, and I probably wouldn't make it any better. "How is your family?"

He ground his teeth. "That devil spawn showed up today and asked for his wire. I had forgotten that he would return today, and Mathew was in the shop. Seeing that man caused him to have a fit."

"I know this may be upsetting, but he also came to my shop today. He was acting… odd."

“How?” Jorb said bruskly.

"Well, he asked me the name of your son."

Jorb snorted, "It's not surprising that he didn't know my son's name. He has no concern for any of us."

"That's part of what was so odd. He asked for the name of the boy he had trampled. He admitted it was him! The family spent so much time covering it up that he just admitted what he had done. I'm sorry, Jorb, but I was afraid he was about to punish me or my family—maybe even the whole village—so I told him we all knew it was just an accident."

Jorb's face turned red. "So you just tucked your tail between your legs, and he patted you on the head."

"I know you're mad, Jorb, but that isn't fair," I said calmly. "I have my family to think about. If I die, are you going to support them?"

Jorb just huffed.

"It doesn't matter because instead of calming him, he was upset."

Now Jorb looked intrigued, "About what?"

"I can't remember everything he said. He went on a bit of a rant. Basically, he told me I shouldn't lie about what happened. He said it wasn't an accident, and I was disrespecting your family by lying about it. He said that you deserve compensation or something."

"What do you think it means? What's his angle?" Jord asked.

"I don't know. I was thinking maybe he's just gone insane. I don't know what he would gain by admitting to trampling your son. Or maybe almost dying put the fear of the Endless One in him?"

"Insanity makes sense. He did lose his whole family and almost died himself. Now, suddenly, he is the Baron with no clue what he is doing. He is trying to build weird plows and be nice to people so that he has them on his side. We may need to warn the villagers that he is insane and may be trying something. People may have to flee."

"That's a good point. Let's not be hasty; we don't want word to get back to him. Let's keep an eye on him for now."

"The other thought I had, and don't get mad at me for saying this, but maybe he has felt sorry for all this time and was afraid to do anything because of his father." I said.

"That boy is a demon, Mikel! You have heard the way he treats the people in the Manor house. There is no way he feels sorry for anything."

I sighed, I knew he was right, I had just hoped...