After breakfast, I felt it was time to send the letters out. I was still nervous the letters were not good enough, but they were the best I could do. I would have Marcus look them over. He was trained as a steward and may have seen communications between nobles. He gave me his typical cheerful greeting of a blank face with hidden emotions underneath. The kid made my skin crawl sometimes. I thought about getting rid of him, but I didn''t want to cause a rift between the rest of his family and myself.


    "I have three letters for you to send out, Marcus: one for the King, one for the duke, and one for the count. I would like you to review them and send them out," I said.


    "You want me to review them?" He said, showing just a hint of surprise.


    "Of course. You were being trained as a steward. I assume your father showed you communications between our family and other nobles."


    "No, My Lord, communication between nobles was always kept private."


    "I see. Well, look it over anyway, and let me know what you think. This is written on Emily''s new paper. Don''t you think she did a great job?"


    "It is very fine, My Lord. Emily is a talented girl," he said while admiring Emily''s work.


    "Any updates from the villages?"


    "Things have been progressing smoothly. I did receive the population report from Kerisi and Alter for the month. We had two births in Kerisi, and we had two deaths and three births in Alter."


    I was surprised they kept such a report, but I was glad they kept some sort of census. "Did they say the cause of the deaths?"


    "No, My Lord."


    "I guess I will need to write letters to the Headmen and ask them to include that in the reports. I will also have to write a condolence letter to the families of the deceased. The headman can read it to them."


    Marcus nodded.


    "Looks like I have some more letters to write. Have a great day," I said with a smile.


    I had enough paper in my room for the letters to my aunts but not for the headmen. I went back to the paper room and found paper drying everywhere. The table had one small stack of dried paper; the rest were scattered everywhere. The bed was completely covered with them. I can''t imagine Cookie was not happy with how much cheesecloth was being used. I am sure Emily somehow bullied her into it.


    I grabbed the stack of dried paper and headed back to my room to start my letters.


    To Lady Ashley of Mancole,


    Dear Aunt, I regret to inform you of the demise of your brother, Baron Aaron Bicman, and most of his family due to an illness that swept through the village. I understand that there was discord between family members of our house, but as the regent of the heir, Aaron Bicman the Third, I seek to mend the rift. I would enjoy the opportunity to converse via letter if you would be amenable to such communication.


    With love and respect,


    Regent Amos Bicman


    To Lord Cameron Mancole,


    I am writing to inform you of the demise of Baron Aaron Bicman and the majority of the family. I Have enclosed a letter to Lady Mancole to this effect. I wish to open dialog between our two houses so that we might establish a better political relationship. If this is of interest to you, I would be honored. May your people and lands prosper.


    With respect,


    Regent Amos Bicman


    Also, as a gift, I include with this letter ten sheets of an alternative to parchment that we make on our estates.


    I enclosed the first letter within the second, and I would have to get some wax from the study to seal it. Next, I wrote to Susan and her husband but tailored her husband''s letter toward trade. I felt Lord Mancole might be interested in purchasing the paper but did not know if he would be insulted if I spoke of trade with someone from his station. If trade was beneath me, I didn''t really care.


    The next letters were to the headmen: one to all of them concerning the desire to have more detail concerning the deaths of each citizen and one to the headman of Atfer concerning the two deaths this month.


    I went back to the paper room to see if any more sheets were dry. I needed eighteen more sheets to send the ten to each of my relatives. I had downgraded the amount from twenty-five to ten because if they couldn''t appreciate ten, then twenty-five would not make any more of an impression on them. I found Emily shifting around papers. She was adding dry ones to the stack and moving the others around. I think she was organizing them based on how dry they were.


    She stopped what she was doing and looked over at me. "You stole my paper!" She said accusingly.


    I put my hands up. "I used your paper. I am sure the king will be very impressed." I smiled.


    That stopped her. "You used my paper to send a letter to the king?"


    "Yes, and it looked beautiful. It bleeds through a bit but once dry that isn''t such a big deal. We will make it thicker, change the ink or find a way to make sure the surface takes the ink without soaking so much in.  I think we will need a smaller frame, though. I had to tear each sheet in half because they were too big. The normal size is excellent for writing stuff down, but my letters are too short to need a whole sheet.


    "The king is going to have my paper," she said in awe.


    Great, another broken brain.


    I decided to go further and tear it to shreds. "And the duke, the count, the Baron Mancole, and the Mit Trading House. Oh, and all our headmen." I said with a smirk.


    Now, she was speechless. "Well, when you have eighteen more, we can send extra paper to my aunts," I said while turning to leave. She woke from her stunned state just as I was about to leave.


    "Wait! You have to see this!" she shouted and ran around the room, looking for a particular piece of paper. When she found it, she held it up to the light with a grin. At first, it looked just like all the others, but as I got closer, I could see a watermark. In big letters, it said BICMAN.


    Now, it was my turn to be stunned. ''How did you do that?"


    "It was Jackie. Remember how I tried sponging up some of the water while I had the old frame to try and dry it faster? Well, it left one of those water marks from the wires. Jackie saw it and thought it was really neat. She went home and had her dad make this. She went over to the frames and grabbed a piece of cloth. There were wires shaped into letters and sown into it. "We laid it down on top of the paper once we removed it from the frame. Then, when we spunged it, we pressed down on the wires, and it made the mark."


    "Excellent work," Then a thought hit me. "Except you used the wrong letters."


    "No, we didn''t." She said stubbornly.


    "Yes, the letters should be right here in the lower right-hand corner. There should be a circle with EJ inside it."


    "EJ?"


    "Emily Jacklyn, It is a mark of authenticity stating that this paper was crafted by you and Jacklyn. Anyone who sees the mark will know they have high-quality paper made by you two."


    "Why does that matter? We are nobody. No one will care if we were the ones who made it."


    "Not yet, but as paper sweeps across the nation in trade, people will come to see that mark as a mark of quality. Sooner or later, your names will get out, and people will know that you and Jacklyn are the first-ever paper producers. You may be elevated to Freemen. That is the goal anyway. I think we will eventually have to make the symbol more fanciful so it isn''t copied."


    "If you don''t want it copied, then you should make it your crest, not EJ. It would be treason to use another house''s crest without permission of the head of the house."


    "Great idea. We will put my crest in the background with EJ upfront. That will be some detailed work. We may need a jeweler to create it."


    She sat down and shook her head. "I… This… This is too much, Lord Amos. I''m just a serf. I can''t become a freeman."


    "Well, it hasn''t happened yet, but if it is possible, then I will do it. You two have changed the world and should be recognized for it. Jacklyn is already a Freeman, but you should be recognized for your work as well. I will give you some time to think about it. I have to go see if I can hunt down the captain. I would like to travel to Cofi and Alfer sometime this week."


    I walked down the hall and headed out back. Then, I almost ran into the captain talking with Hyrum. "Oh, Captain, I was looking for…" I noticed Hyrum''s face. It looked haggard, almost like he hadn''t slept in days. "What is going on?" I blurted out before I could remember that this was a private meeting. "Scratch that. I shouldn''t have interrupted. I will meet with you later, captain."


    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    "No, it''s okay. You would have found out soon enough. Carrie broke off the engagement," Hyrum said tiredly.


    "She what? That doesn''t make sense. You two are perfect for each other."


    "I appreciate your kind words. I am glad to know you agree with my confusion."


    "She had to have given you a reason."


    "She wouldn''t say. She said it would ruin her family. She said she would be leaving with her mother and Marcus soon."


    "Well, that''s news to me," I said in surprise. "I know they are Freemen, but that doesn''t mean they can just spring this on me."


    "I told you, Lord Amos knew nothing about this," The captain said.


    "I shouldn''t have doubted. I am sorry, My Lord."


    "Well, I should have known. I should have been the first to know," I said, trying not to be angry. I took a deep breath. "Ok, well, it makes sense why she has been avoiding me now. Let''s figure this out. Just because her family is leaving doesn''t mean she has to. She is of marriageable age, so she really doesn''t have to leave with her family. It must have to do with the whole secret she can''t tell. It''s obvious that she isn''t the type to give herself to someone before marriage."


    "I am glad you think highly of her," Hyrum said.


    "Well, now that I know that the family is leaving, I am going to try to convince them to stay. I bet it was Marcus''s idea. I think I will have to find a way to make peace with him." I sighed, "Don''t worry, Hyrum, I will get to the bottom of this. You and Carrie shouldn''t suffer just because Marcus doesn''t like me." With that, I turned and left to go back to my study.


    This being baron thing was going to kill me; I just knew it. As I walked down the hall, I saw Carrie coming out from the door to the study. When our eyes met, she immediately dropped her head and hurried her step. Ok, this was just ridiculous, I said to myself.


    "Carrie, might I have a moment of your time?"


    She froze in place and her face turned pale, I would say she looked like a statue except her body was quivering.


    "Calm down, Carrie. I''m not going to hurt you. But I have a dilemma. Two people I admire very much and who are very much in love with each other want to get married, but for some reason, one of them wants to leave town. Could you please help me figure this out? I only want you two to be happy."


    Her shoulders tensed as if she was about to start sobbing. She looked so miserable I wanted to give her a hug.


    "Carrie, you are one of the kindest people I know. Hyrum is lucky to have someone like you."


    With bitterness in her voice, she said softly, "I am a wretch. I don''t deserve to live."


    "Whoa, whoa, whoa," I said while holding up my hands, "I know for a fact you are a good person. Please help me to understand what is going on. I promise I won''t tell Hyrum whatever it is." I decided to try to redirect her thoughts.


    "I mean, you aren''t a puppy kicker, are you?"


    She looked up at me in confusion, "What?"


    "You know a person who goes around kicking puppies."


    Her face scrunched up in shock, "Why would anyone do such a horrible thing?"


    "Exactly. See, you and I both agree that kicking puppies is a very bad thing. And if you wouldn''t even kick a puppy, it''s not like you would do something so unforgivable that Hyrum wouldn''t ever forgive you, right?" I smiled. I think I was getting her calmed down, so I decided to say something extreme again to make my point: "You haven''t committed any murders lately, have you?"


    I was about to laugh to lighten the mood when her eyes went wide, and her face drained of all color. Okay, maybe I took things too far. I was about to apologize for my horrible joke when Carrie collapsed to her knees.


    "Please spare my family!" She cried out, "Kill me. I swear they weren''t involved." Then she began to sob.


    OK, I admit it took me longer to put the whole situation together than it should have. I actually had to replay what I said to her a few times before it clicked. Crap! I was expecting to have to counsel her on not overindulging in alcohol or some sort of misdemeanor. Once it clicked, I grabbed Carrie''s arm and pulled her to her feet. Then I drag her to the papermaking room. She collapsed again once I let go. There was so much paper in here no one would accuse us of doing anything inappropriate.


    Now, I may have been a little slow on the uptake, but I wasn''t a complete imbecile. I had a pretty good idea of what was going on, and if I was off, she would tell me because if it was what I was thinking, it couldn''t get any worse.


    “You are saying that you poisoned my family?”


    Saying it out loud solidified it in my mind. I think she killed the entire Bicman family. I had to make sure.


    “Carrie?” I said.


    She said nothing, just continued to sob, but I also could smell that she had lost control of her bladder. Crap! How was I going to fix this? I didn''t want to behead anyone. I hadn''t even ever punched someone. I turned to the ceiling and shouted. "Endless one! You are in so much trouble right now. I could have been surfing, but you had to make me responsible for this. I mean, seriously, you can''t expect me to know how to fix this! It’s been, what, eleven days? I am still trying to get my own crap together, and then you drop this in my lap. This isn''t who I am. I''m no judge. I''m not an executioner. If you wanted a King Soloman, then you really screwed up.


    "And Carrie, shut up! If someone burst in here to see what is going it is going to be a lot harder to save you and your family."


    That actually worked. It probably wasn''t easy, but she forced herself to stop wailing.


    "I… I killed them… I should die. I want to die. Please kill me.” She sobbed.


    Wow, this may be hopeless. She might end up committing suicide. Her mind was about to break, probably broken already. Her mind was screaming for a way to escape this torment. I had once learned that when the mind was in pain, it could come up with incredible lies to get away from it, which gave me an idea.


    One of the therapy techniques that I enjoyed while trying to deal with my own trauma was hypnosis. Once I started using it, I began to study how it worked, but along with hypnosis, I decided to figure out the difference between hypnosis and brainwashing. I did not want to be brainwashed. From what I learned, I found they were similar in a lot of ways. I wasn''t an expert, but in my opinion, it was a matter of approach.


    In hypnosis, the person willingly relaxes their mental state to access the subconscious mind. In brainwashing, you put the brain under extreme amounts of stress to make it more suggestible and rewrite the mind. Maybe I could help the brain rewrite the memories like they do with brainwashing.


    I could tell she was mentally broken. She was not the type to kill. Even if she did hate me, she was nothing like her brother. He totally pulled off the ‘I am a sleeper agent vibe.’ scratch that. The whole point of being a sleeper agent is that you don’t give off vibes. So, yeah, that doesn''t work.


    Ok, focus Amos.


    So, she had probably been slowly descending into madness since the poisoning. Then Hyrum proposed, and when she realized, after saying yes, that she would have to lie to him for the rest of her life, it destroyed the rest of her sanity. Now, she was looking for an escape from the mental anguish and felt that her death was the only option.


    And as lord… as lord, I-


    I couldn’t. I had been here what, eleven days, and now I was supposed to kill someone.


    The thought made me want to vomit.


    I couldn’t do this.


    The image of Nathan''s body crushed and bleeding flashed into my mind.


    No, I am not going to be responsible for killing someone else.


    I should just run away, but then they would find Carrie. She would confess to someone else, and they would kill her. Her life was in my hands. I wouldn''t kill anyone ever again!


    I choked on some vomit that was threatening to come up.


    If I saved a murderer, was I going to go to hell? I couldn’t do it, though. I- Dang it, Endless One. This is all your fault. What did I tell you on my first day here? Oh, yeah, I remember now. You’ve got the wrong guy. I can’t believe I am about to do this, but… Crap! I can''t kill her.


    I had a handgun in the drawer on the side table next to my bed, just in case of a home invasion. But now I began to think it might been pointless since now that I am in a situation where I have someone''s life in my hands, I can''t pull the trigger.


    Did this make me a coward? Or did it make me a good person? Screw it all. I was going to do this my way and pray I still get an angel for my surf instructor.


    The other thought is that she was delusional and had never done anything to my family. The fact that she took a root to help calm herself made the second option a possibility as well. I just needed to convince her of that.


    "You didn''t poison the family. It was your father''s doing. All you did was carry the cups. You and I both know you could never have put the poison in the cups. You thought it was to help the family sleep. Your father only told you afterward. Don''t you remember?"


    "No," she cried, "He told us he had been paid to get rid of all of you."


    "He told you that afterward. When you found him putting something into the drinks he never told you what it was. It was only after that he told you?"


    "No, that''s not…"


    I had to stretch this lie. Make it work.


    "I was there, Carrie. I came to the kitchen to see if there was anything to settle my stomach. When I stuck my head in, I saw everything. Your guilt is making you believe it was your fault."


    "You couldn''t have been there. I…”


    My mind was working overtime to make this lie a reality, "How do you think I survived? I didn''t drink it because I already knew it might be poison."


    "Then why didn''t you say anything?"


    That was an excellent question, and I was stumped for a moment until inspiration hit me. "I only thought it might be poisoned. Who would have believed me? My father and brother never believed me. Like you, I felt I was probably wrong, and I would just be beaten for lying. So I just didn''t drink. You imagine yourself as the killer because your father died. You can no longer blame him, and your mind is trying to protect him. It''s called survivor''s guilt. Don''t you see the truth? It was your father, not you."


    "Why didn''t you…"


    "Why didn''t I accuse you earlier? Why wait until now? I almost did several times. Don''t you remember the meeting in the great hall where we were both afraid to talk? I didn''t know what to say. I decided to wait to see if you felt guilty for what happened. When I heard that you broke off the engagement with the love of your life because you did not feel worthy of his love, I knew it was time. I came to find you so I could poke around the issue until you told me. I didn''t expect you to have come up with such a ridiculous lie in your mind about you having poisoned us. I thought you would confess to the fact that you knew your father had done it."


    "But…"


    "Don''t you think I would be a little more outraged right now if I had just learned that my entire family had been murdered?"


    Actually, I wasn''t upset with her because I was directing my anger at her father and whoever hired him. I was also trying to lie to myself, convincing myself that what I was saying was true.


    "Your father told you what he had done after the fact and swore you all to secrecy. The fact that you confessed when confronted with the truth shows what an honorable person you are. You need to let go of this burdensome lie you have been telling yourself."


    She started to cry. For the next half hour, I stood there, coming up with lie after lie.


    "Unfortunately, you will need to stay in the room next door to my old room until I get this fixed. We can''t have people asking questions if we are going to save your family. I will let Cookie know you are not feeling well and I have quarantined you. Spend some time thinking about the real truth. I know your family wants to leave because they are afraid of the consequences, but if you all leave, it will cause the captain to become suspicious, and I won''t be able to protect you if he starts an investigation. I am not saying there isn''t going to be a punishment for your family. In this world, the sins of the father may haunt his children, but I can at least mitigate the punishment. Maybe there won''t be one. I want to see you and Hyrum wed. Now let''s get going."


    I left her in my old room and went to go find the captain and Hyrum. Hopefully, she doesn''t run off and do something reckless. I hope I was doing the right thing. The right thing for her, the right thing for Hyrum, and the right thing for the barony. I am sure of one thing, though. If she had hurt my nephew, I would have thrown her to the wolves without a thought and watched them as they devoured her. Now, it was time for a little prisoner''s dilemma with the other two family members. I think that is what they called it, anyway.