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  Will nodded, and headed out. He walked both men back to their homes, figuring that anyone watching would think the two had been out late at the pub and needed an extra hand to make it home upright. After ensuring the second man had gotten safely inside his own small home, Will walked toward the shadows and the deepest darkness he could find in the town. After forming a thick, invisible exoskeleton of all his remaining nanos, he took a deep breath, pictured the scene the thieves had projected of their home, and teleported there.

  It was a simple camp for wandering vagrants, comprised of a series of tents, and dotted with small fires built for warmth and cooking. The fires provided the added benefit of frightening away nighttime predators. Sentries armed with large, gleaming swords patrolled the perimeter for any who might look to relieve the gang of their ill-gotten gains. None of these precautions were sufficient to impede Will. He glanced around the camp, identified the largest tent, and walked toward it.

  A shout went up; he’d been spotted. Men spilled out of tents, drowsy from a night of drinking, most still in nightclothes. All quickly mobilized, and Will found himself surrounded by armed men who slowed his progress. “I come bearing a message for the one called Richard,” he said, his voice carrying throughout the throng of men, some thirty in number.

  “I think he has a message for you as well,” one man shouted, drawing his sword across his neck, simulating a throat slash or beheading. The crowd roared with laughter.

  “I’d be delighted to hear it,” Will said. “But I must deliver my message in person.”

  “We should give the boss the chance to kill this guy!” another man shouted. The crowd began to chant Richard’s name. After a few moments, the tent flaps opened, and a tall man with long brown hair emerged. Will had to admit that the man looked the part of a leader, and Richard exuded a charisma that, while not driven by Energy, was still quite powerful.

  “I see we have a guest,” Richard said. The men laughed. “You’ve come at a rather inopportune time, I’m afraid. We can certainly offer you no hospitality at this late hour.” He pulled a huge broadsword out of the sheath on his back. “But we can certainly offer you a place to… sleep.”

  “Very impressive,” Will said. “Thirty armed men against one unarmed man. I can see why these men flock to you; your singular bravery must be an inspiration to all of them.”

  Richard’s face darkened, and an uneasy silence fell upon the camp. “What do you want, stranger? And how is it that you know my name, and I know not yours?”

  “The three sent to Richland have elected not to complete their mission. They had sufficient encouragement not to return, not the least being that they were discovered before successfully relieving the townsfolk of their hard-earned coins. Messengers will be sent to other nearby towns, alerting them to you and your schemes. My message to you is simply this: disband, and find honorable work to do. Your days of thievery are over.”

  Richard looked pained. “Oh, dear. We’ve been found out? Well, boys, I guess this is the end of the road. Pack it up and head home.” He turned as if to head back to his tent.

  There was a pause as the crowd murmured in confusion. Richard then lunged at Will, raising the massive sword over his head before bringing it down on Will’s head with the force of both arms.

  The sword bounced off the top of Will’s head with a loud clang, and shattered in Richard’s hands.

  Richard stared at the hilt of his sword, the only piece of the weapon still intact, and then at Will. Will used his Energy and empathy skills to encourage the fear felt by all of the men in the camp at that point.

  Will walked to Richard, and removed the hilt of the sword from the man’s hands. “I think that’s excellent advice, Richard.” He faced the crowd. “All of you! You heard the man! Pack up, head back to where you came from!”

  The men, dazed, did as they were told. Tents were folded up as the emerging morning sun adding a small bit of light to the camp. As each man collected his belongings, he walked away, or rode a horse if he owned one.

  Richard was the last to depart. “How?” Richard asked. “How did you do that?”

  “How did I do what?”

  “How did you shatter my sword like that?”

  “I assume it was a combination of me having a thick skull and poor craftsmanship.”

  Richard nodded dully. “Yes, yes, of course.” His emotions were a tangle of confusion.

  “Find something noble to do, Richard,” Will said. “You are a natural leader of men; they flock to you and listen to what you say. Surely you can put that gift to better use than organizing a band of thieves?”

  Will turned and walked away, leaving the man alone with his thoughts. Richard was so deeply in his own mind that he didn’t even notice Will vanishing into thin air.

  IX

  Plan

  Will didn’t bother returning to his room. He crawled into a chair in the common room, rested his head on the table, and was fast asleep in moments. It seemed only an instant later that Aldus and Gerald were shaking him awake, expressing relief that they’d found him. Rumors had spread through the inn that the armed thieves had struck again, and when they’d not seen Will in the room, they’d feared the worst. Nicholas arrived with the town sheriff a few moments later, and Will watched, bleary-eyed, as the three thieves were bound with rope. Once they were secured, Will recalled his nanos. Aldus and Gerald watched in stunned silence, having until that moment been unaware that the thieves had been sitting at a table in the inn’s common room with no visible restraints.

  The sheriff walked over to Will after Nicholas nodded in Will’s direction. “I understand you’re responsible for locating these men. As dangerous as that must have been for a single man… thank you for doing so.” He extended a hand to Will.

  Will shrugged, but accepted the hand offered, and the two men shook. “They’d been fighting amongst themselves apparently. They had their swords out and waving and they’d all managed to get cut. I suppose they were arguing over the shares of the loot. No honor among thieves. None of them noticed that they’d dropped what they’d stolen before they started arguing about it. Lack of honor and lack of awareness get you injured and jailed every time, I imagine.”

  The sheriff chuckled. “All that may be true, but it took courage to bring them in. Our town owes you its thanks.”

  “So long as my friends and I can visit Richland and trade, I’ll have all the thanks I need for being in the right place at the right time.” The sheriff nodded and made his way out of the inn, towing the three thieves behind him.

  Gerald looked at Will in awe. “You found them?”

  Will yawned. “I couldn’t sleep. I think I’m ready for some now, though.”

  Aldus nodded. “We only need to get the supplies the community needs and load up the remaining wagons. We’ll take care of that and get you when we’re ready to depart. It sounds like you’ve had a busy and productive night. Get some sleep.”

  Will went back to the room shared by the men, and fell asleep again.

  He woke, totally refreshed, and recognized yet another difference between his twenty-first century existence and what he’d experienced here, in the eleventh century. This was not a twenty-first century business trip with a single-occupant room in a fancy hotel, replete with bags holding multiple changes of clothing, computers, books, and papers. They stayed at a simple inn, sharing a room with two others; each traveler brought no more than some night clothes and a coin purse. Gerald and Aldus carried swords, but those were strapped to their backs while they weren’t sleeping. Departure and check out, then, was essentially a matter of walking out of the room. They needn’t worry about a later bill for raiding the in-room mini-bar.

  Before he left, he reached into his pocket, past the coin purse — the contents of which he’d used to win favor with the innkeeper — and found the scroll of paper. He pulled the computer out, unrolled it, and tapped on the side to activate the screen. The paper glowed with text written in the future. Con
gratulations on your success with the Richland trade mission. The outlaw known as Richard is one to keep an eye on in the future. Don’t be afraid to problem-solve in this century as you did in your own past.

  Typical. Enough for him to know he’d not messed up, but not enough to give him true guidance. The computer, he’d hoped, would give him a daily series of tasks to perform to ensure the safety of the young girl known as Elizabeth. And yet she was back inside the hidden village in the forest, under the watchful eye of her predator father, and likely suffering immense pain in the absence of her only allies. It was difficult to conceive of how this plan was going to work if he needed to leave her on a regular basis. Was he expected to teleport back home each day to watch over her?

  Perhaps the critical message was in the last sentence. What type of twenty-first century problem-solving was he supposed to apply here? It wasn’t as if he could do research on the Internet or send a S.W.A.T. team after Arthur.

  With no answers coming to mind, Will rolled the paper computer up into a scroll and put it back into his pocket. He’d need to contemplate that message later. For now, he needed to catch up with his friends. He left the room, after first habitually checking in every corner and under every coarse blanket to see if they’d left anything behind, and wandered down to the common room. He found the innkeeper, Nicholas, clearing tables of clay and wood dishes used during lunch.

  “Mr. Stark!” Nicholas said, surprised. “I thought you had left already. I have some vegetable broth and bread still available if you’re hungry.”

  “I’d love some of the broth,” Will admitted. Nicholas returned with a bowl soon after, and Will enjoyed his fill of the soup. They exchanged some small talk while he ate. Nicholas informed him that the others had already hitched the horses to the wagons and had nearly completed shopping for the purchases on their list. Will asked if the thieves had made it safely to the jail, and Nicholas reported that they had, and that word had spread rapidly through the town about the visiting Trader who had managed to apprehend the men. Will also learned that the two men attacked had suffered only minor wounds and were back on their feet already. Will smiled inside; he’d dispatched his own healing nanos into the men while he’d gone after Richard and his gang, and the devices had done their work. Reminded of the fact that he’d done so, he recalled the nanos. He hadn’t realized he could loan the machines in that fashion until he’d tried it overnight, and hoped he wouldn’t have the need to do so again in the future.

  Fully nourished for the journey ahead, Will thanked the innkeeper and headed out to the central market area, where he found his traveling companions. They were loading the wagons with all manner of materials requested by their neighbors. Eva checked items off on thin slivers of wood, using a piece of charcoal as a pencil to make her notations as the purchases were made. Will received warm welcomes from his team; clearly, Aldus and Gerald had filled the women in on Will’s exploits in apprehending the thieves overnight, which Will attempted to downplay. The two victims came forward, looking none the worse for wear, and thanked Will profusely for his efforts, and in particular for locating the bags of coins the thieves had taken and later dropped. Their genuine smiles were the best form of thanks.

  As their departure time arrived, many in the town of Richland paraded with the caravan to the city gates and then out on to the open road. At the first stop, Eva asked Will to take over driving the horses, which he did with much trepidation. Eva spent that leg of the journey writing figures down on the slivers of wood, which Will understood to be her form of a transaction ledger. Will wondered how many in this century actually knew how to read and do arithmetic; his understanding of history wasn’t extensive, but it seemed to him that this woman was exceptional and unusual in many ways.

  As the group stopped for the evening on the way home, Eva called everyone around them. “I’ll make this simple: we just had our most profitable Trading mission ever. By far. Our split of the profits should come to approximately fifty gold coins each.”

  Gasps of shock and surprise rose from the group. Will had no basis of comparison for this level of profit. “What type of profit is more standard?”

  “You must first understand, Will, how our community’s system works,” Eva replied. “We are given goods to sell and lists of supplies to purchase from everyone in the community. Each person provides a minimum cost to sell and a maximum price to pay for each item. Where we are able to negotiate better deals, we as Traders take half of the profit, and then we divide our total take among all of our Traders. Our total profit was three hundred gold coins, or roughly six gold coins per member of the community. Our previous best was about one hundred twenty gold coins in profit among five Traders, or twenty-four gold coins each. On this trip, we made double our previous best per Trader, and that’s with adding one more Trader to the team.”

  Will was stunned. Had they truly done that well? He still had no perspective on what fifty gold coins meant in terms of living standard and relative wealth, but since it was double their previous best it was certainly a good thing.

  Eva explained that when they returned, they’d be mobbed by their neighbors looking for reports on how they’d done. Eva would handle the distribution; she carefully tracked coins in and out, and ensured that each person got the correct share of the profit. For instance, they’d gotten a better profit on the swords created by the smiths than the fabrics created by the weavers, and she’d make sure that she got each person what they’d earned. Everyone would do better than they’d ever done before, though, so it should be a positive experience, though time-consuming.

  “You should use some of your profit to get time with Elizabeth,” Matilda said. “You could probably convince Arthur to part with her for a week for one of those gold coins.”

  “No!” Will said, his tone sharper than he’d intended. Five sets of eyes stared at him, surprised at the outburst. “I will not pay money to help keep someone in bondage.”

  “You don’t need to have her do anything unpleasant,” Aldus said. “Most of us encourage her to sleep off whatever she’s dealt with previously.”

  “We don’t like the system that’s in place either,” Gerald said. “But fighting against the overwhelming numbers who support it? That would be suicidal.”

  Will sensed Eva’s unease with this conversation, and he knew why. Eleanor, one of the Traders, was one who’d not yet been convinced about the impropriety of the community’s system of “hiring” Elizabeth to do the unwanted and unpleasant. The Traders had, unofficially, agreed to try to change that system, though they weren’t sure how. For the moment, they paid the fee to Arthur and refused to use Elizabeth’s time as others did; if she worked, she was paid directly.

  “You do what you feel is best,” Will said. “I’ll do things my way.”

  Eva studied his face. “I will do what I am able to do,” she replied. “But if I can do more, then I will do so.”

  The others nodded, and Eleanor, after a pause, nodded as well.

  “Here is my question, then,” Will said. “How much does Arthur charge to sell his daughter into slavery again and again, day after day?”

  There was an uncomfortable silence. “One silver coin per day,” Eva said.

  “Is it fair to say that most of our neighbors greatly value money?”

  Heads nodded.

  “Then I propose this: we do not give Arthur any money. We use the money we have collected through Trading to pay those… hiring Elizabeth three silver coins each day. One will compensate them for what they’ve chosen to pay Arthur. One coin reimburses them for what they pay to Arthur, and two more as well. So they have two coins in hand rather than one. As secrets are uncovered, and as Elizabeth recognizes exactly how to fulfill this dream Arthur is selling, the people we work with can use the money earned by not mistreating Elizabeth to purchase those secrets.”

  “And where will they learn these secrets that they’ll pay for?” Eleanor asked.

  Will smiled. “Why, they’ll
learn it from Elizabeth, of course.”

  Eva laughed. “So they pay one coin to Arthur, receive three coins from us, and pay two coins to Elizabeth?”

  “Naturally,” Will said. “She talks to people once per day, privately. In fact, I think it would be appropriate if she has these educational sessions inside the Schola. She will make money twice as fast as Arthur.”

  “One problem, however,” Aldus said. “Won’t we run out of coins eventually? This plan works until we don’t have the coins to pay people to do this.”

  “Several scenarios are possible,” Will said. “First, people are likely to start seeing the benefits of this type of working relationship with Elizabeth. At some point, if there truly are secrets to be unlocked inside the Schola, Elizabeth will be the first to know. We need to make the point that everyone has paid Arthur money, but no one has paid Elizabeth money, though she’s the one suffering through all of the testing. When the payoff comes, it needs to be financially rewarding for her. It’s possible that she could learn it’s a process that has multiple steps, and they’ll need to work with her over several sessions to start seeing any benefits. In other words, eventually people will choose to do this because it is valuable to them, and hopefully because the previous approach is simply evil.”

  He was aware of a range of emotions: guilt, primarily, but also anger. They’d been part of this system since its inception, or at least for many years, and he’d called it evil. They were angry at someone who would put the word to what they’d done. Yet for four of the five, the guilt came from understanding the reality that what he’d said, though painful, was true. They’d not made any type of public stand; they’d simply used the system as everyone else had, convincing themselves it was to Elizabeth’s benefit to simply rest for a day. Will’s proposal essentially involved paying Elizabeth directly for her knowledge, and the skills others could develop as a result would be incredibly valuable, far more than a few coins.