Raising Steam

by Peter Rhodan

  On one of days off he took a ride to Wern and back on one of the trains just to experience what it was like. The seats were hard and the carriages bounced around a lot but the trip was as quick as if he had been riding a horse at full gallop. Wern was also busy. There was an iron works there as well and then there was the enormous ship being built on the south side of the bay. The new docks and the gate that closed to hold the water level up at a good height were pretty impressive too. None of the local ships were in port at the time of his visit, so he resolved to come south another time when he heard there was a ship in port just to see one.

  This whole north western corner of the Empire was a hive of activity. New tools were improving the way farmers operated. The sanitation laws were annoying but apparently made a huge difference to the amount of sickness. It was all very exciting but also scary in its way and gave him much food for thought as well as much to report to his father.

  Chapter 15

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  The second cargo ship was finished a good deal faster than the Dawnstar, the lessons learnt from rigging that ship standing Cambelyn in good stead with the new Coel’s Pride, as he insisted the new ship be named. Captain Largwil made noises about buying the Coel’s Pride as well but instead Arturo, Cambelyn and Arcadius chipped in together and hired the man Largwil had appointed to captain the Moraciu to join them in setting up a new shipping company.

  As Largwil had not promised the man anything other than a steady wage, being offered the chance to be his own boss and to have a share in the trading company were sufficient attraction to gain his services. As soon as the Coel’s Pride was launched, the next ship was laid down. This ship was going to be the first warship and would rather longer than the Coel’s Pride was although still with just the two masts. It would follow the same basic design but would be double planked and the bulwarks and upper deck raised to compensate for the deeper draft the heavier build would entail. She was to mount eight of the new catapults on each side, rather larger than the army ones and carry some combat troops as well. The masts were to be a bit taller and her sail area nearly thirty percent more than the Coel’s Pride to compensate for her heavier build.

  Word came north that Combrosius had hired at least a thousand Saxons to bolster his army, obviously feeling intimidated by the successes of Arturo and his Republicans. Where he got the funds from no one seemed to know. He had also managed to re-equip over a hundred of his cavalry as Catafractii. Valerius explained to Arturo that these were armour protected lance armed heavy cavalry copied from the Sassanians. Valerius did not seem overly perturbed about this development, partly because as far as the scouts could determine, they still hadn’t introduced stirrups in the cavalry Combrosius commanded. In addition to that, Combrosius seemed to have no idea Republican scout cavalry were observing his every move from a distance.

  The first ever election was held with great success. Soldiers manned the polling stations to ensure there was no trouble and ensigns and above manned the registration desks where the voter’s names were marked off the roll. There had been repeated explanations of the procedure beforehand and on the whole the operation went without a serious hiccup. There were only three candidates for the Concilium Romanum, Arturo, Darrien of the Carveti, a cousin of Coel’s who had appeared from somewhere and Lewellyn, Mair of Lugowalion.

  Their names were printed on a sheet of paper with a box next to each and people were instructed to mark with an x which candidate they wished. It was a surprisingly orderly and simple operation that even those that could not read could participate in once they knew which letter group represented which candidate. In all over twenty thousand people voted, rather more than Arturo thought lived in the area controlled by the Republic. He won by a massive margin, getting over fifteen thousand of the votes. That was male votes of course. The idea of women voting was still a bit too revolutionary for general acceptance, even Briffet feeling the people were not ready for such a change yet.

  Two days after the election and with everyone still recovering from the party thrown in Dervent to celebrate the first successful election, the dock at Wern was officially opened by Dileen. The lock gates could be opened at near high tide to let ships be towed in or out, a fixed steam engine being positioned near the gate to provide the tow cable with power. Alternatively, ships could be towed in and out by either their boats or by the crew hauling cables along the dock. Both these methods were slow and laborious and were only going to be used in emergencies. Because the dock was not tidal now, the ships rode at a good height for loading and unloading which could be done much quicker.

  On top of all that, rail lines were laid down either side of the dock basin so that goods could transferred from wagon to ship and vice versa very easily. Trade was picking up. The copper mines along the coast from Deva which had become largely derelict were being re-opened and the metal shipped north to the Republic in ever increasing amounts. Manufactured goods like the almost mass produced cloth and the new ploughs were being shipped around the coasts and coal from the mines was being shipped to places like Deva for heating now that the cost had fallen so much due to the more efficient transport methods.

  Arturo took a force south to the site of Glannoventa, which had been a naval base in earlier centuries apparently. The fort was run down and deserted while little remained of any naval facilities. The town had been largely deserted as well. Arturo decided it would make the ideal place to put a chemical plant, well away from everyone and left a Century behind to start effecting repairs to the fort to make it habitable. Now all he needed to do was to find a source of sulphur and get people collecting the saltpetre crystals from under dung piles.

  Theodorus had accompanied him despite objections from others wanting him working on projects closer to home. They spent some time studying the waterways and concluded that a breakwater could be built from the north side and another from the south further out to provide a safer entry to the inside bay. Such a construction would have required a vast workforce in the old Imperial days, but they planned on running rail lines out along each breakwater as it grew and using spoil from the mines to provide the necessary material for the walls.

  They returned north discussing a way of using a steam engine mounted on a barge to power some sort of dredging device, the obvious plan being a round wheel like a water wheel only with the buckets picking up stuff off the bottom rather than having water drop into them. Theodorus was quite enthused with this idea and disappeared into his house at Wern to start working up a set of plans.

  The Republic’s coffers were getting emptied rapidly so Arturo quietly slipped out one morning to return to the lake housing his shuttle. As before he was accompanied by Oween and the bodyguard girls with the same two of them along. They had acquired a third one from somewhere just before he had journeyed down to Glannoventa but as she was still only classed as a trainee by the other two, so they had left her at the fort. The two accompanying him were now far more proficient with their katanas than he was as their occasional sparring sessions had demonstrated. In his defence Arturo felt they had to make due allowance for his lack of time to train, what with all his other responsibilities. The truth, which he admitted to himself, was that he was simply not that good at sword fighting of any type as he lacked the natural eye hand coordination and balance that Oween and Briana exhibited.

  The girls had also acquired some proficiency with knife throwing from somewhere. Apparently there were a couple of really good knife throwers in the army and one of them had given the girls lessons. They were also now equipped with the metal crossbows as well, with which they were also very accurate, which fact Arturo was not surprised at, given everything else they appeared to excel at. There had been trouble with a couple of the new Selgovae ‘volunteers’ shortly after returning from the battle. Three of them had cornered Briana when she was bathing, the other girl, Roanin being on duty guarding Arturo at the time.

  They made the mistake of letting her reach her weapons, one died,
one had to be sent back to the Selgovae lands as a cripple and the other took a month to recover from his wounds. Briana had insisted they not be charged, arguing the matter with Arturo and Valerius. She insisted that it was a private matter, outside of military hours and she wanted everyone to know that she had bested three men by herself, naked in the bath house. Arturo saw the point immediately and laughing, ordered Valerius to let the matter rest.

  The small party reached his old campsite, which was surprisingly still untouched apparently and they set up camp. The girls showed no surprise at the gear Arturo produced from the place he had hidden them and he quickly stripped down in preparation for the ordeal. The water was still as cold as ever when he dived in. This time he had some decent tools with him courtesy of Ceri’s iron works and was able to prize a good amount of gold off in no time. He spent time scouring the mud and added some bits battle armour to the collection and finally collapsed in front of the fire Oween had prepared while he had been diving on the wreck. After a break to warm up it was back into the water for another couple of pieces of battle armour and then back to Dervent, which they didn’t reach till after dark. He had been unable to locate a single large piece of battle armour, but the several smaller bits would have to do. The water was just too cold!

  The first tax collection day would be in three months and what he had secured off the wreck should keep the state liquid till then. He had completely re-written the tax code finally with help from Arcadius and most tax would now be based on property. Companies would be taxed differently depending on what they did. The estimates he and Jacob had worked up indicated that they should just manage to pay for the next year’s operation of the government from the tax collected although it would be close. Fortunately the ‘palladium’ as he call the battle armour coins, had been accepted at the value he had assigned so if treasury needed a bit of a top up next year there was still plenty on the wreck although it was getting harder to find bits that could be worked loose.

  There was another source of revenue in the sale of land. The census carried out by Arcadius had revealed large tracts of land owned by no one. There were deceased estates here and there, other pieces of land that had been farmed but were now derelict with no owners to be found let alone the large tracts of land no one had ever settled on. Down south there were signs of more areas of coal and the iron beds that seemed to extend nearly to Glannoventa. As another bonus, an old mine working in the mountains south of the wall about halfway east to Vindolanda showed signs that with the use of steam engines it would be worth reopening the site for the extraction of lead and silver.

  Arcadius, Oween and Briffet had him over to dinner to one night where they raised the question of naming. Oween only really had the one name. Arcadius had two but his family was not really directly Roman as everyone thought, but was, in fact, originally from Roman settlers in Hispania. Valerius was the only real Roman locally although even he did not use the old Roman triple naming style properly.

  Arturo had already discovered the problem with the local naming conventions while watching Arcadius doing the census. The trouble was he did not really want to force people to change their naming conventions although it was possible he would have no choice later. Briffet and Oween opened the issue by asking that if they had a son could they name him Arturo?

  Arturo smiled, very gratified, but then realised he was a chance to apply a little of the respect and influence he had gained since his arrival indirectly to society. “What I would rather is that you publicly name your child in a new style, a style I would like to see adopted across the Republic.”

  Arcadius raised his eyebrows. “A new style?”

  Arturo nodded. “Yes. The style used where I come from. It is similar to the old Roman three name system but simpler and really much better for sorting people out who have similar first names.”

  The older man cocked his head sideways. “And that system would be?”

  Arturo made a small wave with his hand. “Every person has a family name as did the ancient Romans. In my people’s case this always comes last in their full name. So, you are Arcadius Secularis. Briffet would be Briffet Secularis until she married then she would become Briffet whatever which would be Oween’s family name except in his case he does not have one. So, he could be called Oween his father’s a name son in all one word or he could be called Oween of Dervent which would be transcribed as Oween Dervent. On the other hand, while it is most common that a woman changes her last name to that of the family she is marrying into it is not always necessarily so. Not often but frequently enough that no one bats an eyelid, the man will change his name to that of the family his new wife belongs to so in this case Oween would become Oween Secularis.”

  He paused and smiled at their somewhat befuddled expressions. “I will have to be honest and say it mostly happens when a fellow marries into a rich and or powerful family, often where a particular line did not have any male heirs to keep the family name going. This is something the ancient Romans did regularly I understand from Melwyn. Apparently, they often adopted men into their families for the same reason”

  He paused as they all absorbed this idea. “The key point is that the last name is the family name. It does not then matter how many other names a person carries around, including nicknames. You know like that Saxoni up in the second legion known as Redengast the Black, Alan killer. As you know from your census work the variable naming conventions make it hard to clearly identify people without clumsy identifiers and that is only going to get worse as the population grows and we bring more area under Republican control.”

  Arcadius nodded. “So just to make sure I have this right. People would have a minimum of two names, a first name they are known by and a last name which would be their family name?” Arturo nodded. “And generally, women would change their last name to that of the family they were marrying into although it was quite permissible for the man to change his family name to his wife’s family if he wanted to.”

  Arturo nodded again. “Yes. In practice most people have three names in my land.” He looked at Oween with a grin. “Oween here is prime candidate for that. You have a proud family tradition, you are wealthy and a leader in society. Oween does not really have a family name anyway so it would make sense for him to adopt your family name and become Oween Secularis.” Oween looked like he was about to choke. Arcadius looked pensive. “Their children would then be born with the Secularis family name and could then be given any first or other names you like. One of the common traditions with my people is for the powerful families to use great grandparent names.”

  Arcadius studied Oween for a moment as if looking for something inside his soul then turned to Arturo. “Grandparent names?”

  “Yes. The first child would be given the first name of its’ paternal great grandparent of that sex, and a second name of the maternal great grandparent of that sex. So if these two have a son first he would be given a first name of Oween’s grandfather and his second name would the name of Briffet’s mother’s father’s name, A second son would be given name of Arcadius’ father and a second name of Oween’s mother’s father’s name. Female children would be similarly named but for the grandmothers. Of course it breaks down after two male or two female children but that is where families could introduce new names that were important so that a third male child could be named Arturo.” He smiled.

  Arcadius leaned back and thought about what Arturo had just presented. Briffet and Oween spoke quietly together for a bit, too softly for Arturo to hear. “I can see advantages for the census, certainly. Getting people to adopt this last name, family name thing may take a while though.”

  “Oh yes, but if the leading families adopt it clearly early on that will be a start. Plus, if we can get the priests in on the act they can pressure couples to have a family name when they get married or when their first child is baptised with the Christians. We could introduce a registrar of births in the hospitals as well so people would be encouraged to do the du
al name thing there as well. Then your people could apply pressure before the next census in a few years’ time,” He paused while Arcadius let out a sigh of relief, largely feigned. “The next census can used to really get the last name, family name thing in place across the whole Republic.”

  Arcadius nodded but turned to face Briffet and Oween. He studied them for a few moments. “Well Oween. Do you have a family name lined up or am I going to have to accept you becoming a Secularis?”

  Briffet held up Oween’s hand. “We would like to have Secularis as our family name father. It is important that our family should continue and you are the last of our name. Your brother died many years ago before I was born and you have not heard from your sister since she moved to Londinium.”

  Arcadius smiled. “yes. That is all true. And to be fair, Oween has proved a much better son than I imagined he would. Your influence I think Arturo.”

  Arturo waved his hand. “He was never really a bad person, just lazy I think, so he just needed to be introduced to the right, ah, cause.” He declaimed. Arcadius laughed, and Arturo joined him, as did Briffet. Only Oween refused to join in the merriment, trying to stand on his dignity in the face of their amusement.

  The next day brought a visitor from the lands of the Dumnoni in the far south west of the island. He had heard from Captain Largwil about things going on here in the north and had come to see for himself. Tystan was a large man with greying, light brown hair. He wore Roman style civilian clothing of the type common in the larger cities and was accompanied by two younger men similarly if less ornately attired. They had sailed north in the Dawnstar from Isca where they had been engaged in some trade, having crossed over the narrow straight from Dumnonia. They arrived in Dervent on the morning train from Wern and were thoroughly amazed by their experience of train travel, even though it was still at a speed not much greater than a trotting horse.