Raising Steam

by Peter Rhodan

  After the dinner, as he was leaving, he got Ceri to one side. “So, when did this happen?” he asked.

  “When did what happen” Ceri replied looking honestly puzzled by Arturo’s oblique question.

  “Young Keelia, Ceri my friend. I could see which way the wind was blowing.”

  Ceri smiled. “Oh that. I don’t know, a couple of months ago I think. I met her at Vellgern’s house one night when he had me over to dinner and, well, you know. One thing led to another. She is very lovely is she not?”

  Arturo smiled and nodded. The girl was young, blond and quite pretty. Vellgern’s position as Mair added to the rather successful farm he ran meant that Keelia had been dressed quite nicely in a very Romanised style without being as overtly Roman as Briffet was. Arturo could certainly understand Ceri’s attraction to the girl. And he could understand why Vellgern would encourage such a match. Ceri had quietly become the wealthiest man in the region and probably in the whole of Britannia. With the backing of Arturo, he would only keep getting richer so Vellgern encouraging a match with his daughter was no surprise.

  “So, you’ll be the next one of my friends getting tied to a woman. At this rate I’ll shall have to move away to make sure the disease isn’t catching.” Arturo joked.

  Ceri looked sideways at Arturo. “Oh. I thought you had already caught it my friend.” He smirked. Oh dear. His attraction to Morghanna was that obvious apparently.

  “Ah but that’s different my friend. Politics comes into things with me you know.”

  Ceri nodded. “Yes, it would have to I suppose. She is a very attractive woman though.” He offered and Arturo found himself agreeing all too easily. And not just because of her lovely face or attractive figure. Without the junk food common in the Federation, women hereabouts were simply not as rounded as Federation women. Their diet was far less rich and the availability of food was much tighter and as a consequence, most local women had trim figures, the younger ones at least.

  No, it wasn’t Morghanna’s looks that were her most attractive feature he decided. It was her manner. Because of the patriarchal social structure most women were meek, dutiful and fairly insipid to talk to, whereas Morghanna, although raised with the same sense of a woman’s position from an early age, had also been raised as a princess of her people by a father who would at least ask her opinion on matters even if her view was then ignored. As a result, she was far more forthright and willing to speak her mind than most local women, even ones of position like say Coel’s wife, who was a mouse in public.

  The exodus of her people and her assuming charge of even the elder male advisors had given her an air of authority and self-confidence much more in tune with women raised in the Federation than the typical local women. Her attitudes to a lot of things were still provincial and in many ways primitive, but she had a keen intelligence, appeared to grasp the basics of the technological advances Arturo was importing readily and seemed a genuinely nice person. It was her inner self confidence and her almost unconscious demand to be treated as an equal that so attracted him he felt. The trouble was that apart from everything else he still felt as if he was betraying his wife every time he thought of Morghanna even though his wife was irrevocably lost in space and time.

  Resolving to not encourage her in case she was interested in him he deliberately not so much avoided her as did not go out of his way to be in her company. Her returning in Lugowalion helped, as did her heavy involvement in seeing to the needs of all her people, now spread along the wall in the old forts. She spent much time travelling, making sure they got the necessary food and medical attention and sorting out problems arising from the enforced stay in Roman controlled lands.

  Arturo kept himself busy dealing with the increasing paperwork the administration was producing. This was a major downside of making paper in quantity he had decided! The drawbacks of the first small steps in creating an efficient bureaucracy had begun to manifest itself. The coinage situation was still a problem but tin from Dumnonia, paid for with tools, combined with copper from near Deva meant that bronze coins were now circulating in sufficient quantity, particularly as the Scotti often traded bronze items for the cloth and metal objects they wanted. Which in turn was either exchanged at the bank for coins or used to pay taxes. Either way it produced a steady stream of bronze that was re-smelted and turned into coins.

  Silver was still in short supply though but there was a steady trickle from the lead mine south of Vindolanda and some from Hispania, which surprised Arturo. A ship not much larger than Captain Largwil’s old Moarciu turned up with assorted metals, wines and a load of sulphur, word of his needing this substance having spread far and wide apparently. The captain of the ship bought a large quantity of pots, pans and such like, cloth and paper as well as coal, being surprised at the low cost and every glass item he could lay his hands on.

  He and his crew marvelled at the steam engines and rail lines, and promised to return, the captain of the vessel being especially interested in getting one of the big cargo ships Cambelyn was building. Fortunately, the Romulus had been at sea carrying out trials in the waterway up near Lugowalion when the ship from Hispania had called so they did not get to see the big warship. Well big in a relative sense. On top of that, the second warship was so little advanced that it looked no different from the nearly finished cargo ship alongside it.

  The rail line south soon reached the still incomplete bridge over the river short of Glannoventa. Arturo came south with his sulphur and oversaw the construction of a small branch to where the chemical works was starting to be built. The junction he named Vulcania after the god of that name, the tongue in cheek reference appealing to him.

  Amelius was amused at his fiddling with the various ingredients trying to make a working gunpowder. The first efforts merely sizzled and it was only a after two days of frustration that he thought to reverse the order of the chemicals. He was pretty sure he had the relative quantities right and once he reversed the sulphur and the potassium he got a very nice flash much to the surprise of the sceptical Amelius.

  The next step was to seal some of the powder in a confined space and light it. He chose a small ceramic jar, sealing the top with a waxed cork with a hole through the centre. Some experimentation with paper and some of the powder over the course of a morning resulting in a simple wick that burned well enough. It was not so much as reliable in terms of time it took burn as it burned without going out part way through. After a break for lunch he and Amelius headed out to a spot a fair way from the one finished building which Amelius lived in and placed the pot on the ground with the wick protruding. Arturo used a flint striker to start a small fire and soon had a small piece of wood alight at one end which he applied to the fuse and then at Arturo’s insistence they both ran over the small bank between the spot chosen for the test and the where the rest of the complex would eventually be.

  From this vantage point they watched and waited for a long time without anything happening. Arturo was pretty sure the wick was still burning, albeit much more slowly than he had anticipated but Amelius was less patient and convinced the wick had gone out was about to get up when the pot exploded with a very satisfying bang and a cloud of smoke.

  Amelius jumped and losing his balance rolled down the bank a small distance. He sheepishly recovered and followed Arturo back to the site of the first ever gunpowder explosion in the Roman Empire. Of the pot, little was to be seen although the area was strewn with tiny shards and the air smelled of brimstone. All in all, Arturo thought it a very satisfying test. The now extremely cautious approach of Amelius was also rather amusing.

  “Good.” Arturo said, looking around the site. “Now you have some idea why I wanted this place planned with all the banks between individual buildings. This stuff is dangerous. Especially the stuff we will actually be making rather than the test powder we just used.” He paused and looked at the very subdued Amelius who nodded. “As the stuff is manufactured, it will be packed in small wooden kegs, the d
esign for which I will give to the carpenter I will be hiring now we have something to go on with. As you make enough to fill each keg it will be stored in a different building the first time round. Then you can come back and double up and then triple up and so forth. But each building will not hold more powder than any other building.”

  Amelius nodded after a moment realising Arturo had stopped and was waiting for a response. “The stuff is really dangerous. The men working with it are to wear no metal of any description, not knives, earrings, finger rings, belt buckles, absolutely nothing. They can wear felt slippers to keep their feet warm but no boots or such. Nothing that can cause a spark. Do you understand?”

  Amelius bowed his head. “Yes Dominus. I understand. It will be as you command.”

  “Good. I will start actively offering a reward for the potassium crystals and you have enough sulphur for now. This is how the proper powder will be made.” And he proceeded to describe the process of mixing the basic ingredients, wetting them and kneading the mix then letting it dry before then carefully grinding the finished material into a powder. Once he understood that the process was really no different than the way he made some of his medical powders, Amelius got a good handle on the idea and made several suggestions about the practical methods needed for the production.

  Oween had remained in Glannoventa sorting out some details about the rail line for Arturo, along with his cavalry escort. Briana and Marlyn were unavoidable but had been persuaded to remain at the building so had heard but did not see the explosion. After that loud bang they refused to let him out of their sight despite his assurances. Briana had noticed the shards of pottery Arturo was pretty sure because on the trip back to Glannoventa she looked at him with an unusual wariness instead of her normally almost worshipful gaze. Arturo couldn’t decide if she was pissed he’d not had her at his side for the explosion or because she missed being the first to see the latest way of causing mayhem!

  Returning north he spent a couple of days at Wern talking to Lewarth about boring out metal tubes. He had settled on making a flintlock muzzle loading musket as his first firearm. Partly this was because it was simply an easier design to build first up, not requiring any more chemical advances such as percussion primers or precision machining. Besides, he no idea of what material was used for percussion caps and he had not the slightest notion of to make brass cartridges although he imagined Ceri would be able to solve that problem given some time to work on the problem. On top of that he did have some of idea of how a musket operated as he had once seen a replica musket of a type called a ‘Brown Bess’ although why it was called that he had no idea.

  The way the mechanism worked had stuck in his head and he remembered enough about the design that he had some notion of how it could be made so at least he felt he could manage to reproduce it. The only thing he was going to do differently was to add rifling to the barrel, something the musket he had seen had lacked. At least he hoped he was, otherwise, the thing would be little better than the manuballistas his men were armed with now. Cannon too. Both weapon types would be very dangerous to develop he imagined. He must stress the need to test fire remotely using a fuse!

  The first snows arrived soon after but here the rail lines proved their worth, making travel easy and comfortable despite the outside conditions. At least until there was a snowfall so heavy that they had to stop the trains running for four days. Winter passed uneventfully. The extra produce the advances in farming techniques Arturo had introduced combined with the previous summer’s relatively good weather pattern that had suited farming meant that there had was a good surplus of food with which to feed the Selgovae refugees.

  It was a strain on the Republic budget, but they managed it. Many of the Selgovae women had started do a bit of bit work here and there which earned them money they could use for food as well. Morale amongst the refugees remained fairly good, apparently. Morghanna maintained a confident manner the entire winter and the refugees clearly took their lead from her. The Republican cavalry patrols along the wall keeping an eye on things were actually welcomed by the refugees, which surprised him somewhat. The centuries marching along the Wall for the monthly changing of the garrisons at Vindolanda and at Neuvoportus were also welcomed apparently.

  Arturo spent most of his time at Dervent or Wern overseeing various projects during the dark winter days. One of these was the printing of Caesar’s Gallic War, a translation of which he had read in Naval College, but which he was now able to read in the original. Whether it was his faulty memory or the subtle reinterpretations that had pervaded successive translations over the thousands of years since it was first written he wasn’t sure, but he found the original vastly more interesting than the Anglic translation he had read back in College. The fact that it was now a lot more relevant to his current situation may have helped heighten his interest!

  The number of books published was growing and sales continued to mount even though the literate population was limited. The school primer he and Melwyn had devised proved to be very successful and another covering the new mathematics was added to the educational resources. The schools were working to a fair extent and Arturo finally persuaded Melwyn to move to the new University at Alladraef where he would teach Literature, History, Rhetoric and Philosophy.

  To Melwyn he added Theodorus , at least for the winter months, to teach Engineering to some of his more promising foremen plus his experienced men such as Eugenius were taught the basics of the new mathematics over the break while snow rendered their continuing engineering work impossible. He also dragged Carmelyn away from the First Legion and set him up as head of the Medical School, which at first consisted solely of just the soldier on his own with a couple of students.

  Despite some loud objections he enforced a rule that any suitable student would be accepted, male or female and to help ensure fairness placed this old harridan he had gotten to know in Dervent at the University as female counsellor whom female students could take their problems to. Her husband had been a soldier in the Roman army before dying a few years back and she was not only tough but also keen on the idea of female rights. No one had any doubt that any complaint taken to her would find its way to the Dux in short order if she couldn’t sort it out herself. The lists for the first semester filled with applicants slowly as word was spread, particularly by advertising in the weekly newspaper. This too was proving very popular and early in the new year went over to two issues a week.

  Keeping himself away from Lugowalion meant he did not see that much of Morghanna, which was both a good thing distraction wise, but he found it hard not to think of her even so. Using a steam engine to power a lift was another device he worked on over the winter, especially for use in the mines and with the help of one of Ceri’s more mechanically minded men and some ideas from Theodorus by the time spring approached they had a workable prototype erected at the mine on the farm next to Arcadius’ property.

  There was a sizable party of mining types from all over at the demonstration they put on at the specially driven vertical shaft down to the main chamber which was normally accessed by a horizontal shaft from low ground off to the west a bit. The depth was really only about twenty feet or so, but the demonstration went well and the men from two new mines near Wern ordered a device each on the spot, their mines running deep rather than horizontal.

  A second demonstration showed how air could be pumped into a mine via a treated canvas pipe with leather and metal fittings using an air pump also powered by the steam engine. This was of less immediate appeal than the mine shaft lift although several of the men said they could see a need in the future as their mines extended and thus increased the need to keep the air fresh where the men were working.

  With the rail line complete the people of Lugowalion gradually discovered the advantages of cheap coal for both heating and cooking. Given the massive deforestation that had occurred under the Roman occupation the cost of wood had been getting ridiculous but the coming of the rail lines meant
that from now on the main use for timber would be for building rather than heating and cooking. This switch to coal was also good for environment as there was a large amount of promising young regrowth in disused areas due to the departure of most of the Roman army that been in occupation for centuries and who had used the trees for heating. This re-growth would now largely get to mature into proper trees rather than been used for firewood as well.

  Society was changing as well. This was a phenomena Arturo only gradually became aware of, but it eventually dawned on him that his close associates subconsciously modelled their behaviour and attitudes on his own. The little things like the use of forks, the personal cleanliness, the attitudes toward women and so on. From his near circle of mainly officers and a few friends like Ceri, these attitudes and behavioural changes percolated out into general society as others mimicked their perceived ‘betters’. He mentally downplayed his personal influence on society feeling other things were more important, particularly those changing the way people lived.

  The rail lines enabled Arturo to introduce a proper mail service. Charging only a modest fee to transport letters from Lugowalion to Glannoventa encouraged the use of the service, particularly as more people became literate. Fresh fish began to appear in the diets of people inland, from Dervent to Maglona. A special wagon was designed to carry boxes of fish and the first north bound train of the day from Wern carried fish for these markets.

  Several large groups of Novotae who had survived the Scotti invasion but were now starving in the winter conditions arrived and added to the refugee problem although some of the men found work almost immediately which eased the extra burden these people entailed. Some of the Selgovae women found full time jobs in the growing textile industry, setting up communal childcare arrangements to enable them to work.