The Crosstime Engineer

by Leo Frankowski

  The meal that night was braised pork-sort of a shish kebob-and bison stew.

  Because of the first-blood thing, I was seated at the high table between Lambert and the duke. I was the only mere knight up there. All the rest were at least barons. Baron Jaraslav sat to the duke’s left.

  The high table was just that. It was a third of a yard higher than the rest of the collapsible trestle tables in the hall. We had a correspondingly higher bench to sit on.

  Krystyana and company did the serving. Once the meal was well under way, Lambert announced that he was minded to grant me a fief but that it required the duke’s consent to be binding. While Lambert spoke, Sir Stefan was in the crowd, talking angrily to the knights at either side. Apparently, he had again found a substitute for guard duty. Then Baron Jaraslav began muttering in the duke's ear.

  Lambert outlined the proposed boundaries of the fief. As he finished, Stefan struck his stein on the table so hard that it shattered, spraying beer over a dozen knights.

  “You’d grant that black warlock lands adjoining ours? Damn you!” he shouted.

  The room was suddenly totally quiet.

  Lambert turned and struck Stefan with an icy stare. I’d seen many facets to Lambert's personality, but never before that of a cold, deadly killer. “You would raise your voice to your father's liege lord?” Lambert asked in the silence. There were swords in his voice.

  “I—I spoke rashly, my lord.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “I… apologize, my lord.” Stefan knew he was in trouble. He came from his bench and walked stiffly to the front of Lambert’s table. He went to his knees and made a full Slavic bow, with forehead touching the rushes on the floor. “I regret my words and beg forgiveness, my lord.”

  “Sir Stefan, this is the second time your temper has offended me. A true knight knows his place and his duty at all times. He does not give way to fits of temper. You need some cooling down. Perhaps some additional meditation in the evening air will help. I extend your tour of guard duty by an additional three months, from now until Michaelmas. On the night shift!”

  “Go now and stand your post.”

  Sir Stefan rose stiffly. “Yes, my lord.” He left without a word. The room was silent after he left.

  “Well,” the duke said after a bit. “Returning to the matter of my consent of this grant, I must think on it. The thing is perhaps being pushed too quickly, but you will have my answer before morning. For now, Lambert, can you provide music?”

  The peasant band had been waiting in the kitchen and was soon performing. The music didn’t help me a bit. I've never been much good at waiting.

  I couldn’t help overhearing Baron Jaraslav's advice and comments to the duke.

  “To allow evil into our own ranks… foreigners taking the lands of our fathers… worse than the Duke of Mazovia inviting in the Knights of the Cross…” The duke’s replies were inaudible, but my stomach tightened and I wasn't able to eat much. I drank more than I should have, but I stayed on beer so as not to get too drunk,

  When the meal ended and the tables were being taken down, Baron Jaraslav and the duke went to the duke’s chambers.

  “I think it doesn’t look good,” Lambert said to me. “Perchance I erred in punishing Sir Stefan, but, damn, a lord has to maintain discipline.”

  “I appreciate your aid, my lord. If this doesn’t work out, perhaps we'll think of something else.”

  “I’ve thought on simply having you develop that mine on my own lands, just as you are building the mills. We could work out some informal arrangement. But it would border on my deliberately circumventing the wishes of my liege lord.”

  The knights who had been on guard duty at Okoitz had learned the waltz and polka and were demonstrating them, with the ladies’ help, to our guests. They called me to join them, but I was too tight. It almost hurt to smile. During a lull in the music a page summoned me to the duke's chambers.

  With a profoundly acid stomach and no Alka-Seltzer due for seven hundred years, I followed him up the steps.

  On entering, I bowed low.

  “Sit down, boy. I have things to ask you. First, I want to know more about this guise. Whom did you make this vow to and where can I find him?”

  “He is Father Ignacy Sierpinski, at the Franciscan monastery in Cracow, my lord.”

  “I will talk to this Father Ignacy. My second question is, Why do you want this land? From what I’ve heard, you know as little of farming as you do of hunting.”

  “I want the land so I can build an industrial base.”

  “A what?”

  “Hear me out, my lord. You have asked me why I wasn’t building weapons. I intend to build them. I can make armor that no arrow can possibly penetrate. I can make swords as good as the one I carry. Have you seen what it can do?”

  “I’ve heard stories. Go on.”

  “I can build weapons that roar like thunder, strike like lightning, and kill your enemies half a mile away.”

  “And I intend to make these arms and armor by the thousands. By the hundreds of thousands if I can.”

  “A hundred thousand suits of armor? Why, I doubt if there are fifty thousand knights in all of Poland.”

  “Not the knights, my lord, the peasants.”

  “And just how do you suppose that a peasant could afford armor?”

  “Obviously they can’t, my lord. The arms will have to be supplied to them.”

  “Do you expect me to pay for this?”

  “Of course not, my lord. I will have to do that myself.”

  “I know that you are wealthy, Sir Conrad. But even your wealth could not equip a hundred men, much less a hundred thousand.”

  “I said I would make the weapons, not buy them. The money I have will get me started. After that, I will have to come up with salable products to meet expenses. Mortar and bricks, certainly. Perhaps pottery. Cookware, pots and pans. Maybe even glass. At this point I am not sure of specifics, but I know it can be done.”

  “Very well. If we assume that you really can build such arms and that the peasants will wear them, it is still useless. A mob of peasants, no matter how armed, is still a mob. Fighting men could cut them up regardless of weapons. Believe me. I’ve seen it too many times.”

  “Training is necessary, of course. But techniques exist that can turn a bunch of farmers into a fighting unit in four months’ time. I've been through it myself, my lord.”

  “Indeed. What does all this have to do with my original question? Why do you want that land?”

  “I need to have someplace to do these things. I can’t do it in the cities. The guilds would never permit me the innovations that I will have to introduce.”

  “You did well enough with the guilds of Cieszyn. You abolished one and have another louting to you.”

  “My lord, that business with the whoremasters guild was simply stupidity on their part. I never wanted anything to do with them. As to the bell casters, they were only three brothers who were starving to death. I wouldn’t have that kind of luck in Cracow.”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t do it here. These people are primarily farmers. I need fulltime craftsmen.”

  “I see. You are dismissed, Sir Conrad.”

  Shaking slightly, I went back down to the party and drained two mugs of beer.

  Shortly, I saw Lambert being escorted to the duke’s chambers. A thorough man, the duke.

  The party was breaking up. It must have been approaching midnight, because I saw Sir Vladimir stumble out to relieve Sir Stefan. He hadn’t been at the feast, and from the looks of him he had slept in his armor.

  The duke came down and looked at me. “There is more to gain than to lose. I’ll be watching you, boy, but you can have it.”

  I came close to fainting.

  Privately and somewhat curtly, the count informed five adolescent girls that they were leaving with me, the ones he thought were acting above their station in life. That night Krystyana was happy and ex
cited about the coming adventure. She didn’t realize that she was being thrown out.

  I didn’t regret my actions. I intended to raise a million bright kids “above their stations,” and damn these Dark Age rules!

  Yet personally, I was somewhat sad. I had been happy at Okoitz, but my job there was done. Good things must end, and perhaps the future would not be so bad.

  For a penniless immigrant who had arrived only six months before, I had done fairly well. We now had the start of a decent school system, the beginnings of a textile industry, and the glimmerings of an industrial base.

  If the seeds I’d brought worked out, we had the makings of an agricultural revolution.

  We had steel, a fairly efficient brass works, and a profitable if embarrassing inn.

  And now I had a hundred square kilometers of land to work with, land that would someday be the industrial heart of Poland.

  It was a magnificent challenge, but still, leaving is a sad thing.

  Interlude Three

  Tom pressed the HOLD button.

  “Enough for today. They’re waiting the banquet on us, but I'd hate to make them hold the ballet.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But first tell me what went wrong.”

  “Wrong with what?”

  “With Conrad’s plans. He seems to be an intelligent, competent engineer. He had the backing of the authorities. He had raw materials and a good work force. Where did he fail?”

  “What makes you think he failed?”

  “Well, he had to fail! He’s trying to start the industrial revolution five centuries too early, which obviously didn't happen.”

  “Ah, the catch is in that word ’obviously.' Son, I've been showing you this record for a reason. You know that subjectively I'm over eight hundred years old. There are limits to what even our medics can accomplish. You are ninety now, and I think you're mature enough to get involved with the firm's decision-making processes.”

  “But decisions shouldn’t be made without complete information, and for us there's never a reason for anything to be rushed. Time, after all, is our stock in trade. Let's go eat.”

  “But-”

  “But nothing! You want to keep the dancers waiting?”

  As we left for the banquet hall, Tom put his hand on my shoulder and said, “What tickles me is the way Conrad keeps on talking about building socialism while at the same time taking all of the actions a nineteenth-century capitalist would approve of. Buying businesses, making them profitable, reinvesting the money…”