"Yes, your grace. We now have nine dozen primary schools operating in Count Lambert's county. There is one in almost every town and village."
"Almost? Why not all?"
"Your grace, you must remember that I am a mere knight. I can only try to persuade a baron to do things my way. If he's against me, what can I do?"
"You're talking about Baron Jaraslav, Sir Stefan's father, aren't you."
"Yes, your grace."
"He's a hard-nosed bastard, but he's served me well on the battlefield."
"I'm not speaking against the man, but in this case he's wrong. Education is important! It's not as though those schools will cost him anything. I'm putting them in at my own expense, with the help of the peasants."
"Boy, I don't see why you're pushing this reading and writing business so hard. What good is that going to do a peasant?"
"As things stand, very little, your grace. But things aren't going to stay as they are for much longer. Right now, most people are spending most of their time simply doing grunt work, generating power with human muscles. But you saw that steam-powered sawmill of mine. You said it had the power of two hundred women. Well, the women who used to walk back and forth on the walking-beam sawmill aren't doing that anymore. They're all doing other work now, more skilled work.
"That's just a start. Tomorrow, I'll show you the steam engines we're installing to turn the machines in the shop here, and the others to knead the clay for the mold shop and pump the bellows of the smelter.
"Every time one of those machines goes in, we need fewer dumb peasants and more skilled men. What's more, the skills needed are changing too quickly for men to get by simply by learning the trades of their fathers. They'll have to learn them in schools and out of books. They have to be able to read."
"I'll grant you're right when it comes to factories, boy, but most commoners are farmers. It has to be that way if we're all going to eat!"
"True, your grace, but only so long as we stay with current farming methods. I've already started to change things. There was another bumper harvest at Okoitz this year, but this time they got the entire harvest in, despite more rainy days than usual. The difference was as simple a thing as a wheelbarrow. They have a thresher attachment on their windmill, and they were able to store the entire harvest in their existing storage bins threshed. Had it still been in the shucks, as is usual, half of it would be on the ground. In the next few years I'll be introducing new plows, reapers, and other harvesting machines. The era of the dumb peasant is over!"
"Interesting. But how far can this go?"
"Quite a ways, your grace. I once spent four years in a country called America. That nation was the greatest seller of agricultural products in the world, and its people are among the best fed. Yet only one man in fifty was a farmer! Most of the rest worked at trades that are unknown in this country. There aren't even words for them."
"Yet somehow all this troubles me, Sir Conrad. I keep asking myself if it's all really worth it."
"They seemed to think so, your grace. Tell me, would you like to live in a home that was warm in the coldest weather, that was as cool as you wanted it on the hottest day? Would you like to have fresh fruits and vegetables available at any time, no matter what the season? Would you like to have an instrument called a telephone that would let you speak to any of your vassals, though they were a hundred miles away? To any duke or king in Christendom? Would you like to have doctors so skilled that they could keep you healthy for many years to come? Would you like to be able to walk on board a great silver ship that could fly you to China in an afternoon, while a pretty waitress brings you drinks as you look down on the clouds below? And would you like to have these things not only for yourself, but for the least of your subjects?
"Tell me, your grace, are these things worth it?"
"Maybe, boy. Maybe. But your priest has told me of the terrible wars your people have, of weapons so mighty that one man, pushing a button, could destroy whole cities. Of hatreds, and of famines when there was no need for famines. What do you say to that?"
"I say that I'm an engineer, your grace. I can build machines that can heat your home, harvest your crops, and flush your shit. It's not fair to expect me to make you love your fellow man as well. That's not my job!"
Chapter Thirteen
I spent the morning giving the duke and his party a tour of the facilities at Copper City. He seemed most impressed with the eight steam engines we were installing, two of which were already operational. They were all single expansion units, and not very efficient thermally, but I had a use for the waste heat. All the buildings had steam radiators in every room, which condensed the steam back to water to be pumped into the tubular boilers again. Cogeneration. Come spring, we'd be installing a leather tannery to use that excess heat in the summertime.
That evening, we again dined with the duke, and Cilicia told the story of how her native city was destroyed by the Mongols. Everyone in the inn's dining room was listening. She told the same story that her father had told to me, but the way she told it got everyone in the room in the gut. I don't think that there was a dry eye in the place, and even the crusty old duke was in tears.
He promised me his continued support, as did every man in the room. Cilicia became my best propaganda device to generate support for the upcoming war, and she was to tell that story a hundred times over the next few years.
I spent three more days at Copper City after the duke left, mostly handling technical problems since the Krakowski Brothers were good managers and didn't need much help in that direction.
We made the run to Eagle Nest in one day, leaving before dawn and arriving after dusk. The instructors were in uniform, but only about half of the boys' outfits were completed so they were all still in civilian clothing.
It was getting beyond kite-flying weather and the hangar was big enough to fly model airplanes in. When we were building the installation we had so much manpower and timber available that I figured that we might as well build it big enough in the first place. The hangar was six dozen yards wide and twelve dozen long, big enough to accommodate any aircraft I could imagine building out of wood and canvas. It was rather like the church we had built at Three Walls, only two of them set side by side, though not as tall and with a dirt floor. Two huge counterweighted doors faced the eventual runway.
But now we used it for model airplanes.
I spent three days, including Sunday afternoon, talking about aircraft, about lift and drag and the other forces on a plane. The type I got them going on was a high-winged glider, halfway between a sailplane and a piper cub. Sort of an observation plane without an engine.
The steam saw was put to work cutting very thin strips of wood, and I headed for Okoitz.
Count Lambert was enthusiastic about my idea for limelights in his cloth factory, mostly because it would permit his massive harem to stay there all winter. He was less enthusiastic about putting in a second shift. As it was, the girls not currently being used slept on cots in the factory itself. Putting in a second shift involved building housing for all of them, and if I was going to do that, I insisted that we put in plumbing and kitchens of the sort we had at Three Walls.
What finally sold him was the thought that he could sort the workers according to sexual desirability and keep the best ones on the day shift, thus improving the quality of his already beautiful ladies.
If that's what it took to get better sanitation at Okoitz, then so be it. Our infant mortality rate at Three Walls was one-eighth of what it was at Okoitz. If saving thirty-five children a year meant hurting the feelings of a hundred girls, then let their feelings be hurt!
And yes, I would accept cloth instead of cash for all the plumbing fixtures, and yes, I would design and supervise the construction of the new buildings as part of my feudal duty to him.
That settled, Count Lambert wanted to talk about the Great Hunt. Sir Miesko had done a competent job organizing the thing. Everything was ready. The local hunt
masters all knew their duties, invitations to all the knights in the duchy had been sent, and the enclosures for the killing grounds had been sent and enclosures for the killing grounds had been built. The only problem was Baron Jaraslav and his son, Sir Stefan. They were adamantly refusing to have anything to do with anything that I was involved with. I was hoping that Count Lambert would talk to them.
"What!" Count Lambert said. "They refuse? Do they know that I want this thing done?"
"They do, my lord. Sir Miesko has been very adamant on that point, and they still won't have anything to do with it. If we bypass them, we've left behind a breeding ground for wolves, bears, and wild boar. They know it but don't care."
"Well, I'll settle with Baron Jaraslav! I've had enough out of those two! I'll visit them within the week with fifty knights at my back, and they'll obey their liege lord or pay for it!"
"Yes, my lord. Was there anything else you wanted of me?"
"Dog's blood! There is! You and Sir Vladimir will attend me here in one week. Sir Miesko is on your way, so tell him and any others you meet to come here as well."
"Yes, my lord. You are expecting battle?"
"I'm expecting my vassals to obey me. All of them!"
"Yes, my lord." When he was in this mood, it wasn't smart to argue.
Count Lambert had five knights in attendance, and he gave four of them exacting verbal instructions to ride out in the morning, contact certain specific barons and knights, and have them report to Okoitz. Verbal, because Count Lambert still couldn't read or write.
It was an hour before he calmed down. Then he started hinting strongly that he'd rather like to try out the wench I'd brought along.
I wasn't happy about lending out Cilicia, but Count Lambert's current mood still wasn't anything that I wanted to trifle with. Anyway, he had always been so generous with me in this regard that it would have been niggardly of me to refuse him.
"Of course, my lord. But remember that she is a foreigner, and the customs of her people are different from ours. I'd best talk to her first."
"Do so." And I was dismissed.
Cilicia was not at all pleased at being lent out "like horse for rent," as she put it. I said that this was a custom of Okoitz, and one must conform to local customs, but she wasn't convinced. I finally had to say that she could obey me or she could go back to her father. She obeyed, and I picked up one of Count Lambert's ladies for the night.
Neither Cilicia nor Count Lambert ever mentioned what went on that night, but he never asked for her services again.
Sir Miesko was appalled that Count Lambert was considering war against Baron Jaraslav. He sent a letter, carried by his oldest son, to the baron urging him to make immediate apology to their liege and so forestall any violence, but he had scant hope that the irascible baron would do so. "I wish I could understand their hatred for you, Sir Conrad, but it's there. Now it seems that blood must flow because of it. A sad thing, and a waste. Nonetheless, our lord calls and we must go. Wear your brightest surcoat to this, Sir Conrad. We'll want to make the best and most intimidating show possible. There's scant hope, but we may yet forestall a senseless war."
I went back to Three Walls in a glum mood.
Sir Vladimir was also amazed at being called up. "Count Lambert is going to fight a battle over so trifling a matter as a hunt?"
"No, Sir Vladimir. He's going to threaten battle because one of his vassals has repeatedly disobeyed him. Remember that the baron failed to come when Count Lambert called him to beat the bounds between his lands and mine."
"I know, and since then he has been claiming that you stole lands belonging to him, and he just might be right. Count Lambert was in a foul mood that day, and it would have been like him to move the boundary in revenge for the baron's slight. And of course, Sir Stefan has been making an ass of himself for years, even before you arrived. But none of that is reason enough for war between knights of the same lord!"
"I agree," I said, "but we have been called and we will go."
I spent the week designing the limelight system.
The limelights in the old theaters used a hydrogen flame under a ball of lime, calcium oxide. The hydrogen was generated by pouring acid on a metal, okay for a theater but way too expensive for a factory. A far cheaper way of making hydrogen was the water/gas method that was used for generating cooking gas before natural gas, methane, became commercially available.
This involves getting a deep bed of coal burning in a closed furnace. Once it's all glowing, the air supply is shut off and water is forced under the coal. The chimney is then closed off and the fumes are directed to a holding tank for eventual distribution. The chemical reaction involves the oxygen in the water combining with the glowing carbon, and the hydrogen leaving as a gas.
The only problem was that for each molecule of hydrogen generated, you also make a molecule of carbon monoxide, which can kill you dead. The carbon monoxide is also a fuel, and is safe enough once it's burned to carbon dioxide, but a leaky pipe or a flame that's gone out is dangerous. The safety problem didn't bother the Victorians who used the system. They simply weren't concerned. If someone was dumb enough to kill himself, that was his problem.
I, however, am not a Victorian. The system I put together was as safe as I could make it. First off, I kept it out of private areas, where kids could get at it. It was restricted to workplaces, large public rooms, and outdoor lighting. Each installation had a full-time safety inspector, who was also responsible for lighting the lights. Ventilation was carefully checked at each location. And each lamp had a valve that anyone could turn off, but required a key to turn on. This last involved designing a lock, which turned out to be one of our most profitable products.
Oh, I knew that somebody would still find a way to kill himself with it, but I tried.
* * *
On the appointed day, Sir Vladimir and I rode out in full armor, in our brightest surcoats and with pennons flying. The bandsmen had wanted to play for us as we left, but that seemed to me to be in poor taste. I felt rotten that things should come to this head. We needed to be preparing to be fighting Mongols, not fellow Christians, even if they were a couple of bastards.
We met Sir Miesko at the proper time, and went on to Okoitz.
"Any response from Baron Jaraslav?" I asked.
"None to my letter," Sir Miesko said. "But he has called his own knights to arms, which is response enough. He has thirty-five, you know, and is Count Lambert's greatest vassal. If vassal he be and not oath-breaker."
"Damn."
More than a hundred knights came to Count Lambert's call, even those not required to do so. We filled the hall, and the squires had to make do in the kitchen. Supper was a major feast, but a somber one. Everyone was in full armor, as tradition required on the night before battle, I suppose so that the lord could check his men's equipment. Not that Count Lambert checked anything. A knight was always supposed to be ready, and if he wasn't, it was his own neck that suffered.
Sir Miesko stood and spoke to Count Lambert. "My liege, you know that I have been your willing vassal since first I was knighted. Always have I obeyed you, and always will I continue to do so. But my duty to you is not only to fight at your side. I am also obligated to give you my best counsel.
"It is true that Baron Jaraslav has repeatedly disobeyed you. But it is also true that he is a very old man and the minds of the aged sometimes grow feeble. I counsel you, I beg you to go slowly in this matter. You will not gain in glory or in honor if you shed Christian blood, Polish blood, because of the aberrant wanderings of a senile mind."
Sir Miesko sat down and Count Lambert said, "It is your duty to speak and my duty to listen, but the reverse is also true. I say that without obedience to our superiors, everything that we are falls apart! If I do not obey the duke, and my vassals do not obey me, then why should the peasants obey us? If we let one major crack form in the structure, the whole thing could shatter! Don't you see that we must be together? Because if we're not,
it won't be the Tartars who destroy us, we'll do it ourselves! Then the damn Mazovians or some other petty power will come in and pick up the shredded pieces."
I stood. "My lord, Sir Miesko has spoken my mind as well as his own, though he has been more eloquent than I could be. I have heard that some of the problem is caused by Baron Jaraslav's belief that I was deeded lands that are properly his. Rather than see Pole fight Pole, I would willingly give up whatever lands the baron claims.
"Just now tempers have grown too hot. You mentioned the duke. He knows Baron Jaraslav well. Why not ask him to talk to the baron. Surely no man is more persuasive than Duke Henryk."
"Sir Conrad, your lands are your own, and I'll not have you make any sacrifice because of another's malice. As to the duke, it would be proper to go to him if I had a problem with one of my own station. To bring him a problem with one of my vassals would be to admit my own incompetence. If I did so, he might be inclined to remove me, and properly. I'll handle the matter on my own."
"Then may I echo Sir Miesko and beg you to go slowly?" I said.
"You may beg all you damn well please, Sir Conrad, just so you obey when the lances drop to charge! Do the rest of you have counsel for me as well?"
Knight after knight attested to his willingness to obey any lawful order, but begged Count Lambert to refrain from pushing matters too quickly to a head.
Count Lambert's mood got darker and quieter until he abruptly got up and left his hall, his meal unfinished.
We were all silent for a bit.
Baron Jan, Sir Vladimir's father, said, "We can but do our duty and pray that we need not shed the blood of our brothers." Then he led us all in deeply felt prayer.
Count Lambert's new priest held an evening mass. We all went and took Communion since tomorrow some of us could be dead.
It was crowded at Okoitz, and I shared a room with Sir Miesko, Sir Vladimir, and one of his brothers. The girls from the cloth factory were probably as willing as ever, but none of us were in the mood. Judging from the sounds, few of the other knights were either. I don't recall hearing a single feminine squeal all night, a rare thing at Okoitz even when it's half empty.
Conrad Starguard-The Radiant Warrior Page 64