David Weber - How firm a foundation

If Clyntahn could see this he’d die of sheer apoplexy, Wylsynn reflected, and despite his own internal doubts-or possibly even because of them-the thought gave him intense satisfaction. Still…

“I can hardly believe all you’ve accomplished, Master Howsmyn,” he said, waving his wineglass at everything beyond the window. “All this out of nothing but empty ground just five years ago.” He shook his head. “You Charisians have done a lot of amazing things, but I think this is possibly the most amazing of all.”

“It wasn’t quite ‘nothing but empty ground,’ Father,” Howsmyn disagreed. “Oh,” he grinned, “it wasn’t a lot more than empty ground, that’s true, but there was the village here. And the fishing village at Port Ithmyn. Still, I’ll grant your point, and God knows I’ve plowed enough marks back into the soil, as it were.”

Wylsynn nodded, accepting the minor correction. Then he sighed and turned to face his host squarely.

“Of course, I suspect the Grand Inquisitor would have a few things to say if he could see it,” he said. “Which is rather the point of my visit.”

“Of course it is, Father,” Howsmyn said calmly. “I haven’t added anything beyond those things you and I have discussed, but you’d be derelict in your duties if you didn’t reassure yourself of that. I think it’s probably too late to carry out any inspections tonight, but tomorrow morning we’ll look at anything you want to see. I would ask you to take a guide-there are some hazardous processes out there, and I’d hate to accidentally incinerate the Archbishop’s Intendant-but you’re perfectly welcome to decide for yourself what you want to look at or examine, or which of my supervisors or shift workers you’d care to interview.” He inclined his head in a gesture which wasn’t quite a bow. “You’ve been nothing but courteous and conscientious under extraordinarily difficult circumstances, Father. I can’t ask for more than that.”

“I’m glad you think so. On the other hand, I have to admit there are times I wonder-worry about-the slash lizard you’ve saddled here.” Wylsynn waved his glass at the fire-lit night beyond the window once more. “I know nothing you’ve done violates the Proscriptions, yet the sheer scale of your effort, and the… innovative way you’ve applied allowable knowledge is disturbing. The Writ warns that change begets change, and while it says nothing about matters of scale, there are those-not all of them Temple Loyalists, by any stretch-who worry that innovation on such a scale will inevitably erode the Proscriptions.”

“Which must put you in a most difficult position, Father,” Howsmyn observed.

“Oh, indeed it does.” Wylsynn smiled thinly. “It helps that Archbishop Maikel doesn’t share those concerns, and he’s supported all of my determinations where your new techniques are concerned. I don’t suppose that would make the Grand Inquisitor any more supportive, but it does quite a lot for my own peace of mind. And to be honest, the thought of how the Grand Inquisitor would react if he truly knew all you and the other ‘innovators’ here in Charis have been up to pleases me immensely. In fact, that’s part of my problem, I’m afraid.”

Howsmyn gazed at him for a moment, then cocked his head to one side.

“I’m no Bedardist, Father,” he said almost gently, “but I’d be astonished if you didn’t feel that way after what happened to your father and your uncle. Obviously, I don’t know you as well as the Archbishop does, but I do know you better than many, I expect, after how closely we’ve worked together for the past couple of years. You’re worried that your inevitable anger at Clyntahn and the Group of Four might cause you to overlook violations of the Proscriptions because of a desire to strike back at them, aren’t you?”

Wylsynn’s eyes widened with respect. It wasn’t really surprise; Ehdwyrd Howsmyn was one of the smartest men he knew, after all. Yet the ironmaster’s willingness to address his own concerns so directly, and the edge of compassion in Howsmyn’s tone, were more than he’d expected.

“That’s part of the problem,” he acknowledged. “In fact, it’s a very large part. I’m afraid it’s not quite all of it, however. The truth is that I’m grappling with doubts of my own.”

“We all are, Father.” Howsmyn smiled crookedly. “I hope this won’t sound presumptuous coming from a layman, but it seems to me that someone in your position, especially, would find that all but inevitable.”

“I know.” Wylsynn nodded. “And you’re right. However,” he inhaled more briskly, “at the moment I’m most interested in these ‘accumulators’ of yours. I may have seen the plans and approved them, yet there’s a part of me that wants to actually see them.” He smiled suddenly, the boyish expression making him look even younger than his years. “It’s difficult, as you’ve observed, balancing my duty as Intendant against my duty as Director of the Office of Patents, but the Director in me is fascinated by the possibilities of your accumulators.”

“I feel the same way,” Howsmyn admitted with an answering gleam of humor. “And if you’ll look over there”-he pointed out the window-“you’ll see Accumulator Number Three beside that blast furnace.”

Wylsynn’s eyes followed the pointing index finger and narrowed as the furnace’s seething glow illuminated a massive brickwork structure. As he’d just said, he’d seen the plans for Howsmyn’s accumulators, but mere drawings, however accurately scaled, couldn’t have prepared him for the reality.

The huge tower rose fifty feet into the air. A trio of blast furnaces clustered around it, and on the far side, a long, broad structure-a workshop of some sort-stretched into the night. The workshop was two stories tall, its walls pierced by vast expanses of windows to take advantage of natural light during the day. Now those windows glowed with internal light, spilling from lanterns and interspersed with frequent, far brighter bursts of glare from furnaces and forges within it.

“In another couple of months, I’ll have nine of them up and running,” Howsmyn continued. “I’d like to have more, honestly, but at that point we’ll be getting close to the capacity the river can supply. I’ve considered running an aqueduct from the mountains to increase supply, but frankly an aqueduct big enough to supply even one accumulator would be far too expensive. It’d tie up too much manpower I need elsewhere, for that matter. Instead, I’m looking at the possibility of using windmills to pump from the lake, although there are some technical issues there, too.”

“I can imagine,” Wylsynn murmured, wondering what would happen if the accumulator he could see sprang a leak.

The use of cisterns and water tanks to generate water pressure for plumbing and sewer systems had been part of Safehold since the Creation itself, but no one had ever considered using them the way Ehdwyrd Howsmyn was using them. Probably, Wylsynn thought, because no one else had ever had the sheer audacity to think on the scale the ironmaster did.

Howsmyn’s new blast furnaces and “puddling hearths” required levels of forced draft no one had ever contemplated before. He was driving them to unheard-of temperatures, recirculating the hot smoke and gases through firebrick flues to reclaim and utilize their heat in ways no one else ever had, and his output was exploding upward. And it was as if each new accomplishment only suggested even more possibilities to his fertile mind, like the massive new multi-ton drop hammers and the ever larger, ever more ambitious casting processes his workers were developing. All of which required still more power. Far more of it, in fact, than conventional waterwheels could possibly provide.