David Weber - How firm a foundation

“You speak clearly, Baron of Larchros,” she said then. “And you speak with courage. You may even speak truthfully of your own motives, and we grant you their sincerity. Yet you did swear the oaths you violated. You did grant your allegiance to the Regency Council-the legally selected Regency Council, chosen by your own Parliament-as Prince Daivyn’s representatives and the guardians of his interests and prerogatives here in Corisande. And you did violate the laws of Corisande, as well as conspiring to unleash warfare here in the heart of your own Princedom. We may concede that you acted out of what you believe to have been the best of motivations. We will not concede that your motivations justify your actions, nor will we retreat one inch from the authority which is ours under the accepted law of nations by right of victory, fairly and openly won upon the field of battle, and by acknowledgment of your own Parliament following that victory. We will say this much-you, more than any of your fellows, have our respect, but respect cannot stay the demands of justice.”

Larchros’ jaw clenched. He seemed to hover on the brink of saying something more, but he stopped himself and simply stood meeting her gaze with hot-eyed defiance.

“Please, Your Majesty!” Barcor said suddenly into the silence. “I was carried away by patriotism and loyalty to Mother Church-I admit it! But as the court itself determined, I was never party to the core of this conspiracy! I-”

He broke off as Sharleyan looked at him with undisguised contempt. His eyes fell, and she smiled coldly.

“The fact that cowardice prevented you from openly declaring yourself as Baron Larchros did is no defense,” she said flatly. “You were prepared to take your share of the spoils when Craggy Hill and Storm Keep divided the new ‘Regency Council’ between themselves. You preferred to spend gold instead of blood or steel, perhaps, but you cannot separate yourself so easily from ‘the core of this conspiracy,’ My Lord. I told you we would hear no pleas, no protests of innocence. Have you anything further to say?”

Barcor’s lips trembled. His face was ashen, and his head swiveled, eyes imploring the members of the Regency Council to intervene in his behalf. There was no response, and he swallowed convulsively as his eyes came back to Sharleyan.

She waited another measured thirty seconds, but none of the convicted men spoke again, and she nodded. It was time to end this, and she could at least give them the mercy of swiftness.

“It is our judgment that, for the crimes of which you stand convicted, you be taken from this place immediately to a place of execution and there beheaded. You will be granted access to clergy of your choice, but sentence will be carried out within this very hour, and may God have mercy on your souls.” . VIII.

City Engineer’s Office and Royal Palace, Princedom of Corisande

“That was a good job you did on the Guildhall, Bahrynd,” Sylvayn Grahsmahn said as Bahrynd Laybrahn (who didn’t look a thing like Paitryk Hainree) stepped into his office. “That cistern’s been nothing but a pain in the ass for as long as I can remember.”

“It wasn’t hard once I realized the pump casing had to be leaking,” Hainree replied. He shrugged. “Actually finding the leak and getting to it was a bitch, but fixing it once I found it was pretty routine, really.”

“Well, I’ve been sending people over to look at it for the better part of half a year now,” Grahsmahn grumbled, “and you’re the first one to find the problem. I know you’re still new, Bahrynd, but if the Master Engineer will go along with me, you’re going to be a supervisor by this time next month.”

“I appreciate the vote of confidence,” Hainree said, although he was fairly certain the promotion wouldn’t come through. “I just try to do my job.”

He gazed out of Grahsmahn’s office window. Dusk was coming on quickly, and he and the supervisor should already have left for the evening. In fact, they would have if Hainree hadn’t gone to some lengths to arrange otherwise. He’d known Grahsmahn would want a detailed report on how he’d solved the problem, and he’d manipulated his own schedule to ensure he’d be late getting back to the large, rambling block of buildings on Horsewalk Square which housed the city engineer’s offices. Grahsmahn had waited for him in order to get his report firsthand, and the supervisor had listened carefully as Hainree ran through everything he’d had to do to fix it.

The truth was that he’d enjoyed the challenge, and it had been the biggest job he’d been assigned since he’d started working his way up in the city’s engineering and maintenance services. He’d begun as little more than a common laborer-a necessity, if he wanted to be certain no one asked any questions about his previous employers. It wasn’t as if the work were exceptionally difficult, however, especially for a man who’d run his own business for so many years. And the Guildhall plumbing system’s mysterious water losses had at least offered a puzzle sufficient to distract him from the future rushing rapidly towards him.

As he’d told Grahsmahn, figuring out what had to be wrong hadn’t been hard.

The city reservoir, just northwest of Manchyr’s walls, was fed by the Barcor River before the river flowed on through the city itself (becoming distinctly less potable in the process, and not just from storm runoff), and feed pipes from the reservoir flowed under the city itself. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough head pressure in the system to move water higher than the first floor of most of the city’s buildings, which was one reason for the picturesque windmills spinning busily away on the rooftops of so many of the taller buildings all across the capital. They powered pumps which lifted water from the low-pressure mains to rooftop or water tower cisterns high enough for gravity-feed systems to develop reasonable pressure throughout the city.

The problem at the Weavers Guildhall was that the cistern level had been far below design specifications and still dropping. Obviously, there was a problem somewhere between the main and the cistern, but the pump itself had been operating perfectly. It was an ancient design, with an endless chain of flat, pivoted links traveling in a loop through a pair of shafts. Lifters-bronze saucers closely fitted to the diameter of the shafts-were set every foot or so along the chain, which traveled between the water main and the cistern. Water flowed into the inlet chamber at the bottom, which was slightly larger in diameter than the lifters. The lifters, however, formed a sort of moving cylinder inside the outflow shaft, capturing and lifting water as they moved through the inlet chamber and upward. With a good head of wind, a large enough windmill, and a wide enough pump shaft the system could move hundreds of gallons of water very quickly. Floats in the cisterns raised interrupter rods to disengage the windmill’s steadying vanes when the holding tanks were full, letting the windmills pivot off the wind and go idle to prevent the pumps from raising too much water and simply wasting it, and most of the cisterns were large enough to meet demand in their buildings for at least a couple of windless days in a row.

It was a simple, reliable arrangement whose greatest vulnerability was the possibility that the chain might break. The gearing needed a change of lubricating oil about once a year, but aside from that the only other real maintenance concern was the durability of the flexible gaskets fitted to the edge of each lifter to ensure a good seal with the sides of the lift shaft. The gaskets were made from the sap of the rubber plant with which the Archangel Sondheim had gifted mankind at the Creation (and whose cultivation was a major income source for Corisande) and wore out only slowly, but eventually they did have to be replaced.