Eric Flint: Grantville Gazette.Volume XVII

Cleaning the wool did take time, but perhaps a bit less than it usually did. As well, they had rigged up drying platforms, raised about eighteen inches off the ground, to allow for greater air flow around the wet wool. Drying was certainly sped up.

"More women will be arriving," Master Munos said when he got back from Zaragoza. "Beds will need to be arranged for them. De Aguilera is sending them to spin the wool that's in the warehouse, as well as the new crop."

Miguel nodded. "They'll need more wheels, as well. We haven't any extra."

Munos waved off the statement. "Just do what you have to. And get the machine working!"

Miguel left, steaming with anger. Just do what you have to. And get the thing working. There was a long list of questions that they had sent and most of them remained unanswered. How were he and his men to accomplish anything if they couldn't find the answers? If whoever it was wanted this machine really wanted it, why didn't he try to find the answers they needed?

Miguel was afraid to experiment. It was an incredibly complicated device, the spinning machine. Able, the papers said, to spin fifty threads at once and have them all of consistent quality. No one had ever done anything like this before; it wasn't how innovations happened.

Honestly, Miguel wasn't sure how innovations did happen. It wasn't that he was either unskilled or that he lacked creativity. But his training had focused on quality and art, not whatever this was. Miguel could build a table that was a work of art. Show him a picture of something made out of wood and he could make it. He could inlay a family crest into the side of a chair using five different woods and make look like God had grown it that way. He could also look a piece of wood and know how strong it would be once it was cut and carved into shape. He could attach it to another piece of wood, never needing a nail. But never in his life had he been asked to do systematic experimentation. Just do what you have to. And get the thing working. Willingly. Except he had no idea what he had to do to get the thing working.

Agustin was frankly relieved that the women who arrived had done so unequipped with spinning wheels. It gave him something to do other than sit around staring at the uncooperative spinning machine. He and the other carpenters divided their time between the spinning wheels and housing for the new arrivals.

"Oh, yes. I heard him say that."

Lucia looked over at the scrawny young woman who spoke. How this one might have heard Don Carlos speak anything but an order was beyond her, unless she'd been eavesdropping. Unless, perhaps, Don Carlos was very indiscriminate about what he said in front of strangers. Well, he might just be. Nobles did tend to ignore servants. But had this girl even worked for the de Aguilera family? Lucia decided to find out. The rumors the new employees brought with them were somewhat distressing.

"We'll be provided with good beds and everyone will have their own room, when the factory is built," was one of them.

So was, "Ha! We'll never see another sunrise after we finish spinning all this wool."

One of the most reliable of the new women had indeed been a servant in Don Ramon's household. Lucia listened to her particularly well, as she might have greater insight into their employer.

What she heard was most distressing.

"I should say not!" Ricardo had decided to make a visit to the village and see if he could figure out what the holdup was. It was all well and good that the wool was being carded and spun, even if the spinning was still by hand. But this was outside of enough. "The mother of those rabbits belongs to the de Aguilera family. Therefore so do the offspring."

He was looking at rows of cages, each of which contained a half- or three-quarter bred Angora rabbit. The hair varied in length, and the colors tended to be much less spectacular than the colors of the purebreds. But for villagers to attempt this! Never would he allow it. Never! "These rabbits belong to the de Aguilera family," he repeated. "And they will be taken to the de Aguilera estate. Tomorrow!"

It was a bit cavalier of the steward, but not beyond the law. Agustin kept his mouth shut, although it was a struggle. It was obvious that the de Aguilera family intended to keep the Angora as their monopoly, at least in Spain.

"Foolish," Lucia muttered. "Pure foolishness." It was obvious to Lucia that the effort at monopoly would fail. Among the rumors the spinners brought was confirmation that the rabbits came from the up-timers in Germany, where they were sometimes even given away to poor women. If there were enough that up-timers would give them away, they must be very common and others would buy them.

Worse, many of the better of the half- and quarter-breed rabbits had belonged to her little brother, Juan. And Juan was very upset, since he loved those dratted bunnies.

The action with the rabbits did give credence to some of the other, less rational, rumors. Like the one that said every one in the valley would be held there for the rest of their lives to keep the secret safe. And the one that suggested those lives might not be all that long for most of them.

"Damn that woman!"

Agustin and Luis jumped. Lucia rarely cursed, and Beatriz never got angry. It was just the way these women were. Now Beatriz was cursing?

"What's wrong?" Luis asked. "Let me fix it."

Beatriz was apparently not in any kind of good mood. "You'll just mess it up, Luis. Stay where you are."

"But at least tell me the problem, mi corazon," Luis begged. Quite literally, Agustin noticed, trying to hide his grin. Lucia elbowed him in the ribs, but she was trying not to smile, he could tell.

"It's that dratted Isabel," Beatriz groused. "She never gets this right. Always, always, the strips she tears from the batts of wool are too fat. Always. She's in too much of a hurry."

"It's an easy fix, Beatriz," Lucia said. "Heaven knows, we've done it often enough."

Beatriz began stretching out the too-fat strip of wool. "I know that. The point is that I shouldn't have to. It was her job today, not mine."

Agustin found that his mouth was hanging open. He'd never seen Lucia do exactly what Beatriz was doing with the wool. The rope, when Beatriz was finished pulling, which she did very gently, was at least five feet longer than it had been, possibly more.

"I am an idiot!" Agustin shouted.

"Well, that's common knowledge." Luis grinned at his friend. "Lucia could have told you if you didn't know," he added winking at her.

"Ha! You're an idiot too!" Agustin answered back.

Agustin's shout had distracted Beatriz who had seen Luis wink and giggled at his surprised look. "That too is common knowledge. But what is the idiocy of the moment?"

"All this time we have been trying to figure out a machine to tear ropes from the batt. We could have been making a machine to stretch batts into ropes."

"That sounds like a lot more work," Lucia said. "Tearing them is easier. That's why we do it that way."

"Yes! Easier for a clever girl with clever fingers. A girl with the wit and skill to keep watch on how the wool batt is coming apart into ropes. But not easier for a machine that has no eyes, no fingers and no wit at all."

Luis was nodding. "Machines are stupid, even the most complex ones. They can't change what they are doing, can't adjust themselves."

Don Ramon de Aguilera was severely displeased. They had been pouring money into the spinning machine for two years now, and at the suggestion of his nephew. And now the boy had gone off to the Low Countries to save the guilder. What should a proper Spanish gentleman care about the Dutch guilder?