Eric Flint: Grantville Gazette.Volume XVII

I strongly recommend that we attempt to breed sheep with better wool and size. Select the largest rams, the largest ewes and keep them isolated from the others. The shepherds have always attempted to breed the best to the best, of course, but they were as much concerned with the ability to traverse the meseta as they were with size and wool quality.

Do write me. I sometimes feel that I'm lost in time.

Alfredo

Don Carlos rang for a servant. He didn't look down on his older cousin to the extent that many in the family did. Granted, Don Alfredo wasn't very good with a sword and seemed unable to avoid involvement in trade. But that too had its uses. "I will be dining with father this evening. Have my horse readied," Don Carlos spoke past the servant.

In spite of Don Carlos's best efforts, his cousin's report was laughed off. Until the matched pair of gleaming white Angora rabbits arrived. With them came a sample of the Merino-Angora blend, in the form of a scarf. Even Papa couldn't laugh that off. As punishment for being right when Papa was wrong, Don Carlos got placed in charge of putting together a research and development facility to develop the spinning machines. He naturally delegated the actual organization to his steward, Ricardo. Then he went back to his hunting.

Ricardo Suarez shook his head and considered whether or not he should just run screaming into the night and fall off a cliff. Then he sighed, and went back to writing letters, muttering all the while.

"Build a research and development facility, he says. And what do we do if we succeed, I wonder. That's the problem with the entire family. They don't think ahead. Not at all." Ricardo was actually quite fond of the de Aguilera family.

The patriarch of the de Aguilera family, Don Ramon, was a hearty man, nearly seventy years old. Upright, upstanding, bound by traditions… a bit hidebound, in Ricardo's opinion. Most of the de Aguilera scions were following in that tradition, except for young Don Alfredo in Grantville. Ricardo had hopes for Don Alfredo, although he knew that Don Ramon didn't have much use for him. The young man simply didn't meet his expectations. Don Alfredo liked making money and was, well, obvious about it. Don Carlos, his cousin, was much more the type to suit Don Ramon's expectations. Proud, courageous to a fault, honorable… but useless for practical things. Basically, a proud wastrel, at least in Ricardo's opinion.

Very well, Ricardo thought. I shall write young Alfredo and get more information. Carlos… well, Carlos won't pay much attention to what I do, so long as his pleasures aren't interrupted.

By the time Ricardo gave it up for the night, he'd made arrangements to hire an assortment of craft masters, journeymen and apprentices. As well, he'd arranged for them to travel to the most isolated village the family owned. It had been nearly depopulated by a virulent sickness two years ago, so there would be room for experiments and the surrounding hills and valleys could be used for the sheep-breeding program Don Alfredo advocated. Not to mention, the rabbits had to go somewhere else. The stable master was very insistent about that.

Agustin Cortez alighted from the wagon, happy to be out of it. It had no springs and was not, he thought, well put together. What he saw however, was almost enough to make him want to get right back on it. Agustin was a journeyman cabinet maker, who was rather better with wood than he was with people. Which might have something to do with the reason that he was still a journeyman and not a master. He had a marked tendency to open mouth and insert foot. And always at the worst possible moment.

So when he was offered a job working on a special project, well, he needed the job. But he hadn't realized until he got here that the job was in the middle of nowhere. As he looked around, mostly what he saw were sheep. There was also what appeared to be a broken down grain mill and the remnants of a village. All these things were located in a valley in the Cantabrian hills. What sort of a project could they possibly have in mind for this place?

Agustin's musing was interrupted when a young woman walked by, carrying a load of wool in a basket. She sniffed as she passed. Apparently, whatever it was that they were doing here, the young woman did not approve.

Well, he was here. Best to get on with it. "Senorita? Oh, Senorita?"

She turned and cocked an eyebrow at him.

"Who is in charge here?" Agustin asked.

"Montoya." She shifted the basket, then pointed to the best of the buildings. "There." Then she sniffed again, and turned away.

Not a friendly woman, Agustin decided. And plain as well.

He found Luis Montoya bent over a number of drawings of a strange-looking contraption. A contraption Agustin simply couldn't make head or tail of, although he could clearly see where his skills with wood were needed. The drawing showed wooden parts that were hopelessly unadorned. And Luis, it turned out, was not "in charge," but merely another journeyman.

"Gears I can produce," Luis said. "This I have the knowledge for. But I know nothing about producing thread. Women spin. Not me."

"Ah," Agustin said. "So that's the big secret project we're to work on."

"And secret it indeed is," Luis warned. "The de Aguilera, Don Carlos, was very clear on that. Not one word of what we do here is to be spoken of. Not to anyone."

Agustin looked at the drawings again. Then he looked for more, something to show how this was supposed to work. There weren't any. "How long have you been here?"

"Five days. Don Carlos, well, his steward, made me an offer I couldn't refuse."

Well, Agustin certainly understood that. Eating is better than starving, any day. "Are more coming? Surely you and I are not the only men to work on this."

"A master carpenter-he'll be in charge. Two or three other masters and journeymen, for wood and metal. Some apprentices, mostly, from the de Aguilera estates. The people here, only a few, are mostly herders and that ilk. Unlettered, of course. No knowledge of anything but sheep."

Agustin sighed, then they got down to trying to figure out how this machine was supposed to work.

As Agustin read through the sheets of paper, he kept running into words in brackets, with numbers. And at the bottom of each page were annotations. "In 1828 Mr. Thorpe, also an American, invented the ring spinning frame, whose principal feature consisted in the substitution for the {flyer 25} of a flanged annular ring, and a light C-shaped {traveler 26}." Unfortunately the annotations were not always helpful. {Flyer 25} was recorded as: 1) An advertisement (usually printed on a page or in a leaflet) intended for wide distribution. 2) Someone who travels by air. 3) Someone who operates an aircraft, followed by a note in another hand: This can't be right. We are talking about a part of a spinning machine.

It was very clear that several people had worked on this and not all of them had known what they were working on. Some parts of the notes were printed and others handwritten. The right definition was in the packet, but Agustin would not find it for over a week. By the time he and Luis knocked off for the evening he was exhausted from trying to make sense of the half-translated documents.

The rather surly young woman delivered their evening meal. A thin soup, cheese, and bread. Luis did, at least, have a cask of reasonable wine. The de Aguilera's weren't exactly generous with supplies, but they weren't entirely misers, Luis explained.

"So," Luis said, "the problems of getting the machine to work are

…" He began a litany of complaints, possibilities, conjectures and outright fantasy. Even Agustin knew more about wool and how it was processed, having seen the lavadero Alfaro, near Segovia in operation.