Лео Франковски - The High-Tech Knight

I tell you, if the workers hadn't needed work so badly that they were starving, I wouldn't have gotten anything done at all. But the combination of money and hunger is a powerful incentive.

As it was, I ended up spending a quarter of my considerable wealth on a few tons of hand tools.

Then there was the problem of hiring the men who would use the tools to build my facilities at Three Walls,

I One of the carpenters, Yashoo, could read and write and was good at following instructions. Furthermore, he was about the only one who picked up reading technical drawings without difficulty. I made him my carpentry foreman and together we picked out his crew.

Many of these people were his close friends and relatives and I suppose that this was nepotism, but in a small medieval city, everybody in a given trade knew each other and many of them were related. Had I made a no relatives rule, I don't think that there would have been enough carpenters left to fill my table of organization.

Then there were the masons to hire, and the miners. Well, there weren't that many miners available and I hired every one of them. All five.

Then we needed a blacksmith for repairs and a brewer and a baker and leather workers and all sorts of specialists.

I wouldn't bargain on pay. I offered every man a penny a day plus food, take it or leave it. Every man took it.

At long last it all started to come together, but by then it was time to make my monthly visit to Okoitz.

I had asked Count Lambert about the girls. He said that they could visit, but only if they came each in the company of a knight. That way they would be a cut above the peasants, and their upper-class manners wouldn't be so offensive. The Banki brothers were more than willing to visit Okoitz, although after that they had to get back to their estate, their summer holiday over.

So it was a two-day trip for a party of ten to Okoitz, with a stop at Sir Miesko's. A waste of time, but when a bunch of young girls is giving you everything they've got, every night, it's hard to say no.

The mill was working just fine when we finally got there. All of the peripheral equipment wasn't going yet, but a crew was sawing wood in the sawmill and another was pounding flax with the trip hammer. I left my sword with one of the workers, climbed up to the turret of the mill and went to a small turbine in the back.

Well, it was small only by comparison with the thirty yard diameter of the main wheel. In fact, it was four yards across and was set at right angles to the big one. It was connected with reduction gearing to the turret such that if the big wheel wasn't facing directly into the wind, the small wheel started spinning and turned the turret to face the wind's new direction. It seemed to be working perfectly.

I went into the turret and found that all the pumps were in operation. There were two sets of pumps. One pumped fresh water from a well to a tank at the top of the tower. This was used only for emergencies at present, with a fire hose at the base of the mill. Eventually, I hoped to install pipes for running water throughout the whole complex.

The second set of pumps took water from a tank below ground level up to a tank halfway up the tower. Water running down from this middle tank was working the sawmill down below. This arrangement let work go on even if the wind stopped.

There was only a gentle breeze blowing, but all of the pumps were going full blast. I had seriously underestimated the amount of torque a windmill of this size could generate. Well, better that than having overestimated it. The next model, if there was one, would have bigger pumps.

As I left the turret, I heard a delighted shriek from above. I looked up and saw Sir Wiktor, hanging upside down from the top of the highest turning blade. It seems that he had heard of Sir Vladimir's adventures on the windmill and had to try it out himself.

In time, this became the standard thing to do for every young buck who visited Okoitz, a regular rite of passage. I had invented the ferris wheel.

Vitold was at work constructing the cloth factory, which surprised me. I'd expected him to be working at the second windmill, the one for threshing and grinding grain.

"It was Count Lambert who told me to build this factory first," Vitold said. "You'll have to talk to him if you want it done different."

I found Lambert out in the fields.

"Sir Conrad, you really must learn to report to a castle's lord as soon as you arrive. Courtesy requires it, and I saw you come in hours ago."

"Yes, my lord." Lambert had his moods and in this one it was best to speak when spoken to.

"Those are some strange plants you gave me. What are these things here?"

"Maize, my lord. Sometimes just called corn. I gave you several varieties and I'm not sure which this is."

"It's growing as high as my chest! What do you do with it?"

"It'll grow taller, my lord. It grows an ear, there's one there, that contains a sort of grain. Some kinds make good animal feed, some are good for human consumption. One kind pops and makes a good snack. It goes well with beer."

"Pops? What do you mean?"

"That's a bit hard to explain, my lord. I'll have to wait and show you in the fall."

"And what's this thing here?"

So I spent the whole afternoon lecturing from my meager knowledge of agriculture.

Before supper, Lambert led our party, his knights, and his current twelve "ladies-in-waiting" for a dip in his new swimming pool, the bottom tank of the new mill.

The bathing suit was thought up by the sick minds of the late Victorian era and of course hadn't been invented yet. It wasn't missed since the nudity taboo hadn't been invented yet, either.

Some of Lambert's ladies were remarkably attractive and skilled at frolicking. Indeed, I frolicked with two of them that night, Krystyana being indisposed.

Yet I was angry at this use of the tank. It was adjacent to the new well and seepage from the tank would get into the well water. We weren't using that well for drinking yet, but I'd planned to.

But all I could get out of Lambert was, "Sir Conrad, You take things too seriously."

Count Lambert never mentioned paying me for having won our wager over the mill, and his mood was such that I thought it best not to bring the subject up.

It was a relief to return to Cieszyn.

"Krystyana, go back to the inn and tell Tadeusz to send out a breakfast for six hundred people. Tell him I know it's impossible, but I want him to do his best. This mess will take hours to sort out."

It was dawn and I almost despaired as I looked over the mob scene outside of Cieszyn's north gate. The three dozen pack mules I had bought were there and the Krakowskis had them loaded with tons of tools fresh from heat-treating, along with all the other supplies I had bought. Sir Vladimir was in full armor and the girls were ready.

And the hundred and forty-odd men I had hired were there, dirty, ragged, and skinny. But they had their wives and children with them, who were equally dirty and ragged, and even skinnier. I hadn't counted on being responsible for so many people.

"Darn it, Yashoo," I said to the carpentry foreman, "I never said that you could bring your families!"

"But what else can we do with them?"

"How should I know? But don't you realize that we are going out into the middle of the woods, where there isn't a single building for miles?"

"It's early summer, Sir Conrad, and these people are tougher than they look. We have the protection of you two good knights. It will work out."

"It will work out, will it? Just what do you plan to feed them? Pine needles? Because that's all you'll find in that valley!"

"Merchants will come. They always do."

"And I suppose you expect that I will pay them."