Лео Франковски - The High-Tech Knight

"Then we'll call the matter settled. Pick out the cloth you want and have it sent to your lands on my mules. And perhaps I'm not really being so generous. After all, I am your liege-lord and, you have no heir. Once you're dead, all of your property escheats to me. Then too, even though I've sent my vassals their half of the fabric in return for their wool and flax, I have more cloth than I can sell, now that your factory is working."

"Haven't merchants been coming around to buy it, my lord?"

"Not as many as I had hoped. Many come looking to buy wool and go away with their mules unloaded. But few come to buy cloth."

"Perhaps you should consider setting up a sales organization."

"A what? Well, no matter. We can discuss it in the evening. For now, I want to tour the factory with you."

Count Lambert had about a hundred fifty knights, most of whom had manors of their own. To "man" his factory, he had asked each of his knights to send him a peasant girl or two, and each of the girls was to be paid for her work in cloth, giving her a full hope chest.

The knights, knowing their lord's preferences with regards to attractive young ladies, had each sent the loveliest women available, usually the prettiest unmarried girl in a whole village. For a girl to be unmarried in that culture, she had to be in her very early teens.

And rather than risk embarrassment for the lady and annoyance for their liege lord, they had all explained the customs of Okoitz to the girls to be sent, so that any not so inclined could bow out gracefully and another sent in her place.

It was a hot day and there was no nudity taboo in thirteenth century Poland. Many of the girls were scantily clothed and no few of them were completely nude. That factory was like a scene from an Italian science fiction movie.

It was hard to keep my mind on the machinery. It was hard to keep my mind at all, let alone even notice the machinery.

Count Lambert was wallowing in all the beauty like a pig in mud. He wandered around, patting a butt here, pinching a tit there and smiling and flirting all the while. The girls seemed thrilled by all the attention from so high a personage, and many were actually competing for their share of caresses.

Once Count Lambert made it known that I was the favored vassal responsible for the factory and mill, I got my share of the attention, too. Distracting, but vastly enjoyable!

There were a dozen looms on the factory's third floor. Each was set up to make a different sort of cloth, from heavy tweed to a very fine linen. Vitold had outdone himself with the fine-linen loom, taking wooden machinery farther than I would have thought possible.

It was sort of the way the printing done by Gutenberg was some of the best ever done, and the way the machining on a prototype is often so much better than that on a production item. When a craftsman knows that he is breaking new ground, he puts his soul into his work. And it shows.

The cloth that loom turned out was pretty impressive as well. It was strong and light and looked like thin nylon even though it was really linen.

"This stuff is incredible!" I said. The naked operators stopped their work and crowded around. It was hot on the third floor, but I suspect that the real reason for their nudity was that they got more petting that way. I couldn't resist putting an arm around a redhead.

"It is good, isn't it," Count Lambert said with a girl in each arm and a young breast in each hand.

"Good? It's so sheer that you could make a kite out of it!"

"And what might a kite be?"

"A kite, my lord? Well, it's a thing made out of sticks and, I suppose, this cloth. It flies."

Count Lambert suddenly lost all interest in the ladies he'd been fondling. The sparkle faded from their eyes. "You mean that it were possible for a man to build a thing that flies?"

"Of course, my lord. I could make you a kite this very afternoon. I simply never thought that you would want such a thing. And there are many things that fly. Aircraft, balloons, helicopters, rockets, dirigibles, and what not."

"These others we must discuss, but later. For now I want you to immediately build me this kite thing."

"Yes, my lord. Uh, there is the matter of the fighting practice you ordered."

"Forget about that for now. After all, you're going to die anyway, and I want as many of your devices saved as possible."

So on that cheery note, I went out and flew a kite.

Vitold was pulled from supervising the construction of the second windmill to give me "every possible assistance. " I told him to lend me a junior carpenter and sent him back to work.

I took a yard of the fine linen cloth and put Krystyana and Annastashia, good seamstresses both, to work cutting and sewing. It was done in an hour, and we gave it a thin coating of linseed oil. We set the finished kite up in the sun to polymerize the oil, then had a few rounds of beer.

It was a simple, traditional diamond-shaped kite, and there was enough of a breeze to fly it right out of the bailey. I no sooner had it airborne than Count Lambert was there. By the time twenty yards of string was out, he'd taken it out of my hands like an impetuous child, and was playing with it himself.

"That a man could build a thing that could fly!"

"Of course, my lord. You saw us make it. It's a simple enough thing. This is probably the simplest design, though there are many others."

"Then I must have them! Sir Conrad, could you stay on a bit past your usual two days?"

"If you wish, my lord."

"Earlier today, you mentioned the cloth I was to have. Do you suppose that I could have a few tons of thread and yam as well? I'd like my people to have knitted underwear as well as decent top clothes."

"What?" The count was clearly distracted. "Oh, yes. Those marvelous knots you showed my ladies last winter. Take six tons, a dozen tons if you want it."

I took it. In fact, I sent it along with the cloth to Three Walls within the hour. This forced the muleteers to camp out that night, but that was better than to give Count Lambert the chance to regret his generosity.

In making and flying that kite, it was as though I had created the wonder of the world. People who had been indifferent to my mills and factories were astounded by a simple child's toy. In the course of the next week, I made box kites, Rondalero kites, French war kites, and even a monstrous Chinese dragon kite.

Kite-flying became the big game on campus, and grown men, professional warriors and leaders, were soon ignoring their hawks and hunts and flying kites. The fad spread across Poland-within a year across Europe — and the mill couldn't keep up with the demand for Count Lambert's Finest. Prices on that linen cloth soared, and merchants who came to buy it often bought other varieties of fabric as well. By spring, the factory was selling every yard it could make, all because of a silly kite-flying fad.

At least they didn't name it after me.

That night at dinner, Count Lambert was glorying in a thick slice of watermelon. I was sure that watermelon didn't come from the New World, but somehow no one from Poland had ever heard of it. "And to think, Sir Conrad, you gave this marvelous stuff to a peasant!"

"Yes, my lord. Just be sure and save the seeds, and next year there'll be more than enough for everybody."

"To be sure, to be sure. You've explained over and over again that there is no reason why all these different sorts of melons you brought can't soon be enjoyed by everyone. It simply seems that they are too good to waste on a peasant! Still, nothing's to be done for it, I suppose."

I'd given the count all those types of plants whose seeds might be eaten, since I was worried that a hungry peasant might eat, say, our entire supply of hybrid wheat the first winter. Actually, I almost had that problem with him. I'd decided it was good PR to show the cook what to do with sweet corn, and, to get enough acreage the next year to plant all the seed we'd grown, sacrificed one ear out of the twenty-seven that were growing so the count could try it. The count fell in love with sweet corn. I think that if I hadn't physically stopped him, he would have gone out and personally picked and eaten the entire crop that evening. And there were no more seeds to be had in the century, at least on this side of the Atlantic. Count Lambert was generous with his vast new supply of young ladies. He had even asked them to see that I was well taken care of. Krystyana found herself sort of whisked aside, and two most attractive young women joined me in bed that night. It would have been a great erotic fantasy come true, except that after an hour of fondling and fumbling, they both admitted that they didn't know what to do. The count, thinking to do me a huge favor, had sent in two virgins. Now, one virgin is a monumental undertaking, if you're going to do it right. But a clumsy man can turn what could have been a fine lover into a frigid bitch. Two at the same time, when I hardly knew either one of them, seemed impossible. Yet the ladies were there and expecting something wonderful to happen. It turned into something of an all-night tutorial session. In the end, I did the job reasonably well, and I think the girls were pleased. The truth is that I really preferred an experienced bed partner. This business of two virgins a night was ridiculous, and moderation was in order. Say, one a week.