Лео Франковски - Lord Conrad's Crusade

My old drinking buddy Thadeaus was the innkeeper there, as well as being the manager of the whole, huge chain, with small inns in every company in the army, and large ones in almost every city in Christendom. And, my God, how the money rolled in!

I never drew any salary from the army, but just left it all in the army’s bank. My lavish lifestyle, my many charities, and much else, were entirely supported by the Pink Dragon Inns.

“My Lord Conrad,” Thadeaus shouted, as energetic and as fat as ever. “You haven’t been by for a year! Will you be staying at the inn, tonight?”

“Yes, my friend. I’m taking a vacation, and going to the castle would be too much like work. Just take good care of Silver, with a clean stall, a nice rubdown, and all the best that she wants to eat. Give us a room for the night. We’ll eat in the common hall.”

“It will be as you wish, my lord. The Ducal Chamber is available, and I will have it readied for you. I take it that you do not want your presence announced?”

“You take it rightly. If the people on Wawel Hill found that I had snubbed them, they would be offended.”

“Then come in, my lord, along with your lovely friend, and wash the dust of the road from your throats. Besides our usual excellent beers, we have a wide selection of wines, brandies, and whiskeys available now.

“Good. We’ll do some sampling. This is Cynthia, incidentally.”

It was a pleasant evening. Cynthia drank a bit, at my request, but she didn’t seem to really enjoy it, and it never affected her at all. She was a totally different species, after all. The inn’s many attractive waitresses took turns dancing nude on the stage, pleasantly and enthusiastically, but not really very skillfully.

Cynthia couldn’t resist the temptation to get up there and show them what dancing was all about.

Her incredibly athletic form of dancing would put any Olympic gymnast to shame. She did amazing leaps higher into the air than anyone would think possible! She did cartwheels, back flips, front flips, reverse bounces, and finished up doing three complete forward spins in the air before coming down in a splits!

The crowd went wild! They’d never seen anything like it, but they liked what they saw.

Later, up in our suite, I decided that I was ready for a bit of sex. Cynthia was as enthusiastic and as skillful in bed as she was on the dance floor.

This was looking to be a very good vacation!

Sir Piotr’s Story: Meanwhile, Back at the Castle

Sir Piotr Kulczynski, commander of the Mapmakers, mathematician to the College of Inventors, Baron of Cieszyn, and hetman pro tem of the entire Christian Army, was trying out Conrad’s desk for size, in Lord Conrad’s elegant office.

The walls, lined with carved bookshelves of light-colored oak, and the books in their tooled leather bindings, radiated a feeling of wisdom, power, and incorruptibility. One huge wall was done all in glass, and looked out over the Polish countryside. Another looked over the magnificent courtyard, below, where the local girls were preparing decorations for the festival and dance to be held after the Easter morning mass.

The desk itself was a poor fit, since Conrad was one of the largest men in the army, and Piotr was one of the smallest. His first action was to order some furniture makers to build him a new chair, one small enough to fit him, but tall enough so he could work at the big desk.

Then, he put some books on Conrad’s chair to get himself up to a height that he write from, and started making a list of the other changes he intended to make.

He and Conrad had long debated about a number of things, and they had definite differences of opinion. Basically, Conrad’s feeling was that if their military technology was sufficiently better than anyone else’s, it was good enough. They should work on other things, instead.

Piotr was convinced that it was necessary to continuously improve one’s capabilities. In order to continue to be useful, everything had to be exercised regularly, and this was as true for organizations as it was for machines, animals, and individual human beings. A research and development group that did not continue to produce new things soon lost all of its best people, who became bored. They were invariably replaced by second-rate people who were happy to work for nothing but their pay.

Someone else might catch up with the army, someday, and if the army did not have a creative, productive, and innovative R&D group, Christendom could be in big trouble.

At the very least, the production schedules of the new, high velocity, bolt-action infantry rifles should be at least tripled, since they increased the army’s fire power so much at so little cost. And they should use the new smokeless powder, even if it was more expensive than black powder. It was clearly superior!

Conrad had once discussed the navies of someplace that he has seen, with their thick armor and their huge guns, but he saw no need for such expensive things in this time and place.

Piotr felt that they were developing large, breech-loading cannons for their land forces, and for coastal defenses. With a few modifications, these could be mounted on a ship!

There were three fast, big, Liner class ships being built at a time when there wasn’t a strong economic justification for them. But if they could be modified into battleships…

And the air force was being deliberately held back. Conrad insisted they be used only for training, patrolling, and observation. But they had a new two-engine, two-man craft capable of staying aloft from dawn to dusk. Unlike all previous aircraft, which had been made mostly of wood and cloth, the new plane was largely made from the new magnesium alloy, which was being extracted from Mediterranean sea water. The cylinder liners and piston rings were made of cast iron, the bearings were of various alloys, and the engine cranks were bronze, but mostly, the plane was of magnesium, as was the Japanese Zero during the Second World War.

It had a retractable, tricycle landing gear, using the new rubber pneumatic tires, and could take off and land on any field, without the need of a catapult. The pilot and the navigator-radio operator both lay prone on their stomachs, the better to observe the land below them, but this also made for a very low drag, efficient, and sleek profile.

At another installation, a tripod mounted machine gun was already in evaluation trials, in both a light and a heavy version. It used the new clean burning, smokeless powder that didn’t foul the gun barrels.

Two of those machine guns could be mounted in the plane, at a cost of some of its range, and be serviced by the radio operator. Bombs and incendiaries could also be carried by the new airplane.

And the machine guns could also be mounted on the battleships. Also, some of the new, Explorer class ships could also be heavily armed, as they were being built.

There was no reason a heavily armed ship could not perform commercial tasks, although it might have to be subsidized, a bit, since it would require a larger crew, and the guns would cut into the cargo space.

Conrad had left him in charge, without much in the way of definite instructions. Therefore, it seemed to Piotr that he was obligated to do things as he saw best.

The worst that could happen was that he could be chastised for it. He hoped.

Conrad, after all, was an old friend.

Piotr started making up flow charts of what had to be accomplished by when, and by whom.

He must get Baron Tados Bowman, commander of the seagoing forces, to agree with the changes, soonest!

And the commander of the air force! Now, what was his name?

Down to the Sea in Ships

After a leisurely breakfast, and taking along a picnic lunch, we again took to the road, making Sandomierz before dark. Again, we stayed at one of my Pink Dragon Inns, this one in a converted castle.