Part 7 (2/2)
I suppose that I could claim that structural limitations in the materials available and the absence of certain types of ainst the side of the mountain, but that's not the way it happened
Besides setting up to produce cast iron, wrought iron, and lime for mortar, I wanted to produce bricks, tiles, and clay pipes I'd once read about an ancient Chinese invention called a dragon furnace, a long kiln built up the side of a mountain You filled the kiln with unfired products and started a fire at the bottom The rest of the kiln functioned as a chimney, and the bricks farther up were at least war fired
Then you started another fire farther up in the furnace Air co up the furnace was heated by the hot bricks near the bottom, so it took less fuel to bake the bricks farther up As ti new fires farther and farther up, letting the old ones die out It took a week to fire all the bricks in the furnace, at which tireen ones The system had a lot in common with the modem reverse-flow syste side the first so that we could keep working continuously
One of the coke oven workers was being ragged by his wife because of the stench he spent all day generating He came to me with a proposal for a set of flues to take the coke oven fuet theht out set of drawings showing how this could be done With only es, we tried it and it worked The stench was reduced and the valley becaood deal more livable”
Furtherases which were ignited in the hot dragon furnace, and fuel consuon furnaces went down As tier until they reached the top of the highest mountain there Then we built a s noxious went up it
I ht dance, publicly gave him three hundred pence as a bonus, and proot estions you could ever i on the part of the workers, but I hadn't expected to be inundated by duestions had to filter up through channels, and pay additional bonuses to workers' bosses so that they wouldn't squash everything
But the system worked Not only did it result in a lot of useful devices, but it singled out workers who could benefit fro As the years went on, I had to do less and less of the design workup ot notice that the duke would be arriving the next , so ' I had the band ready They had collected or had made seven brass instruht them a few fanfares
That is to say, I whistled the tunes and they figured out how to make theaudy band unifor with their dru the Star Wars theme from the balcony as the duke rode in
Duke Henryk arrived with his son, his armorer, and twenty men Since I'd proirls toeach of them a suit of parchment armor, as they had done for me
A few months before, at my Trial by Coht angle froht shoulder It darned nearly was the death of ned the helmet Instead of a clamshell affair that split down the middle and required a helper to put on, the new version looked sort of like a ”Darth Vader” hel around my collar A separate piece, called a beaver, fit into the front half of the ring and covered the bottom of my face Two easily removed pins fastened the beaver to the rest of the helmet, and a visor could be flipped down to protect the eyes at the price of decent visibility The big advantage was that you could put it on and take it off by yourself, even if it was bent
Naturally, his grace and the prince got the new model helmets
I'd also had the s up each of the pieces in advance, but oversized, so that they need only be trimmed down, finished, and assembled Even this took the whole crew ten days to do, and I didn't let theuests
As it turned out, I needn't have worried, for the duke stayed two days longer than he had to He was vastly i in our bathrooms He demanded that I duplicate the system at both Piast Castle in Wroclaw and Wawel Castle in Cracow I told him that it would be expensive, but he didn't seeot it He even paid the bill without co
I showed hi Copper City, and he seemed pleased ”Just so it works, boy!”
We were lucky in that Ilya had just completed the first steaotten him to work on arbeauests first They watched sixty wo cut into boards for half an hour They were suitably impressed Then we demonstrated the new stea-beale operator They were astounded
”da has the power of two hundred women!” The name of the unit stuck At one ti power” the way the A powered by pigs in huge haines got rated in woman power, and operators talked about how many women they tended I tried to stop it, but I couldn't The best I could do was to redefine it so that it would fit into our systeirls trained to act as food servers, in case the duke de cafeteria-style was an interesting innovation This was good because after that, if any noble visiting us co, we had only to say that the duke liked it and that ended thefor servants
Actually, the duke took most of his meals at the inn
I showed the white hot iron is most impressive
The duke ordered twenty clocks, and two of our huge kitchen stoves, but he spent ht, he de of Lady Francine The innkeeper was no fool, and if anybody objected to losing the h to keep his mouth shut
The best time of day to take a shoas just after breakfast, when most of the men were at work and the water was hot fro The place was nearly empty except for some of the woer than those workingwhether to invite a certain blonde to join , my lord” I bowed It was the first time that I had seen the prince naked and I couldn't help noticing that there was soe about his left foot It was a moment before I realized that on that foot, he had six toes
”Strange looking thing, isn't it, Sir Conrad?” He wiggled his left toes ”Runs in the fa You needn't look so aard I've had it all ” I took some soft, locallyto forgive These hot showers of yours arethe Tartars you said were going to invade us?”
”Directly,Indirectly, quite a bit These showers and the sewage systeram to keepathat could be easily prevented Then, too, it is going to take a lot of ols By selling pluenerate thatpeople what it does, and where better to de That ar forall your smiths weeks just to make the two sets”
”It's worse than that,preparatory work But in a few years, I'll have sheet presses, and dies by the dozens We'll be able to turn out armor fast and cheap”
”And the copperfor s than winds earn money for now, but the sa can bore out a cannon”
”And what ht a canon be, aside from the law of the church?”
”It's a device of war, my lord One smaller than aon them by next year”
”That sounds dishonorable and horrible It's hardly the thing to use in civilized combat”
”True, my lord They are horrible and I pray that they will never be used on Christians But you and the rest of the nobility ols are neither civilized nor honorable They lie, they cheat, and they steal They will do anything at all so long as it brings victory One of their favorite tactics is to take eneed, and put the that, youthe your own subjects Against an ene them as if they were an honorable enemy You must exterminate them in whatever way is possible”
”It is hard to believe that any people could be so vile”
”You must believe it if you want to survive,at all, including rats, dogs, and their own prisoners I know of one occasion when they ran short of supplies, so they ate their own allies They also never bathe It is their custom to put on new clothes on the outside and let them rot away from within”
”Yes, Sir Conrad, I'd heard that you can smell them miles away I suppose that you will have to build these cannons and doubtless other devilish devices But you can't expect me to like it”
”On the other hand, this new church you've built is wonderful! How did you ever get such huge logs set up like that?”
”It was quite a job, my lord You see”
Duke Henryk and Lady Francine hit it off very well together, and it was because of her that he stayed two days longer than he absolutely had to
She left with his party, and rumor had it that he paid her two dozen pence a day for her services, whatever they were That was six times what my top people were paid, but nobody demanded a raise because of it
As soon as the duke left, however, I got hit with afrom the women at Three Walls
They had all seen the tryouts on the steaainst it Last su to saood Now they were eventheir jobs And their husbands ith theo on and on about how they couldn't possiblyfor their half day's work, just to let theet it out of their systems; Then I stood up and cut off the last woht, ladies I've listened to what you've had to say Now you'll listen to me”