Part 10 (1/2)

Most of La up his new crops and other i only a year behind hi wheelbarro, and the entire harvest was gotten in early, al than I was He had to make a monthly visit to the inns at Cracow, Cieszyn, and Wroclaw, besides the installations at Three Walls, Copper City, Eagle Nest, where ere taking care of the bookkeeping, paying all expenses and charging Count Lambert in cloth for it, and Okoitz, where we had built a son Inn at Count Lambert's request If the duke had one at Wroclaw, Count Lambert had to have one at Okoitz

That su up a post office at every one of our inns Besides serving our own people, we carried the ed for it It became a profitable sideline

We never carried money or valuables, since Piotr had to travel alone and I didn't want to et for thieves, but I did set up a systerown to the point that I had to put on a full-time letter carrier, who made the round on about a weekly basis on a fast horse As more inns were added, the number of letters sent increased as a cube function In a few years, letters left each inn daily, and a letter could get to any major city in Poland in a week, for a price

And like a mode people's privacy and about getting the h

By late fall, the smelters at Copper City were in full production and the other facilities were just about complete I sold the Krakowski Bros Brass Works at a very healthy profit to Count Lambert's brother, Count Her that I was taking the best ofproducts there much like those that were uy understood that people are as i done It takes both the tools and the , but ot all the buildings, machinery, and facilities, as well as two years worth of back orders and s But deep inside, I didn't think he'd be successful

Most of the people from the brass works were moved to Copper City and formally sworn to me They hadn't been up to that time, except for the Krakowski brothers themselves and their wives, and I wanted all the workers to be treated the sa that had received the approval of the foremen, e of the s the eldest was also overseer of the whole city His brothers had charge of the casting andas a committee, and that's the way I set it up Oh, they were always arguing like a bunch of kids over a gaot pretty loud But somehow inside they were a smooth team It takes all kinds

My ladies had each spenttheir own bailiwicks there

Krystyana got the kitchens going well; Yawalda had the barns running efficiently The stores and offices were set up, and all the girls had chosen to come back to Three Walls I was flattered, but they explained that if they stayed out in ”the woods,” as they described it, theywhen I was around, even if I wouldn't e of running the inn at Copper City He orried He was now out of sons How could we expand further? So orked out a training progra a er inns if a man did well There was also a bonus system for the trainer

Piotr had junior accountants at each of our installations by then so that he only had to check their work rather than doing it all himself There just wasn't time

The priest from Italy finally arrived, and I nearly fell off my chair when he announced his name It was Thoreatest theologian and logician of the Middle Ages, perhaps of all ti my church and school system I tried to treat him the same as any other priest, but secretly I was in awe of hienerally I let hi advice only when asked

Interlude Two I hit the STOP button

”He really had Tho for him?”

”Yes and no The man's name was Thomas and he really was from the Italian town of Aquinas But the Tho of was seven years old at the time, and no relation to Conrad's schoolteacher Conrad's history was about as accurate as yours”

”Suot written in Conrad's branch”

He hit the START button

Chapter Ten

We had just finished installing our first rotary steaine, our first double expansion device It turned an overhead shaft that had leather belts driving the lathes, grinders, and other machines we had lined up below it Wicker baskets covered the belts, a safety feature

I was getting ready to go to Eagle Nest to greet the first batch of four dozen boys when there was a coate of Three Walls

In front of the drawbridge was a ragged ners, and Sir Vladimir was not about to let them in without my permission There were over a hundred of them

They had darker complexions than we did Their hair was black and their eyes brown, soreen

They were of medium stature and had the thin, wiry bodies one associates with Armenians, or even Arabs

Yet they weren't quite exactly like either of those peoples

Their leader, as about as ragged as the rest, spoke only a s of Polish, and the others spoke none at all It took me several hours to find out what they wanted, and I would have given up on theht the words ”Novacek” and ”alchemist”

A year before, I had asked a merchant friend, Boris Novacek, to send me a chemist, if he ever ran across one, since I eak in practical chemistry Apparently, this man was the thirteenth-century equivalent of a chemist He had with him three pottery jars of what sestures that he had made the away all sorts of things that could be useful if treated properly Coal tar, for exauck that is a mixture of thousands of chemicals, some of which can be very useful I knew that it contained aspirin and dyes and wood preservatives, to nao about purifying the stuff But I needed one chemist, or et this idea across, but it was slow going

The lunch bell rang, and I was getting hungry Looking at the crowd of refugees, for that's what they turned out to be, I realized that they hadn't eaten in days, and had had damn little in the months before We had plenty of food, and there was no reason to be uncharitable I invited theestures that this was a te them

Probleuest, you eat what's put in front of you, and at least pretend that you're enjoying it But they wouldn't touch our beer, insisting on drinking only water Many Poles feel that you can't trust a enerosity is an insult

The leader questioned , and I finally had to draw hiet the idea across to hi to feed hi out it was pork he said so to his followers such that they contented themselves with bread and kasha At least they were cheap to feed, even though they ate three times what my own people did

In the course of the afternoon, either his Polish i It seeh I wasn't sure whether ”zoltan” was a naot the idea across that he and his people elcome to stay for teeks, but after that they would have to leave

I also insisted that they take a bath before we put theht, which caused other problems My people didn't have a nudity tabu, and his did Men and woether

This caused all sorts of screa sex walked into the shower rooirl went in to join them Culture shock all over the floor

Their clothes were in shreds and we had cloth co for all the work at Eagle Nest in cloth, and I hadn't gotten-around to disposing of it profitably yet I had Janina issue theh cloth to ht featured lamb, and that they'd eat We put theuest quarters, since there wasn't room for them anywhere else They were stacked in like firewood, but even so, if the duke paid an unexpected visit, I didn't knoe'd do Put the, I really had to get to Eagle Nest, being a day late already I assigned Natasha to Zoltan, with the understanding that she was supposed to do what she could about teaching him some Polish I said that I didn't expect her to sleep with him There are limits to hospitality

Natasha took the job with the sa else I never decided whether she was odd for being so coe for not being exactly like her Anyet le Nest, bright young kids about ten or twelve years old, the scions of the local nobility

Most of the, and these people expected to have the cushy job of waiting on one s , which freed up many of my own people for ned six to the room, and one responsible servant was put in with theht times the number of people we had, and each of the boys could have had a rooe are tribal in their outlook I wanted to get the friendshi+ps and a sense of teamwork For the first few days, I let thenments became fairly permanent

Count Lambert had picked the head two classes of two dozen each, one in theand one in the afternoon He was to teach the standard subjects, reading, writing, and arithmetic When not in school, the boys were under the supervision of one of ood with kids

This syste team and an afternoon teaood amount of time was spent on team sports, and competitions were set between the shi+fts on weekends

I started the boys out with kites, and had them build their own And not just ordinary kites, but controllable kites with two and three strings By the end of the week, I told thes, so that you could cut another kite's strings