Part 17 (1/2)

Chapter Sixteen

It was another su behind inally intended to put her on the payroll like everybody else, but at first I didn't get around to it Then she started teaching dancing to the wo a penny for six lessons a week All winter long she had, so there was no point in paying her on top of that

I was even considering charging her rent onroom, where the classes were held, but then found out that she was giving most of the iving him any cash I could see where land, clothes, and food weren't quite enough, so I let it ride It was years later that I discovered that she was charging hiirl done that, I would have spanked her ass, but these were a different people, with different morals

Different strokes for different folks

Cilicia wasn't really eager to spend half her ti ht, either She ca school But shefor theto the woirls well trained to act as instructors, and she built an organization that paralleledfor all the traffic would bear About the saon Inns Oh God, how the money rolled in

Cilicia's people were survivors They had to be, after all they'd been through

Zoltan worked out a sideline of his own,perfumes and cosmetics I wasn't all that happy with it, since it seeirl who can blush doesn't need makeup But he found a readyI could do about it anyway, so I didn't try

Visiting the duke's castle at Wroclae found that not only were the serving girls topless, butwenches were dutifully clad inaround inexpertly in high heels The noblewo worn by snake Goddesses in ancient Crete But not all of theest felt that if the duke wanted it, he should get it But a substantial minority noticed that the duke's son, Prince Henryk, was a lot htlaced than his father, and that the prince's asn't going along with the new fad Figuring that the prince was the wave of the future, these ladies were dressing like Queen Victoria

The first thing we built at Coaltown, the installation on the Odra, was a brickworks It was cheaper to manufacture bricks on-site than to haul them in on mules from Three Walls, and we needed an awful lot of bricks

The previous fall, I'd put Zoltan to work seeing what he could do with coal tar He'd come up with ammonia and a wood preservative Further, he knew of a process of co salt, ammonia, and carbon dioxide to make sodium bicarbonate and ammonium chloride We tried the ammonium chloride out as a fertilizer Sodiu one is to melt it doith sand and lilass I wanted plentiful glass ht not have said that a few years ago

A beehive coke oven isn't very efficient at producing byproducts, so the ovens at Coaltown had to be of the coenerators, chemical separators, and tall brick chi that sued er than the rest of the town! He not only had roo ladies, but uest roo new church, and an indoor swihts in the public rooht, he letfor the peasants as well

I made the place look like a proper castle, with machinations, crenelated walls, and dunce caps on the towers There was even a drawbridge over apool in eather

His old castle beca was turned into stables

To build it, he contracted with me to take all the surplus bricks and ave us all the surplus cloth his factory could make for the next five Essentially, we beca felt sorry about the poor living conditions at Okoitz, even though they were no different than these throughout es It was just that when I first came to medieval Poland, these people took me in and made me feel at ho really nice for the It was going to be nice!

As to the financial arrange as I could meet my payroll and keep food on the tables, I really didn'tfun, and I wasn'telse?

I'd appointed Natasha to take care of Boris Novacek, since without hands he wasn't capable of doing anything for himself, and she had the patience to wait on hiether and he recovered fairly quickly under her care

Yet even after he'd reconciled himself to the loss of his hands, he was still in the du himself

So I offered hier We had not only the products of my factories to unload, but the duke's copper works and Count Lambert's cloth works as well

At first, he seemed to lack confidence in hi of it and enjoying hi with other ure at his opponents with his handless arms seemed to inti everything that anted to sell, ere getting thirty percent more for it

The money was ier had to worry about whether I could feed a man's family when I hired him If he looked to be the sort anted, I swore him in and found a place for hireatest triumph hen he invented the Tupperware party You see, one ofover a hundred schools in La very well, largely because woood cast-iron frying pans, for exa was an unusual way to prepare food in the Middle Ages, probably due to the lack of a decent frying pan!

So that summer, Boris invited two dozen of the schoolteachers to Three Walls for a week, and saw to it that they learned how to use every utensil wethem how to make pancakes!

Then he set up a systes from Three Walls at beloholesale prices, and the teachers demonstrated and sold the utensils to the other women in their towns at normal retail prices Everybody knew that half the money spent went to the local school, and that the teachers werea commission on the sales in addition to their salaries By fall, ere in danger ofa profit on the schools, which was a bit s

Up till then, school had been taught in the church, somebody's house, or even in a barn Now there were schoolhouses, and each one of them had a store attached We expanded the product line available to the schools to include everything we eneral store If they didn't stock it, they could get it

Every school had a post office, too This was usually just a drawer in the store, but you could send and receivecommunities, with only a few dozen families, so most of the schools had to be s water, in part to de products

Ifthemselves, well, it was the best we could do and the quality of teacher education went up in time

I refused to allow anyto do but expand the system

In three years, we covered the entire duchy, and in six, all of Poland

Just in tiols

By late fall, Boris knew that he had found a new niche in life, and he and Natasha caular biweekly court sessions They wanted to be otten her parents' written pers, and told him that he was a very lucky man, which he was A fine lady!

Construction never stopped at Three Walls That su unit,It tripled the living space available to the workers Yet because everyone was on different shi+fts, our existing kitchen, dining room, recreation facilities and church were still adequate, not to s

We also finished the sawmill and carpentry shop that had been stopped last fall in order to build housing for the Mosle kiln, and power-operated planers, joiners, and routers

Surprisingly,Despite the lack of inexpensive fasteners, they had never heard of a dado or a rabbet or a dovetail joint Their ainst each other and doweling theth was needed, they had iron strapsjust so I could teach it to etting s one at a time If somebody needed a chair, a carpenter made one If somebody wanted three, heway to work, but it wasn't very productive Equipping one of our dining rooms took a thousand chairs, and mass production was in order

We needed barrels, chests, and other shi+pping containers by the tens of thousands Standardization was necessary, unless anted to haggle over the price of every barrel of lime shi+pped It took a lot of work and a few temper tantrums, but I made believers out of them

By midsummer, I had over two thousandtheir fa with kids! Al a baby a year, but noith better nutrition, sanitation, and housing, they weren't dying off as fast as they were born Our infantmodem levels

Modern doctors and other medical-types like to take all the credit for the vast improvements in public health, but the fact is that it is the lowly sewer inspector and the despised custoineer who really keep people healthy!

So we had a population explosion on our hands, but it didn't bother row up clean, well fed, and well educated! We could afford to feed all the extra mouths, and the population of the country wasn't a twelfth of that ofrun? Well, historically, a high standard of living inevitably results in a lowered birth rate And if that wasn't good enough, there was a whole eols had gone

I was spending le Nest,with the kids They were the er, enthusiastic, friendly, and earnest bunch of people I'd ever oing to conquer the skies that they da it