Great King_s war k-2

by Roland Green

  Meanwhile, Kalvan decided against mentioning his plans to make most of the paper mill equipment water-powered. Apart from the matter of security, it would involve either moving the mill or a lot of digging of millponds and building of dams and spillways. There was no guarantee the men and money would be available when spring came and the ice melted, and it would be pointless to even make the effort if the winter's work hadn't discovered how to produce usable paper. So far all the mill had produced was mush that smelled like the Altoona drunk tank on the Sunday morning after a particularly lively Saturday night.

  "How goes the rag room?"

  "Well enough, Sire, but no one is working there now. We've chopped all the rags as fine as necessary and no more have come in the last moon-quarter."

  This was no surprise. There wasn't too much difference between the rags the mill was cutting up for paper and the clothes the poor of Hostigos were wearing this winter.

  "I'll see what the quartermasters can do about providing you with something." The quartermasters would probably say they couldn't do anything, but Kalvan's experience of supply sergeants led him to expect they would be holding back more than they'd admit to anyone. A platoon sergeant was "just anyone," the Great King of Hos-Hostigos was somebody more.

  Brother Mytron led the way down the hall and through a freshly-painted wooden door into another hall, with log walls and a roughly-planked roof. It was cold enough to make Kalvan wrap his cloak more tightly. Wind blew through chinks between the logs and planks, and dead leaves crunched underfoot. About all that could be said for these hastily-carpentered passageways between the buildings of the mill was that they were better than wading through knee-deep snow in a wind that made five layers of wool seem as inadequate as a stripper's G-string.

  Warmth and foul-smelling steam greeted Kalvan and Mytron at the end of the passageway: also, flickering torchlight and heartfelt curses in an accent that Kalvan could only tell was from somewhere other than Hos-Hostigos. Beyond a row of shelves holding a fine collection of blackened clay pots, Kalvan saw a muscular man with a blond beard standing stripped to the waist beside a row of posts on a stone-walled bed of hot coals. The smoke from the coals mixed with the steam to make Kalvan swallow a harsh cough. The man wouldn't have heard it in any case; he was too busy thundering at a small boy who was cowering in one corner of the room.

  "-and next time you let the goat fat burn, I'll try to find a coating that calls for boy's fat. Your fat, you lazy Dralm-forsaken whore's son-oh, I beg your pardon, Brother Myt-Your Majesty!" The man bowed and started to kneel, but Kalvan waved him to his feet.

  "Don't stop your work for me. Just tell me what you have here. It smells like a glue works."

  "Well, maybe that's not so far from what it is," said the bearded man. "You see, Sire, you said that sometimes animal fat was used to coat the-pulp-to make paper. You didn't say what kind or how much, which was a good test, by Dralm, of our wisdom."

  It was really a sign that Kalvan didn't know himself; there were times when he would have given a couple of fingers for one college-level chemistry textbook. Not that anybody here would know the scientific names of the essential chemicals for treating wood pulp, but at least the book would help him to recognize them. Right now, he wouldn't have known aluminum chloride if he fell into a vat of it. So they were going to have to make do with clay and animal-fat sizings on the paper, if they ever made those work.

  "You're trying to find out what kind of animal fat works best?"

  "Yes. I've got all these pots lined up and I try a different mix in each one. This first one's goat and sheep, the next is sheep and horse, the third one's pure horse fat…"

  The man listed the ingredients of all eight pots, with the pride of a father listing his children, but Kalvan only remembered the first three. After that he realized he was listening to a description of the experimental method: rule of thumb-crude no doubt-but a foundation by which a lot of things this world desperately needed could be built."

  "Master-?"

  "Ermut, Your Majesty."

  "Master Ermut, I'd say you passed Dralm's test very well. Your wisdom will be rewarded."

  Ermut bowed. "Thanks be to the Allfather Dralm and Your Majesty. I'll say this much, though. Being a freed man here has been a boon. Still, I'd not cry at being still a slave as long as I was free of Styphon's collar."

  Ermut didn't dare turn his back on his Great King, but Kalvan got a look at it on the way out. He'd always wondered what the scars left by those iron-tipped whips they'd found at the Sask Town temple-farm looked like-now he knew.

  II

  Kalvan sipped at his freshly refilled cup of mulled wine and contemplated the logs crackling in the hearth of what had once been the lord's bedchamber. Now Mytron had his bed in one corner of it and used the rest of it for an office and for entertaining junketing Great Kings.

  When young Baron Nicomoth rode back from the Battle of Fyk, where he'd fought gallantly, he found his mother dead, his outbuildings burned, most of his hands run off to the Hostigi army or even farther, the crops rotting in the fields and not two brass coins to rub together to remedy any of it. So he buried his mother, swallowed his pride, sold the family lands to the Great King, then took a commission in the Royal Horseguards.

  Since the qualities of intelligence and adaptability were in as short supply here-and-now as they were back home, Kalvan quickly noted the young man's usefulness and made him his aide-de-camp. In the way some junior officers will favor a respected senior, Nicomoth had his beard trimmed into a Van-dyke similar to Kalvan's. He was even said to walk like the Great King. Nicomoth was on the slim side, but other than that their builds were quite similar, particularly when they were both in armor. Kalvan was sure that one of these days he'd be able to take advantage of having a double.

  Nicomoth had left behind a rather good if small wine cellar, which Kalvan and Mytron were now busily depleting. Kalvan emptied his cup, set it down and decided against another if he wanted to be fit to ride back to Tarr-Hostigos tonight.

  "Mytron, I've said I'll see what I can do about more rags. Is there anything else you need?"

  Mytron looked into his wine cup, wrapped his ink-stained fingers around it and then shook his head. "The Potters Guild has promised to deliver what they call 'all the clay they have found fit for the Great King's service.' I will be charitable until I have seen how much or how little that is. It is said that the clay pits have frozen harder than ever before in living memory."

  That was probably true, but for the sake of the Potters Guild Kalvan hoped "all the clay" was "much" rather than "little." Brother Mytron's placid and even-tempered manner was deceptive, and Kalvan himself couldn't endlessly bow to the guilds.

  "We have enough old swords to cut all the rags we are likely to see this winter. I have had to be harsh with some of the workers who would take such swords or sell them, in either case to defend against wolves and bandits. Have I done well?"

  "Yes." Another of those painful decisions. Respect for the Great Kings' property had to be enforced-by the headsman, if necessary-no matter how many wolves and bandits were roaming the countryside. Besides, a sword given out for wolf hunting today could be in a bandit's hands by moon's end.

  "As to wire-we shall need much more when we know how to make the paper. For now, what the Foundry is sending is enough."

  The brass wire for the screens on which the rags and wood pulp were supposed to drain into paper was produced by an ancient practice that Kalvan had needed to see with his own eyes to believe. One apprentice fed bar stock through a hole of the right gauge cut in an iron or stone plate, while another sat in a suspended chair underneath. The apprentice sitting in the chair gripped the end of the wire with pliers and swung back and forth, so that his weight and movement dragged the bar through the hole and forced it into wire.

  Like so many of the here-and-now metalworking techniques, it was fine for high-quality, small-scale production-the beautiful steel springs of the gunlocks, for example
. It was hopeless for really large-scale production work. For that they'd need horse- or water-powered wire-drawing equipment, something else he'd needed a month ago at the latest but would be lucky to see before their unborn child was old enough to walk.

  Kalvan wondered if the primitive state of large-scale metallurgy was the result of economics, military tactics, deliberate interference by Styphon's House or a combination of the three. Certainly the good small arms and poor artillery made for a lot of small political units instead of a few large ones. The large ones could have generated enough revenue to make their rulers independent of Styphon's House, particularly if the economic surplus also supported an educated class-something like the medieval monastic orders. Of course, such a class would be an intolerable threat to the fireseed secret.

  If that series of guesses was anywhere near the truth, Kalvan now understood why Styphon's House was rumored to be preaching the next thing to a war of extermination against the temple of Dralm. The priests of Dralm would be more than ready to be such an educated class-with a little help from Kalvan I of Hos-Hostigos.

  Kalvan decided he really didn't want to ride home tonight and poured himself some more wine. "Mytron, I meant what I said about rewarding Ermut. I'm going to charter a Royal Guild of Papermakers as soon as there's any paper to make, and he'll be one of the first masters."

  "He deserves the honor, Your Majesty. He's done the same as he did with the animal fats on other work here."

  "Then he has the makings of a Scientist."

  "A what?"

  "A kind of priest in my own land, one who was sworn to seek new knowledge. Ermut has stumbled upon one of their methods. It was called 'Experimenting.'"

  "Experimenting." Mytron rolled the word around on his tongue several times. "And these Scientists-priests-what gods did they worship?"

  "Seldom the gods of my own land. They were not good gods, and did not help a man to know much. Although some of the Scientists served in the temples of Atombomb the Destroyer. They were free to choose to worship any god or none at all. Their oaths concerned how they were to do their work and not hide it from others or tell lies about what they had learned.

  "Most of them did work in temples called Universities. Some of these were as large as Hostigos Town before the war with Styphon's House." Now Hostigos Town was the thriving capital of a new Great Kingdom and fast on its way to becoming a city.

  "The Scientists must have been very rich. Or did your Great King pay them?"

  "All were rich by Hostigos standards. Some were in the pay of Great King LBJ, but most worked for the Universities. If Dralm and Galzar give us victory in the coming War of the Great Kings, I mean to found such a University in Hos-Hostigos. There men such as Ermut will teach Experimentation, Deduction, Invention and the other arts of the Scientific Method. Had there been such a place anywhere in the Great Kingdoms long ago, when the lying priests of Styphon proclaimed their Fireseed Mystery, its Scientists could have flung that lie in their teeth.

  "Mytron, your work in the paper mill will end when you have taught all you know and chosen someone fit to replace you. When do you think that will be?"

  Mytron frowned. "No less than five moons, Your Majesty. But not much more than that either. Why?"

  Kalvan smiled. "Good, Mytron. The time has come to found a University of Hostigos. I want you to be head of the new University-Rector would be your title."

  Mytron frowned even more deeply. "My first duty is to Allfather Dralm. I cannot forsake him."

  With equal care, Kalvan explained to Mytron what some of his duties as University Rector would be and how they would not be antithetical to his duties to Allfather Dralm. He finished with, "I do not know the duties imposed on you by that oath. This is shameful in a Great king, but it is the truth. So I do not know for certain if I am asking you to forsake your service to Dralm. Yet I can say certainly that you will not have to swear any oaths against Dralm, or do anything I know to be unlawful, or to cease to perform the rites of Allfather Dralm."

  "Then I will not refuse now." Mytron's frown faded a bit. "I cannot accept without the permission from Highpriest Xentos, of course. He is judge of the oaths of the priests of Dralm in Hos-Hostigos. Also, he would find me hard to replace at the Temple."

  In truth, Chancellor of the Realm Xentos had already bent Kalvan's ear several times about how he and Brother Mytron were being forced to neglect their duties to Dralm to serve their Great King.

  "I will speak to Highpriest Xentos, and learn more about the duties of the priests of Dralm. It is my hope that he will permit you to become Rector of the new University."

  "If it is proper that I serve Allfather Dralm by serving Your Majesty in this, I shall do it with all my heart." This seemed to call for a toast, so Mytron poured out the last of the mulled wine, and they both drank to the University finding favor in the eyes of Dralm.

  After Brother Mytron left, Kalvan knocked the heel out of his pipe, re-loaded it with tobacco and used his tinderbox to light it. He sat back and stared into the dying fire. He could see all sorts of church-and-state complications bearing down upon him like a runaway truck on an icy mountain road. They would have been likely enough in the best of worlds; with Xentos they were certain. In spite of his unworldly air, the highpriest was as tough as a slab of granite and as shrewd a bargainer as an Armenian rug dealer. Anything Kalvan got out of him-particularly the permanent reassignment of his right-hand man (and probably handpicked successor) as Rector of the University-was going to cost.

  But Dralm-damnit, he had to begin somewhere to make sure that he wasn't the only man in the world who knew half of what would be needed to bring down Styphon's House. Until he'd at least made that start, everything could fall apart if his horse put a foot in a gopher hole! Kalvan thought of King Alexander III of Scotland, who'd started three centuries of Anglo-Scots wars by riding his horse off a cliff in the dark…

  Being the Indispensable Man sounded like fun until you were actually handed the job. Then you realized the best thing to do with it was to get rid of it as fast as humanly possible.

  III

  The job of digging Dalla out of the Archives lasted another round of drinks. When they finally reached her, she told them to go on to the Constellation House; she would change at the Archives and meet them there.

  Constellation House was perched on top of a mountain a good half hour's air-taxi ride outside Dhergabar City. That gave Verkan plenty of time to bring his old Chief up to date on everything of mutual interest, starting with Kalvan's Time-Line, Styphon's House Subsector, Fourth Level Aryan-Transpacific.

  "Everything was going about as well as anyone could hope until winter came. Kalvan had no more internal enemies, Nostor was a shambles and Sask and Beshta were beaten into submission. Even the Harphaxi Princes who didn't want to join Hos-Hostigos weren't about to make trouble."

  "No," Tortha said. "I imagine a lot of them are thinking along the lines of 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend,' and anybody who's as heavy-handed a creditor as Styphon's House is bound to have more than its share of enemies. What about the big council Styphon's House was going to hold in Harphax City?"

  "They moved it to Balph. We think it's because of the bad weather; it's been the worst winter in living memory, and the roads have been completely impassable most of the time. We haven't infiltrated the Inner Circle yet, and they're not talking. I suspect Styphon's House may be waiting to see what happens during the rest of the winter. Not that enough hasn't happened already, of course."

  Tortha recognized the signs of coming bad news in Verkan's voice. He wasn't surprised, either. "I can imagine," he said. "My first independent assignment was shepherding a party of tourists fleeing from a sacked city to the nearest operating conveyer-head. It was five days' journey downriver, through country that had been fought over two years running. If we hadn't been able to use boats and travel mostly by night I don't think we'd have made it. I stopped having any arguments from the tourists after the first village where we fou
nd human bones in the soup pots."

  "It hasn't been quite that bad in Hos-Hostigos, except in parts of Nostor. The Hostigi are calling it the Winter of the Wolves, though. Between the wolf packs and the snowdrifts, nobody's going anywhere unless they absolutely have to.

  "I haven't been back to Hos-Hostigos myself since I took over as chief. Dalla went once, to Ulthor. They're not as badly off as the Hostigi, since they missed the fighting and shipped in grain and meat from the Upper Middle Kingdoms before winter. Dalla still tried to ride to Hostigos until she lost two horses and a guard to wolves the first day. After that she decided to stick to interviewing refugees and building our cover."

  They sat in silence as the air-taxi passed out of the rainstorm and Dhergabar together. Ahead the mountains loomed against the clear sky, spangled with the lights of country homes and resorts. A full moon silvered the scattered clouds above and the occasional stream visible through the trees below. From the air it might have been the wilderness of Kalvan's Time-Line; in fact, it was a garden planted with trees instead of flowers, like most of Home Time Line. If the air-taxi let them down in the middle of this forest, they might wander for all of ten minutes before a robot or prole gardener found them. The nearest wolf was in Dhergabar Zoological Gardens.

  "We don't really have any work in Kalvan's Time-Line that's worth sending in people."

  Tortha recognized another note in Verkan's voice now, the frustration of a man who has to live in ignorance because he won't send men into danger where he can't go himself just to satisfy his curiosity. It was a frustration he knew his former Special Assistant would become accustomed to as the years passed. If there'd been any chance he couldn't come to terms with it, he'd never have become Chief of Paratime Police.