The Crosstime Engineer

by Leo Frankowski

  My actions caused more problems than I had intended. At Okoitz, the “share the spoon, share the cup” thing was reserved for holidays. In the castle at Cieszyn, apparently, it was for every meal. Adding one more person meant that everyone downstream of us suddenly had to change partners and that the woman at the end was all alone.

  Oh, well. To hell with them! If they could be rude, so could 1. It was all very well to give people fancy titles, but that’s no excuse for snubbing a perfectly decent fourteen-year-old girl, especially one who happened to be my date.

  “Sir Conrad,” my hostess eventually said, trying to smooth things over, “please tell us of your adventures.”

  “Adventures? Well, I’d be happy to tell you about what I've been working on lately.” I launched into a discourse on the finer points of animal breeding. I must have rattled on for ten minutes and was stressing the importance of counting eggs when I felt my hostess's hand on my arm.

  “That’s most educational, Sir Conrad. Was it really you who defeated the renegade Black Eagle, Sir Rheinburg?”

  “I killed the lunatic if that’s what you mean.”

  “Was he really insane?”

  “I suppose so. People who go around attacking armed men in public generally aren’t too sensible.”

  “And you felled him with a single blow, cutting his head in two, though he wore a helmet?”

  “Look, there wasn’t much time. I gather you like gory stories. I'll tell you how Mikhail Malinski lost his foot.” And I told them, every bloody bit of it. Slewing and slaying on a battlefield were great fun to them, but tying off an artery was entirely too graphic. More than one person excused herself before I was done.

  My hostess was a little green below the ears. “And he died in a bed in Count Lambert’s castle?”

  “It was easier to take care of him there. Krystyana and her friends are great nurses. Oh, did I tell you about our looms and spinning wheels? Krystyana and seven of her friends can take wool and turn it into twenty of your yards of cloth in a single day.”

  “Seven of her friends. Oh, dear.”

  The only upshot of this was that one of the guest rooms at Okoitz became “the bed where the peasant died,” with something stupid and supernatural attached to it. In a way, it was -beneficial because when higher-ranking guests arrived, none of them were eager to take that room. I wasn’t bumped to the blockhouses as otherwise would have happened. Anyway, if Mikhail Malinski ever had a ghost, it would have been a good ghost.

  Much later, our hostess suggested that Krystyana would be much more comfortable in the servants’ quarters. The bitch still hadn't learned, and I was out of teaching techniques.

  “Madame, that is hardly necessary. I have delivered my liege lord’s letters, and we have enjoyed an excellent Lenten supper. Regretfully, duty calls and we must be Off.”

  “But I had hoped-”

  “As I said, it’s regrettable, but I have my duty.” I led Krystyana off to the stables.

  “Page, I want our horses saddled and our personal effects gathered. Now.”

  The page made quick finger motions, and four men scurried off. In minutes we were riding to the postern gate, led by the page with a torch.

  “But Sir Conrad, it’s so dark out now,” he said.

  “Then I shall need the loan of your torch.” I took it.

  “There are thieves out there! It’s dangerous.”

  “You’re right, kid. Go tell the thieves to be careful.”

  Krystyana had been holding her feelings in all afternoon and evening. Once outside the gate, she bawled like the schoolgirl she should have been. There wasn’t much I could do but squeeze her hand and mumble about things getting better.

  I asked at a few taverns and was eventually directed to a decent inn, the Battle Axe. The room was big and clean, and ten pence a day for food, lodging, and care of the horses didn’t seem all that bad. The innkeeper was overjoyed. I had forgotten to haggle.

  “You understand that I will expect excellent service, food, and drink. See that our horses are well taken care of and send a large pot of good wine to our room.”

  “Yes, my lord. Of course, my lord.” I later discovered that we were his only guests. Business was not booming in Cieszyn, and many who were willing could not find work. That people in Okoitz should be working sixteen hours a day and people in Cieszyn should be idleand ill fed-offended my socialist morality. This place needed organization.

  As soon as we were alone in our room, Krystyana threw her arms around my neck and started crying again. “Sir Conrad, I love you!”

  “I hope not, pretty girl. I’m not the marrying kind.”

  “No, I mean, you don’t have to but, I mean, leaving all those countesses and baronesses and ladies because of me.”

  “Hold it. I didn’t leave because of you. I left because I was offended by their rudeness. Also, I had no intention of bedding any one of those overaged, overweight, and profoundly married women. And certainly not when there is somebody as sexy as you around. Now have some wine and settle down.”

  Sometime later, she said, “I love you anyway, Sir Conrad.”

  The next morning I sent Krystyana out shopping with one of the innkeeper’s servants to keep her safe and see that she didn't get gypped. I tipped the woman a penny a day, and she was overjoyed. I gave Krystyana a hundred pence and told her to buy presents for her family and friends. Also a wedding gift from me to Mrs. Malinski and something for the carpenter and the count.

  “But what could Count Lambert possibly want?”

  “Dye. Dye for cloth. And if you can find a good dyer out of work, the count would like that, too.”

  I was pleased to discover that the bell casters I had come to Cieszyn to see lived directly across from the inn.

  The bell foundry was owned and operated by the three Krakowski brothers-Thom, Mikhail, and Wladyslaw. It had been their father’s business and had been a thriving concern until a year before, when the bishop's nephew, a German, had opened up a bell foundry in Cracow. New orders to the Krakowski brothers had stopped, and their melting furnace had been cold for six months. But the information came out slowly, and I got some of it from the innkeeper. The brothers were trying to keep up appearances.

  The Krakowski brothers and I spent the morning talking. I talked about the huge bushings I would need-the bore was to be a full yard, and the outside flange diameter of the blade-end bushing was to be two yards. They were each to be a yard long. Modem roller bearings would have been a tenth that size, but I had no illusions about the quality the Krakowskis could give me. In working with inferior materials, you must make things big.

  They talked to me about bell casting. They used the lost wax method. This is not an ancient “lost” technology, even though I once met a twentieth-century museum tour guide who seemed to think so; it’s still being used when intricate, one-of-a-kind castings are needed. To make a bell, the brothers Krakowski first dug a pit. In the pit, they fashioned by hand, from clay, a male form shaped like the inside of the bell. They then took beeswax and made a wax bell over the form, carving in wax all the exterior decorations and, being somewhat literate, the lettering. Clay was carefully molded over the wax, and the whole was left to dry for a week. Then they built a fire in the pit, small at first but growing.

  In a few days the wax melted, ran out of prepared holes, and burned. A few days later, the mold was hot enough for the pour. Having carefully measured the amount of wax used, the casters knew exactly how much brass to melt. After the pour, they broke off the clay and spent a few months “tuning” the bell by chipping brass out of the inside to get it to sound right.

  “That’s the trick, Sir Conrad,” the youngest brother said. “The mold has got to be as hot as the brass or she'll crack, or the bell will crack.”

  The other brothers looked at him as if he were divulging guild secrets, and maybe he was.

  “I’m familiar with the process,” I lied. It was now past noon, and they had not offered me dinner.
I thought about that-they looked more underfed than Lent alone would account for. “This is interesting,” I said. “But I grow hungry. I would like to invite you and your families to dinner. I'm staying at the Battle Axe. Could you send someone to tell the innkeeper how many are coming? Have him let us know when it's ready.”

  They eagerly accepted my offer, and soon we were at a sitdown dinner for fourteen. There were no babies; all three had died in the winter.

  As it was Lent, the meal was meatless: bread and oatmeal, pease porridge, and small beer. Even the children drank beer. Water was unhealthy, and cows would not start producing milk for another month. My guests ate a great deal under the watchful gaze of the innkeeper, who was hovering at the back of the room to make sure everything went right. We were his biggest sale in months.

  These men had skills that I needed, and they certainly needed me. They needed socialism, and I was going to socialize themwithin the framework of their own society, of course. I’m not the banner-waving, gun-wielding revolutionary sort.

  “Excuse me, sir knight,” the oldest Krakowski brother finally said. “But are you the Sir Conrad Stargard? The man who killed Sir Rheinburg?”

  That business again? “Yes.”

  “Then we owe you gratitude. That German murdered our cousin Yashu. Killed him on the road when he was weaponless and penniless.”

  “I’m sorry about your cousin. The German was a madman, but he's dead now.”

  “Still, we owe you.”

  “You don’t owe me anything. All I did was to stop myself from joining your cousin.”

  The innkeeper intruded. “Excuse me, Sir Conrad, you realize that serving fourteen is more than we agreed on.”

  “Of course. Put the difference on my bill.”

  “Yes, sir. That would be twelve pence.”

  Small talk at the table stopped. A penny for each meatless meal!

  “Innkeeper, that seems excessive. I do not like to haggle, but if I decide that you are cheating me, you will lose my business.” .I said this quietly and calmly but without smiling.

  “Yes, Sir Conrad.” Beads of sweat suddenly dotted the man’s forehead. When I eventually settled the bill, four pence accounted for that meal.

  Later that day, I got their price for my bushings. It came to thirty-one hundred pence. Each.

  “That seems excessive,” I said. “Let’s go over your expenses, and mind you, I intend to check these prices myself in the market.”

  The copper would cost eight hundred pence, and calamine, a compound of zinc, was three hundred and fifty pence. We had agreed, from samples that they had on hand, on a hard brass of about thirty percent zinc. The clay they dug up themselves, and they chopped their own wood by arrangement with a landowner. With transportation costs, those two items came to a hundred and fifty pence. The eye opener was the wax. It was a rare commodity, like the honey that came with it. The wax would cost eleven hundred pence, almost as much as the metal. The remaining five hundred pence for their labor and equipment did not seem excessive. Still…

  Still, there was no reason why the molds themselves could not be cast off wooden forms. Both bushings could be made the same so that only one set of forms would be needed. Also, I would need four bushings for the upcoming “dry mill” that would grind grain.

  In addition, I had hoped that more mills would be wanted by other landowners. We might need a lot of bushings. A lot of parts that I had planned to make of wood could be made better-much better-in brass: some of the gearing and the pump cylinders and pulleys. I wanted some fire-heated tubs for a laundry and Parts for a threshing machine, and, well, all sorts of things.

  “Gentlemen.” They looked up in surprise at my use of the term. “Your prices seem fair for what you propose to do, but it happens that I know some less-expensive techniques. Not for bells, you understand, but for the kind of things I have in mind.” As it turned out, in two years they were selling bells again. You had to choose from three standard sizes and had no choice of inscriptions, but they were half the cost of the Cracow bells.

  “Now, then,” I continued. “It is obvious that you are suffering under a burden of debt. It is also obvious that you have no security at all and that your families are hungry. I propose to purchase your establishment and pay you all a decent salary. I also intend to pay for a number of improvements around here. What do you think?”

  “Well, that sounds fine, but there are guild rules…” said Thom, the eldest.

  “What? I thought you were the only bell casters in Cieszyn.”

  “Well, we are.”

  “Then who is the guild master?”

  “I am, actually.”

  “And these are your guild members?”

  “Uh… yes.”

  “Then to hell with your damned guild! You are three brothers, and I am talking about hiring you.”

  “Can’t the guild vote to disband?” the youngest, Wladyslaw, asked.

  “But there’s nothing in the rules-”

  “And to hell with your rules! 1, Sir Conrad Stargard, by the power granted to me by my sword, do hereby proclaim your guild null and void. Questions?”

  Thom checked with his brothers. “No, I guess not.”

  “So. I’m not sure of local property values, but for your house and furnace and lands, does two thousand pence sound fair?”

  I got enthusiastic nods from the younger two. The eldest said, “We also have certain rights and privileges to clay and wood, and two thousand pence would not quite cover our debts.”

  “Let’s make it twenty-five hundred, then,” I said. “I would not want my vassals to be suffering from debt.”

  “Vassals? You would take an oath?”

  “Of course, and I would expect you to, also. All of you and your wives, besides.”

  “Our wives?”

  “An oath of honesty and fair work. Your wives help you, don’t they?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I do not touch other men’s wives. Now, what would you say to six hundred pence per year each, with two hundred pence to each of your wives? When your children are old enough to help, we'll discuss it. Agreed?”

  The eldest looked about. “I suppose so.”

  “Good. I will pay half of your first year’s salary in advance, since it appears that you need some things around here. You need some clothes, but don't buy a lot. The price of common cloth is about to drop.”

  “How can you know?”

  “Let’s say that I can smell it. In addition, since I want you to apply yourselves diligently to this enterprise, once all expenses, improvements, materials, taxes, salaries, and so forth are paid, you will divide among yourselves one-twelfth of the surplus.”

  “Profit” is not a nice word for a socialist.

  Their mute agreement had turned to enthusiasm.

  “Good. Now go discuss the matter with your wives. Come to me while the sun is still high, for I want your oaths. I shall be at the inn.”

  I was only halfway through my first beer when the six of them showed up, smiling.

  “Innkeeper, I want your whole staff in the courtyard. There are oaths to be taken!”

  So we had a deal, and it was in this manner that 1-1 can’t say nationalized, since I'm not a nation, but, socialized the Bros. Krakowski Brass Works. In doing so, I was acting again, playing the role of the shrewd merchant and dirtying my good socialist soul in the process. The thing needed doing, and much of being a man is doing the things that must be done no matter how unnatural or painful they are. Surely this was a small evil compared with the naked corpses I had left in a snowy wood.

  I bought the beer, called for an honest scale, and weighed out the money I owed. When I had left Okoitz, Count Lambert had been distracted with the planting and hadn’t mentioned money, so I had brought along twenty thousand pence of my own. I wasn't worried; the count was honest. You see, you must either trust a person or not trust him. It is stupid to rely on oaths or marks on a piece of parchment because a thief will rob
you no matter what is written down, and an honest man stays honestwithin reason.

  I weighed out thirty-seven hundred pence in goldthe exchange rate of silver to gold being 54 to 1—which I gave to Thom. Then I weighed out another four thousand and told him that I wanted him to buy copper and calamine at the best possible prices. We needed a woodcarver, and I told him to find one. The other two brothers were ordered to go out and bring in vast amounts of firewood and clay and start making charcoal.

  There was some consternation, and then it was agreed that the innkeeper would safeguard the gold until morning, since he kept an armed guard at night.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The party was breaking up as Krystyana returned. She was excited about her day’s shopping in the big city. As supper was served, she prattled on and on about pins and churches and ribbons and merchants and the outlandish price of dinner. I was in a good mood and said little. I heard every detail of every bargain, and sometimes feminine babble makes a pleasant background noise to relax in. Eventually she wound down.

  “That’s wonderful, pretty girl. Did you buy anything for yourself ?”

  “Well, no. I mean, you said…”

  “Then here’s fifty pence to spend tomorrow on things that you want.” This was greeted by squeals. “Did you have any luck with dyes or a dyer?”

  “I looked at them, but dyes are so complicated, Sir Conrad. A pound of this one can do something, but an ounce of that one can do more and-”

  Pounds? Ounces? I’d forgotten the metric conversions. “I understand. Any word about a dyer?”

  “I heard of one, but they called him a ’walker' because he walks on the cloth being dyed. People said that they had heard of him, but nobody knew him.”

  “Well, then you know what to do tomorrow. Keep the serving woman with you from now on. I want you to look into the price of raw woolen cloth, the kind that you make on the loom. See if you can’t find a merchant willing to buy, say, a thousand yards at slightly less than the present wholesale price, for delivery next spring.” If I had to play the merchant, I thought that I might as well make some gain from it. My hands were already dirty.