Conrad Starguard-The Radiant Warrior

by Leo Frankowski

  Yet there is a grain of truth in many of the stereotypes. The British are more formal than most people. The French per capita consumption of wine is frightening, enough so that any person from another country who drank what they average would be considered an alcoholic. And historically, the Germans have started an awful lot of wars, losing most of them.

  While I am not going to admit that Poles do everything backward, I will admit that we are very good at looking at things from a different angle than most other peoples. The typical Pole has no difficulty dealing with a concept like the square root of a negative one, for example, a thing that can make a tightly logical Englishman catatonic.

  That particular concept is regularly used in electrical design, and in America, where there has been a tendency for different nationalities to gravitate into specific trades, perhaps half the electrical engineers claim Polish descent. In the same manner, many of the architects and construction workers are Italian, and the Arabs have started to dominate the mercantile trades.

  It's not that any of these nationalities forces the others out of their bailiwick. It's that an individual tends to work at what he can do best. What I am trying to lead up to is why I built a mile-high smokestack, sideways.

  I suppose that I could claim that structural limitations in the materials available and the absence of certain types of machinery necessitated building the stack against 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 warmed up and dried out as those on the bottom were being fired.

  Then you started another fire farther up in the furnace. Air coming up the furnace was heated by the hot bricks near the bottom, so it took less fuel to bake the bricks farther up. As time went on, you kept starting 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 time you took out all the baked bricks and put in green ones. The system had a lot in common with the modern reverse-flow system.

  We soon added a second furnace along 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 fumes to the dragon furnaces and so get them out of the valley. He even had a well-thought-out set of drawings showing how this could be done. With only minor changes, we tried it and it worked. The stench was reduced and the valley became a good deal more livable.

  Furthermore, the fumes contained a fair amount of unburnt gases which were ignited in the hot dragon furnace, and fuel consumption in the dragon furnaces went down. As time went on, we made the dragon furnaces longer and longer until they reached the top of the highest mountain there. Then we built a smokestack at the top, and everything noxious went up it.

  I made the man the guest of honor at the next Saturday night dance, publicly gave him three hundred pence as a bonus, and promoted him as soon as possible after that.

  This got me the damndest collection of weird suggestions you could ever imagine. I'd wanted to encourage thinking on the part of the workers, but I hadn't expected to be inundated by dumb ideas. I finally had to set up a review system, where suggestions 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 from further engineering training. As the years went on, I had to do less and less of the design work myself. This was good, because management work was taking up more and more of my time.

  Eventually we got notice that the duke would be arriving the next morning, so I had the band ready. They had collected or had made seven brass instruments, mostly trumpets, and I had taught them a few fanfares. That is to say, I whistled the tunes and they figured out how to make them come out of a horn. Their wives had improvised some gaudy band uniforms, and they made a fairly impressive display, along with their drummers, playing 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 promised them two complete suits of plate armor, I put the girls to making each of them a suit of parchment armor, as they had done for me.

  A few months before, at my Trial by Combat, my helmet had been bashed around and jammed at a right angle from where it should have been, so I could only look over my right shoulder. It darned nearly was the death of me. Naturally, I had redesigned 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" helmet with the bottom edge fitting into the ring 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 smiths do a lot of preparatory work, making 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 them off for Sunday, for fear of boring our highborn guests.

  As it turned out, I needn't have worried, for the duke stayed two days longer than he had to. He was vastly impressed with the plumbing 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 seem to care. He wanted it, so he got it. He even paid the bill without complaining.

  I showed him my plans for what I'd started calling Copper City, and he seemed pleased. "Just so it works, boy!"

  We were lucky in that Ilya had just completed the first steam sawmill, or I don't think I could have gotten him to work on armor, duke and prince or no duke and prince. The walking-beam sawmill was still in use, however, so I showed that to my guests first. They watched sixty women walking back and forth and the huge logs being cut into boards for half an hour. They were suitably impressed. Then we demonstrated the new steam mill, which cut more than twice as fast as as the walking-beam mill, and required only a single operator. They were astounded.

  "Damn, boy! That thing has the power of two hundred women!" The name of the unit stuck. At one time I had been worried that we would use "pig power" the way the Americans use "horse power," much of our early machinery being powered by pigs in huge hamster cages. But after the duke's statement, all our steam engines 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 system of weights and measures.

  I'd had some of the girls trained to act as food servers, in case the duke demanded it. Fortunately he thought that eating cafeteria-style was an interesting innovation. This was good because after that, if any noble visiting us commented on our strange ways of eating, we had only to say that the duke liked it and that ended the matter. I saw no point in paying for servants.

  Actually, the duke took most of his meals at the inn.

  I showed them a blast furnace pour at night, when the splashing white hot iron is most impressive.

  The duke ordered twenty clocks, and two of our huge kitchen stoves, but he spent most of his time at the Pink Dragon Inn. After the first night, he demanded, and of course got, the exclusive waitressing of Lady Francine. The innkeeper was no f
ool, and if anybody objected to losing the most beautiful waitress in Poland, he had sense enough to keep his mouth shut.

  The best time of day to take a shower was just after breakfast, when most of the men were at work and the water was hot from the breakfast cooking. The place was nearly empty except for some of the women on the afternoon shift, and they tended to be younger than those working mornings. I was debating whether to invite a certain blonde to join my household when Prince Henryk walked in.

  "Good morning, 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 something strange 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 family. My grandfather had the same thing. You needn't look so awkward. I've had it all my life."

  "Yes, my lord. Forgive me for staring." I took some soft, locally made lye soap and smeared it on a luffa.

  "Nothing to forgive. These hot showers of yours are marvelous things, but what do they have to do with defeating the Tartars you said were going to invade us?"

  "Directly, my lord, almost nothing. Indirectly, quite a bit. These showers and the sewage system and better food and clothing are all part of a program to keep my workers healthy. I don't want to spend years training a man only to have him die of something that could be easily prevented. Then, too, it is going to take a lot of money to train and equip an army big enough to beat the Mongols. By selling plumbing parts and other consumer goods, I can generate that money. I could never sell it without showing people what it does, and where better to demonstrate it than here?"

  "Interesting. That armor you're making for my father and me looks to be effective, but it's taking all your smiths weeks just to make the two sets."

  "It's worse than that, my lord. They spent a lot of time doing preparatory work. But in a few years, I'll have sheetmetal rolling mills, stamping presses, and dies by the dozens. We'll be able to turn out armor fast and cheap."

  "And the copper mines you'll be opening for my father?"

  "Copper is needed for more things than windmills and plumbing, my lord. These things earn money for now, but the same lathe that bores out the center of a bushing can bore out a cannon."

  "And what might a canon be, aside from the law of the church?"

  "It's a device of war, my lord. One smaller than a man can kill a dozen men at a time. I hope to start working on 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 must learn that the Mongols 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 enemy prisoners, especially women, children, and the aged, and put them in the front lines to shield their own men. Facing that, you must decide between letting them advance without hindrance, or murdering your own subjects. Against an enemy like this, there can be no question of fighting 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, my lord. They are vile. They will eat anything 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 a major protest meeting from the women at Three Walls. They had all seen the tryouts on the steam sawmill, and they were against it. Last summer, they had objected vigorously to having to saw wood. Now they were even more against losing their jobs. And their husbands were with them.

  I listened to them go on and on about how they couldn't possibly make it without the half pay they'd been earning for their half day's work, just to let them get it out of their systems. Then I stood up and cut off the last woman, who had been repeating herself. "All right, ladies. I've listened to what you've had to say. Now you'll listen to me.

  "You've said that you can't possibly survive without the half pay you've been making sawing wood. I say that's dog's blood! You and your husbands can survive quite well without any pay at all!

  "You were all starving in Cieszyn before I brought you here, and if you left, or if I threw you out, you would go right back to starving there! I could stop paying you all and you would keep on working here. You'd do it because it's the best thing that's ever happened to you!

  "Who pays for all the food you eat, that some of you are getting too fat on? I do! Who got the cloth you're wearing? I did! Who puts the roof over your head? I do! Who built the church you go to? I did! I even pay the priest!

  "And what do I get for this? Do I get your loyalty? No! All I get is complaints! What would Count Lambert do if his people met like this and complained to him? He'd have half of you flogged, and you know it! What would the duke do? You'd all be hung!

  "But you think that because I've been good to you, you can get away with being bad to me. Well, you can't!

  "You complain that you will be losing your jobs because of the new steam sawmill. Well, you'll lose your jobs when I tell you to lose them, and not before.

  "Is there anyone here who actually likes to walk back and forth on that walking mill? Because if you do, you might as well leave now; you're too dumb to make it around here!

  "We are building three steam mills. The first will go to Count Lambert's Eagle Nest. The second will go to the duke's new Copper City. And the third will be set up right here at Three Walls. And when it's working, we'll tear down the walking mill and saw it up for lumber.

  "I took an oath to take care of you, and I have, even though you have as much as accused me of being an oathbreaker. And seeing your disloyalty, I am half tempted to throw out the lot of you!

  "But I won't. I take our oaths seriously, even if you don't. Things are going to go on just as they have been. Women with children will work half a day for half a day's pay. Those without children will go on working a full day for full pay.

  "You will work when and where I or my managers tell you to work. You will continue working until I tell you that you have lost your jobs. If you want to change jobs, come to us as individuals and maybe we can work something out. Or maybe not!

  "But the next time you organize a protest meeting against me, I'll throw the leaders out and have the rest of you working without pay for a month!"

  I stomped out, pretending to be madder than I really was. Had the matter been about food or housing, I would have been easier on them. But I couldn't tolerate protests over every new machine I introduced. Those were going to start coming in fast and furious.

  But Count Lambert is right. You can't use reason on a mob. You have to tell them what to do and expect to have it done.

  Chapter Eight

  I was taking a group of seventy-nine men, fifty-six mules, and eight women to Legnica to build Copper City.

  Another crew of about the sam
e size was already at Eagle Nest where, their spring planting done, Count Lambert's peasants were starting to arrive. The Krakowski Brass Works and Three Walls were running with skeleton crews leading a bunch of rookies.

  Annastashia was due for her child, so I'd assigned Sir Vladimir to take care of Three Walls. He'd have his hands full, since Ilya was the only real foreman left there.

  We were taking it in easy stages, averaging about two dozen miles a day, or about a tenth of what Anna could run in the same time. Despite my precautions, we'd had to take the steam saw in two parts, since the roads were worse than I had imagined. Between them, the pieces occupied half our mules.

  On noon of the third day, we were near the boundaries of Count Lambert's county when one of his knights, Sir Lestko, his horse lathered with sweat, overtook us.

  "Sir Conrad, thank God in Heaven I've found somebody! You must come quickly and bring all your men! Something terrible is happening in Toszek!"

  "What do you mean? What's happening?" I said.

  "I'm not sure! But there are soldiers there and they are killing people! They are some kind of foreigners, and they are burning people alive at the stake!"

  Toszek was about a mile up the road. The village where the trouble was happening was about a quarter-mile from a wooden castle sitting prominently on a hill. I detailed two men and all the women to watch the mules and baggage, and led the rest, mostly armed with axes, picks, and hammers, to the town. I'd tried to leave Piotr with the baggage, since he had too good a brain to lose, and he was too small to be of much use in a fight, anyway. But he wouldn't stand for it. He was still trying to prove something to himself, or maybe to Krystyana, who was with us. There was no time to argue with him.

  We surrounded the place, a process that, for lack of training, took a quarter hour. A modern man has at least seen enough war movies to have a vague idea as to what to do; these men had no such background, and I almost had to tell them individually what I expected of them.