by K T Findlay
Marwig took a cautious swallow and handed it back.
Thomas then took another cup and filled it with some fresh water.
‘Now try that. It’s just water.’
When Marwig had sampled it, Thomas added the water to the remaining beer in the cup.
‘Okay, now drink it and tell me what the difference is between the first lot and this.’
Marwig took another careful sip.
‘It’s watery.’
‘Why?’ asked Thomas.
Marwig frowned.
‘Because you’ve just added water to it!’
‘So beer and water are two different liquids correct? And you can tell if someone has been watering the beer, can’t you? Now what would happen if you were able to remove some water from the beer, instead of adding it. What would it taste like then?’
‘More beery?’ suggested Marwig.
‘More beery. Exactly! Well that’s basically all we’re doing here. We’re leaving the water behind and taking out the beery bit and collecting it out there under the water butt.’
Marwig shook his head, trying to get his head around things.
‘So why can’t you drink it if it’s still beer?’
‘Ah.’ said Thomas. ‘You will be able to, once I’ve made some refinements, but right now we’re getting a mix that’s great for cleaning wounds, or drains come to that, but lethal to people if they drink it. Promise me you won’t try it until I tell you it’s okay? I don’t want you hurting yourself.’
‘I won’t make a promise I can’t keep.’ said Marwig laughing.
Thomas pursed his lips.
‘Hm. Okay, well a single sip won’t hurt you, so come on. You can have one.’
They went outside where Thomas scooped a tiny quantity of the collected liquor into a wooden spoon and handed it to Marwig, who sniffed it gingerly.
‘Woah!’ he gasped, his eyes watering. ‘That’s strong stuff!’
Then he put it in his mouth, and swilled it around. Horror was the first emotion to appear on his face, followed quickly by revulsion as he spat the liquid out onto the grass.
‘Ye cats and little kittens!’ he gasped. ‘That’s horrendous! First of all it sets your mouth on fire, and then the taste hits you! Nobody in their right mind would drink that!’
‘Good!’ said Thomas. ‘That’s just the way I want it then!’
‘So why did you make the stuff?’ asked Marwig, desperately flushing his mouth with water.
Thomas thought carefully.
‘Well, you know when puke and poop diseases appear? Have you ever noticed that people who drink beer tend not to get sick as much as those who drink water? No? Well, I did. And I thought that maybe there was something in the beer that stopped disease, and that if I could get hold of it somehow, it might be able to stop other diseases. Simple really.’
‘And it works?’
Thomas grinned. ‘Lowest death rate from injuries in living memory. And it’s a great preservative too. We just need to hack those two heads off, drop them into a barrel of this stuff and they’ll not only still look like themselves in a year’s time, they won’t smell bad either. How great is that?’
17 Making good
Marwig stayed a few days more, watching Thomas mobilise the villagers to dig a curving ditch across the south end of the village, mounding up the soil on the village side to make an embankment, ready for a wooden palisade.
‘We’ll dig open the two ends once we’re finished,’ said Thomas, ‘and allow the river to flow through it to create a moat. No more surprises after that!’
‘What about in times of flood? It might sweep away the bridge, and then the village could be cut off.’ suggested Marwig.
‘Initially we’ll have a droppable sluice gate at both ends so we can stop a flood from entering.’ said Thomas. ‘Later on, when I have lots of money, I’ll replace the regular bridge with a drawbridge.’
Marwig squinted at him.
‘A what?’
Thomas recollected where, or rather when he was, and reminded himself to be a bit more careful.
‘I’ve designed, in my head for now, a bridge that can be withdrawn into the village. A draw bridge. That means it will be out of the way of any flood, and won’t be available for any attacker to cross over.’
Marwig gave him a long hard look.
‘Your father made his bet to try and force you to become a warrior. I think you have already become far more than that. I also think there may be few limits as to what you could achieve as a son of the house of Offa.’
Thomas smiled at the delicacy of the diplomat’s words, but cut straight to the chase in his own response.
‘Not quite. My father has already decided on his successor, my older brother. He’s a good man. I am happy to serve whichever is King.’
Marwig gave him just the hint of a smile, and almost imperceptibly raised one eyebrow.
‘You may choose not to put yourself forward, but if you carry on as you are, it is inevitable that others will suggest it, and then the tensions and politics will commence between the three of you, and the Queen. There is no way to avoid this. It will happen, whether you wish it to or not.’
Thomas watched a worker carrying a bucket of earth up to the top of what would become the eastern rampart.
‘Then the royal family will need all the wise council it can get. I like my own advisors to tell me the truth, not what they think I want to hear. Just as you are doing now.’
‘I am the Queen’s man.’ said Marwig softly.
‘And I wouldn’t dream of asking you to be anything else.’ replied Thomas. ‘Just keep telling me the truth, whether I like it or not. The more powerful a man grows, the more arrogant he becomes, shedding his wisdom as quickly as a tree sheds its leaves. I’m not asking you to take my side, only to share your honest opinions.’
Marwig pursed his lips.
‘I think I can undertake to do that.’ and then changed the subject.
‘You said “when you have lots of money” you would build a drawbridge. How do you propose to get rich? At present you are relying on your father’s wealth, and that won’t last beyond the battle, even if we assume you’re going to win.’
Thomas pointed behind him to some bags of seeds that had been delivered the day before.
‘My turnip seeds have arrived from the Kingdom of the Franks. I now have everything I need from a plant and animal point of view to treble production on the farm in the next twelve months. Most of that extra production will be food, but we’ll be able to run a lot more sheep, keep more of them alive throughout the winter, and so have more wool to sell. I have ideas about making that into cloth, rather than selling it as raw wool, so we’ll get a much higher price.’
‘Do you think you have enough people to do that, with the right skills?’ asked Marwig.
‘I will have.’ said Thomas confidently. ‘I will have. However, that’s as nothing compared to what I’m going to create over the winter. I’ve designed a few things that have never been seen before. Father will receive two of each, one to keep as compensation for how much I’ve cost him, and one to sell or gift to someone else. I’ll keep a number for myself, and sell some of them.’
‘How much do you think these things will sell for?’ asked Marwig.
‘The big ones should fetch over two hundred pounds in silver, two hundred hides, or twenty four thousand acres. Each.’
Marwig gasped in astonishment.
‘That’s a fortune! What on earth are you making?’
Thomas tapped the side of his nose.
‘All in good time my friend, all in good time. All I’ll say is that you’ll be astonished. No court in the world has such a thing, but they’ll all want one once they hear of it. The King can buy them from me and gift them himself, or I’ll sell them directly. Either way, they’ll make me one of the richest men in the Kingdom.’
✽✽✽
Grimketil on the other hand, was feeling nothing like so cheerful.
Even with a full moon, he hadn’t been able to see well enough to identify the man who’d killed Ward and Radley, but whoever it was, they were good.
‘It must have been Kelsey my Lord.’ said Sigwulf, Ward’s replacement as Grimketil’s number two. ‘Hengist isn’t skilled enough to have handled them both.’
Grimketil nodded slowly as he considered the idea, but there was another possibility. ‘Or Marwig, the Queen’s advisor. I know he was there with some of his men. He could have matched Ward, and those extra men might explain why the entire raiding party was wiped out. Ward’s little adventure has turned out to be very costly indeed!’ he said.
‘Surely not that costly?’ suggested Sigwulf soothingly. ‘It was bad to lose Ward and Radley, but it was just two men. The others were just worthless outlaws.’
Grimketil glared at him. He was only too well aware that Sigwulf wasn’t the sharpest arrow in the quiver compared to Ward, but found it depressing to be constantly reminded of it.
‘Plus two extremely fine horses, two first class swords, and the rough ones we gave the outlaws in payment! That’s the equivalent of four hides of land on their own. No, this was a very expensive indulgence! And we’ll be two top men down in the battle next year. We must start training the new lads immediately. We’ll need them!’
Too stupid to be abashed at the implied telling off, Sigwulf simply focussed on the here and now. ‘What would you like them to start training with?’ he asked. ‘Bows?’
Grimketil shook his head decisively. ‘ No. Not bows. I know Wulfstan has at least one top flight archer, so I’m going to have a word with the King to have bows banned from our little encounter. After all, they’re just not manly enough to meet the King’s expectations, or at least that’s what I’m going to suggest to him! No, we’ll use the shield wall like real men, so get them started on spear and shield.’
✽✽✽
After seeing Marwig off the following morning, Thomas walked into the stables to collect Obsidian for a ride. Fulton was standing in the doorway, watching the play of the sunlight on a small item in his hand.
‘What’s that Fulton?’ he asked companionably.
Fulton started. ‘Sorry Your Highness. I was just admiring a little trinket I found in the road on the journey home from London.’ He held out his hand to reveal a beautiful glass bead, its colours warm as it sparkled in the sun.
‘It’s beautiful isn’t it?’ said Thomas.
Fulton nodded. ‘It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever had. I wish I knew how to make another.’
Thomas looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Do you really mean that? If I taught you how, do you think you would be interested in doing it for your living?’
Fulton’s eyes widened. ‘What? Me become a glassmaker? Of course I would!’
‘Well then,’ said Thomas, ‘let’s give it a go. There’s no guarantee you’ll be any good of course. It’s a tricky business, and you’ll be learning your whole life long, but we can at least try. You can always come back to the horses if it doesn’t work out, so you’ve nothing to lose.’
‘Thank you Your Highness! Thank you very much indeed!’ gushed Fulton, quite overcome.
Thomas patted him on the shoulder, and collected Obsidian. ‘We’ll start the planning when I come back from my ride.’
Thomas had been wanting a glass maker for some time, for reasons so secret he was reluctant to bring in a stranger to do it. With the now loyal Fulton, he would have no such fears, It was just a question of whether or not he was capable of acquiring enough skill without an experienced glassblower to help him.
Over the next two weeks, Thomas oversaw the construction of the glass making hut. It backed directly onto the smithy, so he could run another shaft off the smithy’s waterwheel to drive the bellows for the glass furnace, which had temperature demands as tough as those of steel.
While it was being built, he addressed the small matter of the required ingredients. Fulton could do his learning using the sand to hand, but the glass would be coloured by its impurities. Clear glass required white sand, which he ordered via a merchant in Tamworth, to be delivered by boat up the river. It should arrive before winter set in, and if it didn’t before the sailing season ended, they could always resort to crushed quartz.
The other things he knew he’d need, were potash to lower the sand’s melting point so the furnace could liquefy it, and quicklime to stop the resulting glass from dissolving in water. Fortunately, both were easy to make.
The village already had a lime kiln, safely upstream away from the village, where limestone was loaded in alternating layers with wood or charcoal, and allowed to cook. The end product was quicklime, which just needed to be raked out the bottom of the kiln.
Potash was almost as easy. The wood ash from the hall fireplace was collected into buckets and soaked for a while in water. After skimming the muck off the top, the clear solution was then carefully decanted into a pot and simmered gently over another fire until it had boiled dry, leaving behind the sugar like white crystals, Thomas’s potash.
As the autumn equinox approached, Thomas began work in earnest on his real money spinner. He was going to make a clock, a real clock, not just a timer. This one would not only run and run, it needed to be highly accurate too. If he wanted it accurate to the second, then first of all he had to be able to measure what a second was, and doing that from first principles was a lot harder than it sounded.
The key was knowing that a pendulum 0.994 metres long would take exactly one second to complete one swing, and that was close enough for Thomas. If he had something he could compare the swings of various pendulums against, he could find the right one.
So he set Smith, Buck and Ashlin to work, creating a number of copper basins in various sizes. He arranged three of these one above the other, filling the top two with rain water.
The middle of the three had a small tap in it which allowed water to drip into the bottom one, but the rate the water poured out would drop with the water level in the middle basin. The trick to getting a constant flow was to keep the middle one full, and that was done via a tap in the top basin which poured out just a little more water than the bottom one. The excess water in the middle basin flowed out a spout where it could be collected and returned to the top one if needed.
When the village sundial showed noon on the autumn equinox, Thomas opened both taps and let the water flow, until the sundial showed noon again the following day. That gave him twenty four hours worth of water in the bottom basin.
Using a balance beam and a set of identically weighted copper basins, he split the water from twenty four, down to twelve, to six, to three, and finally to one hour. A finer balance then split that into thirty, fifteen and finally five minute portions.
Ashlin then customised a small basin to hold exactly that amount of water, which Thomas swapped with the twenty four hour bucket at the bottom of the stack. Now when the taps were opened, he could measure exactly five minutes of water. It was then a simple matter of counting the number of swings for each test pendulum in that five minute period, until he found the one that did three hundred.
Thomas was ecstatic. For sure he could now measure a second easily, without all the palaver he’d just gone through, but his achievement was so much more than that. He also had a metre rule for distance measures, which he could use to make a container 10 cm by 10 cm by 10 cm, which when filled with water would give him a kilogram. From there he could derive every other unit of measure he’d need, making future technologies much easier to build.
To make sure he didn’t lose all his hard work, he had ten more pendulums made of wrought iron, tested them all, and hid nine of them in various parts of the village as backups.
Now he could get on with building that clock.
✽✽✽
It was about this time that Cuthbert was introducing himself to Grimketil at his manor. He carried a letter from the Archbishop recommending him to the thegn as a replacement priest for the one who’d died,
but as nobody else in the manor could read or write, he had to read it out himself.
Grimketil accepted Cuthbert’s version of its contents, with the internal satisfaction of knowing he could cut the man’s head off if it was discovered later that he wasn’t telling the truth.
Cuthbert got instantly to work, darkening the peasants’ days as quickly as the changing seasons began to darken their nights.
✽✽✽
Marwig by contrast, was bringing news to warm the Queen’s heart.
‘It’s frankly astonishing Your Majesty! He’s reorganised the farming process, and claims it will make the land three times more productive than it already is.’ he said.
‘And do you believe him?’ she asked.
‘I have no reason not to. He has already achieved a lower death rate than anywhere else in the Kingdom, just as he said he would. His people are loyal, not because they have no choice, but because they both love and trust him. Possibly most important of all to Your Majesty, is that the girls are already warriors and will only get stronger from now on.’
The Queen held up her hand to pause him.
‘How can you tell if their practice fights will translate into winning a real one?’ she asked.
Marwig’s face turned grim.
‘Because I saw them in action, in a real fight, to the death. The village suffered a night raid while I was there, all three of my companions being killed in the subsequent fight.’
The Queen’s hand flew to her mouth in alarm.
‘And my son?’ she whispered.
‘He acquitted himself extremely well, both as a fighter in his own right, and as a commander. He killed a man that I myself was struggling to deal with, then split his forces to both help me, and defend the stables. All the attackers were killed, except two mounted men who kidnapped a pair of village children and galloped off into the night.’
The Queen’s face flashed with anger, and then sympathy.
‘The poor things…’
Marwig smiled. ‘Oh they’re all right! One of Wulfstan’s girls, and I stress the word one, leapt onto her horse and gave chase. She hunted them down, killed them both, and returned with the children.’
